Actually it is. The consumers of code are the ones who are hurt. Look at Tivo and how it corrupted open source. Free and Open code should remain free and open code. Period. The heart and soul of open source is protection of the CONSUMER freedom, not the creators who will always want to artificially cripple software and monetize every feature possible and sell those crippled features back to you.

You actually aren't giving a good comparison. XDA takes a long time because of the all the PURPOSEFUL breakages and blocks that are put in by the manufacturers and the carriers.

The manufacturers and carriers take a long time because they have some many artificial limiters and blocks and DRM that they all have to work together.

Google and XDA timeframes are understandable. Google is doing the REAL development work to make an Operating System. XDA is doing the best they can with what they have to work with with DRM and spyware riddled garbage.

The carriers and manufacturers spend their time screwing everything up on purpose.

It actually ISN'T that complicated on the carrier side where the real delays come from, they just make it that way. When all the DRM and bloatware and crapware and bandwidth throttlers and tethering blockers and Carrier IQ loggers that are all designed to BREAK your phone or compromise its security go in, its damn difficult to make it run at all.

Look at cyanogenmod and how little time it takes them to get new versions out once they have all the roadblocks in the device figured out.

--It wasn't that they moved to unity, it's that they released an alpha quality Unity with a release.

No, for most it pretty much IS simply that they went with Unity. If you are power user with big monitors (or multiples, or big multiples etc) where desktop space isn't at a premium, then why the hell would anyone want to hide buttons and options? Why make multi-tasking so hard? Why SEARCH for applications rather than hierarchical menus grouped logically by task?

My desktop isn't a damn phone thank you very much. I don't want it to be a phone and I don't want it function like a phone. And in the case of Windows 8 metro, it is just a blatent attempt to wrest control away from the OWNER of the device/computer. They envy the fact that apple users have given up every last semblance of control over look, feel and function of their electronic devices and that that control can be monetized. They can finally lock out apps they don't like and with UEFI they can finally lock you in to their OS so you can't weasel out of it after the fact.

No thank you. I will control my own devices, I'll be a power user with menus and widgets, multiple screens and multiple windows that AREN'T maximized.

D@mn. Even their choice of terminology pisses me off.

"OEMs having the flexibility to decide who manages security certificates and how to allow customers"

To OEM's and Microsoft, How about once I've paid for the computer you F-off unless the HARDWARE breaks. The OWNER makes the decisions. Period.

I think you are missing the point. Security is great. It should be one of the most important things these days. But the security that should trump all others is the trust between the OWNER and the device. Not between the company that makes the hardware or software and the device. Once someone has bought, they should have ultimate say over what it does and does not do, what it runs, and who it communicates with and what data is passed in any communication.

Nahhh.. Never happen. Smaller more portable devices are coming and filling in the gaps and taking market share, but there will always be power users who need as much power as can be fit in a form factor about the size of a PC and that power will keep increasing just as it always has.
Pundits just WANT the PC to go away because they realize they screwed up in that early product cycle by giving all the power to the users. Users have the ability to change anything or do anything they want and can un-cripple anything they do to that class of devices. They want to introduce something shiny and new that is locked down and sealed box like smart phones where they can cripple them and sell the features back to you piecemill.

Everyone is headed down the minimalist road because the of the netbook and tablet craze. Some people still choose high horsepower machines with dual (or more) screens. Look at Ubuntu's unity desktop. The whole damn OS has chosen that path. Buttons, menus, and options that aren't buried and are ready at hand are a GOOD thing when you have screen real estate to burn. Many people still do.

It annoys me how clueless people are to choice. No one can argue that Macs have a beautiful interface but it simply is not OK for a person or computer company to dictate that it can't be changed, what apps are OK or not OK, or how to use YOUR device. Get a clue people.

Both sides (as well as Windows and MacOS desktops) need to learn that it is not acceptable to lock me out of my own device.... under any circumstance.
It is not acceptable to encrypt any communication in a way that *** I *** as the owner of the device am refused from seeing what is sent. In other words, my device shall not be used to keep me out of the loop. Trust is between me and my device and me and any company I choose to deal with. Not between the company and my device.