This is bullshit. War is not always a zero sum game. hell, war is very rarely a zero-sum game. Nuclear war is war; a war in which everyone loses everything. That's not zero-sum, that's an impossibly negative sum. Or how about religious wars? Did the Christian s and Muslims fight over money? kind of. Land, sort of. But what religions really fight over is the hearts and minds of people. That's the resource they need to live. The Christians and Muslims fought against each other for years and they just kept getting stronger and bigger and stronger still. Clearly a net positive not a zero-sum game.

So what I'm basically accusing you of is being a pseudo-intellectual bullshit artist who obsesses over his false sense of semantics like a dowdy housewife in a kitchen. I don't really care about Macheads or Fandroids or whatever else people call them, but its people like you that make me want to punch the internet in the face.

TL;DR if you use the words 'by definition' in anything you write, you better be damn sure it's true or else I'll break in through your window swinging on a rope.

The problem with the open standard approach is that it is meaningless if major vendors simply refuse to follow them. This is the single biggest problem with HTML5; IE is mostly sitting it out. Yeah google can complain, but they can't actually do anything about it. But we can think of even more extreme examples. What if HTC, or hell, even Microsoft, decided to do a classic Embrace Extend and Exterminate strategy? They could piggyback the entire Android OS, app store and all, but add, say, Microsoft Office and Exchange bundled. And ZunePass and Live support. And, say, a proprietary security layer that is actually good. Maybe even some xbox live action. That's a lot of added value! Unless they totally nerfed the UI, you'd be crazy to pick generic Android over this. And what if they replaced all the google search features with Bing search? Now google doesn't even make any money. Microsoft would then quickly take over the entire Android market on acccount of having a strictly superior product. The point is, Microsoft could legally do all of this and wrap it around a proprietary license, and Google has no legal claim against them, precisely because the generic Android build is open source. In a funny way, if Google were to close the licensing agreement just a little, it might actually be MORE open in practice. But Google can't actually do that because they have it in their minds that open source = good all the time. Sure, sometimes we can all just lay out our grievances at the town hall and come to a nice cozy compromise. But a lot of the time the only real way to solve a problem is to show up with a shotgun and start shooting at the ceiling.

Yeah.... sorry about the whole no-paragraphy-spacing thing. My bad.

You're response is mostly civil and well reasoned, so I will refrain from ad hominem attacks. Your post contains many common misconceptions about open software. There is a big difference between USING open source and BEING open source. A proprietary program is perfectly free to use open source. OS X and the use of free BSD is a good example of this. FreeBSD is, in itself, an operating system, but due to its open nature can be chopped up and retrofitted for any use. IF Android is really open, the same thing should apply. A vendor should be perfectly warranted in taking the Kernel and application layer, add a few proprietary extensions and a custom IU, and release it as a cohesive product without and obligation to license it to others. Yet this is precisely the behavior the Google wishes to prevent. Your appeal to Stallman in this case is confusing Free software with Open software. The free software movement is mostly driven by philosophy They (for the most part) feel that users should not have to tolerate proprietary software and the restrictions it entails. Open is a bit different. They are driven by pragmatics, advocating the superiority of open in use. That is one reason why section 9 exists, in the hope of encouraging investment in open software from corporations that want to use it in proprietary product. And it has worked flawlessly. Take Apple for instance. They are as closed as a can of sardines, but at the same time they are one of the biggest open source contributors precisely because section 9 allows their products to benefit from it. Vendors using Android are free under the open license agreement to bundle it with as much closed and proprietary stuff as they want. Yet this is exactly what google has said they don't want. They want to have their cake and eat it too. You can't. Ether you allow the inevitable fracturing and closed source bundling of your product, or you bite the bullet and put up restrictions on licensing that aren't allowed under open use. You also made the mistake of assuming that I generally promote open software. The fact is that while open source is great it many situations, it often saddles the ecosystem with chicken-and-egg as well as collective action problems that simply would not exist in a closed environment. A perfect example of the first type of problem is the floppy disc. In the early and mid 80s the IBM PC landscape was dominated by one company: IBM. Sure, it was technically an open market, but in practice IBM held such a dominant position that they could influence everyone else. From 1981 to 1987 the floppy disc dramatically improved: it got smaller, more reliable, and increased in storage capacity by 4-5x. Not bad! This happened because IBM could implement a new disc format, and software writers and disc vendors could be sure that they would have a sufficiently huge installed base. This in turn forced the smaller vendors to adopt IBMs standard as well in order to read the new software discs. By the late 80's however, competition from Compaq and others meant that IBM could not dictate the market. It was now truly open. IBM tried to push 2.88 mb discs, but there wasn't significant enough adoption for software vendors to warrant using them, so they didn't. And we were stuck with 1.44 for 15 years until the combination of USB drives and the internet finally made them completely obsolete. The idea that open is always better is an illusion. My problem with google isn't that they are open or closed, by that they are pretending they are something that they clearly are not, as well as advocating things that are clearly inconsistent. Google themselves justifies their closed proprietary search algorithms to great effect. I agree with them! they should be proprietary! but then they go on to make a true Scotsman argument about how open is good, and just comes off as insane. There are times when closed is better, where closed wins. Search is one of them. and there are other times when closed really is better for consumers, and I think that in the case of smartphone operating systems closed is better. The funny thing, which I tried to convey in my post, is the GOOGLE AGREES WITH ME, but they can't say it or admit it because they are blinded by their own moral highground.

This manefesto is some hardcore bullshit. Not just for the reasons that everyone else has been saying (as true as they may be). The thing that got me is that Google flat out acknowlegdges that there is a problem with the Android platform splintering, and says they are trying to avoid the problem with android. Well guess what? the only way to actually do that is pressure vendors regarding android extensions, which violates section 9 of the open source definition. Really, the whole point of open source is endless variation and user control (which includes vendor control. Under the open definition vendors have every right to add proprietary and closed add ons), neither of which google apparently wants Android to have. The truth is this: Google doesn't actually want Android to be open. The whole compatibility issue would solve itself instantly if they closed it, even a little. This manifesto is as much about rewriting the definition of open as anything else. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that they have self-labeled themselves the messiah of open, they would have dropped this charade a long time ago and closed Android, since it benefits everyone involved, including handset vendors and (in 99% of cases) consumers. I really can't think of any reason beyond the PR stuff why Google would want Android open, and I challenge anyone on the internet to come up with a good one.

How has D&D changed my life? If it wasn't for D&D I WOULDN'T EVEN BE ALIVE! Proud son of two nerds who met at the table top. I can't understate what D&D means to my family and I. Some families play monopoly, or watch TV. We play D&D. I will never forget some of my dad's best characters, like the alcoholic Druid, or the Wizard who really just wanted to be a chef, or the Barbarian who was so stupid he thought he was a bard and kept trying to give stat boosts with his warcry. Rest in peace Gary. I will never stop playing D&D, and the world will never forget what you accomplished.