ArsTechnica responds to The Guardian – Fork off, “Neither Microsoft, Nokia, nor anyone else should fork Android”

Peter Bright from ArsTechnica responds to Charles Arthur’s suggestion on The Guardian that Microsoft should fork Android. Why? It’s unworkable. He says you can have compatibility or control but not both.  Google has worked to make Android unworkable. For those who might bring in Amazon, Peter discusses those shortcomings too.

In the grand scheme of things, forking Android may turn out to be even bigger work for MS and Nokia.

Not only is it not this kind of an open platform, but Google is actively working to make it functionally less open with each new release. The result is that a forker has to make a choice: they can give Google control and get the all the upsides of the platform, or they can snatch control from Google and get almost none of them.

Android isn’t designed to be forked. With GMS, Google has deliberately designed Android to resist forking. Suggestions that Microsoft scrap its own operating system in favor of such a fork simply betray a lack of understanding of the way Google has built the Android platform.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/neither-microsoft-nokia-nor-anyone-else-should-fork-android-its-unforkable/

Cheers Marc for the tip

Category: Nokia