Just as it was the problem of users buying early Linux notebooks / eees and expecting it to run Windows software.

And it's not like the WP users are left out in the rain. They can just use the browser to view YouTube videos. Lesser experience, sure. I might care when Microsoft implements or makes it possible for others to implement e.g. SilverLight for linux.

edit: typos

The problem is when you extrapolate this reasoning:

- Do you want support for nvidia cards on Linux?

- Do you want to connect to a windows share from Linux or OSX?

- Do you want to print to a windows share from Linux or OSX?

And so on. I think Microsoft is more open than Google in a broader sense. My mantra is: you can't reverse engineer the cloud.

- Yes, I do want to view SilverLight videos on Linux. But I can't. Because Microsoft won't let me (or Xamarin or Ximian) implement the DRM parts.

- Yes, I do check that an nvidia card is supported on Linux before I buy it; That's why, for example, I avoid AMD, and it IS my problem if I buy an AMD card for which there is no good driver on Linux

> I think Microsoft is more open than Google in a broader sense. My mantra is: you can't reverse engineer the cloud.

The implied argument (Microsoft is more open because you CAN reverse engineer their products) is complete bullsh*t. Evidence: http://www.advogato.org/article/101.html

I am neither trying to write a formal proof here nor defending Microsoft in all their battles. I tried to argue against pervasive double standards: we love free software but Google business is not harmed publishing Chrome source code like Microsoft business is publishing the code of Microsoft Windows. Google is harmed if everyone install AdBlock (you can read something along these lines in their investor reports) or connects to their search engine without showing any ad.

I just said that Google Achilles' heel is in another place and because we have a bias in favor of free software we are not seeing the big picture clearly.

Are you really making the argument that if your application doesn't encrypt its interfaces, then you're open?

Samba and Wine were both created using reverse engineering. Microsoft frequently made changes that broke both products. Don't get me started on Microsoft's PPTP and Kerberos. - Nvidia produced their own closed drivers on Linux. How does that involve Microsoft?

You agree with me then! that was my point. You can't reverse engineer Google Search, you can't connect with it in an unlimited way (except using web scraping techniques or using the restricted local search API). With Microsoft you can reverse engineer it.

And I have an story to tell: my company started selling a full API for a Microsoft product without one. Not only we reverse engineered the product but we built a complete API on top. One day Microsoft QA call us if they can help to test the compatibility of our product in operating systems under development.

Microsoft's original version of the app either:

a) deprived YouTube partners of their share of the revenue from adversing

b) caused advertisers to be charged for adverts that were not shown

The download feature also posed a problem to content providers who only hold a streaming licence to their content. If it didn't respect YouTube's no mobile flag (I'm unsure about this but it seems possible) it would also have caused issues for content providers who only held non-mobile streaming rights.

Microsoft now has a new version of the software that supposedly corrects these problems and is whining about openness and anti-trust. But why should Google now trust them? They treated not only Google, but also their partners and advertisers, like dirt. Now they want special treatment. It's like walking into someone's shop, insulting both their sales staff and their customers, then next week coming back and asking for discount.

How is Google being evil by imposing restrictions on a known bad actor in order to protect their partners?

Yes. The API is an HTML5 iframe, (and it takes care of both movie and ads). Microsoft refused to use that API for their own reasons.

> Did Google's obligations to content owners not apply to the other platforms where ad-free official clients existed?

The iOS client is the only ad-free official clients in existence. It was created in 2007 with a five year license agreement to Apple. I have no knowledge of the details, but it is possible that Apple actually paid in lieu of showing ads.

Either way, there is no reason an 2007 agreement between Google and Apple should apply to Microsoft in 2013.

They loosen this requirement for google's own youtube clients because they can push new version of those apps whenever they like. They had no guarantee that MSFT would respond to their requests for changes in a timely manner in the future.

Why didn't MSFT want to use an iframe? Because arrogant ignorance of the open standard of HTML5 is part of company DNA. Any web developer can rant for hours how crappy IE6-9 are and what a drag it is to maintain compatibility with IE when you are building a modern webapp.

To remind everyone that IE11 will be dead on arrival, I'm copying some html5test results: Chrome - 463 Firefox - 410 Safari - 378 IE 11 - 355

But if MSFT bothered to properly implement HTML5 then a) they wouldn't have difficulty building a youtube app in accordance to the google's terms and conditions b) WP users would enjoy better browsing experience c) developers wouldn't have to deal with the compatibility mess caused primarily by IE6-10 and not yet released IE11

Everyone would win.

YouTube also offers a Flash based API to show videos with adverts. If HTML5 wasn't feasible for Microsoft they could have paid Adobe for a licence to use the Flash runtime in their YouTube app.

Aren't content providers losing revenue because Google refuses to make a Youtube App for Windows Phone in an effort to cripple it?

The latest numbers peg WP's marketshare at 3 to 10% in various countries. Assuming a one to one equivalence of users and views, content providers are losing ~3 to 10% of revenue because of Google's dithering on this to help Android.

I would assume both content providers and ad buyers would benefit if Google makes an official Youtube app or allowed Microsoft's version with ads in it. Am I wrong?

If Google wanted to fulfill it's obligations to content providers and advertisers, they would do what Amazon does with Kindle and have a proper app on every platform that lets them publish one.

The fact that they don't shows that the reason is all about Android and not about Youtube.

If those Windows Phone users want to watch said content, they can do so in their web browser.

> The latest numbers peg WP's marketshare at 3 to 10% in various countries. Assuming a one to one equivalence of users and views, content providers are losing ~3 to 10% of revenue because of Google's dithering on this

That assumes that those people will not watch that movie anyway (on a desktop, on a friend's phone, or on the WP using the browser) - which is a completely bogus assumption.

> I would assume both content providers and ad buyers would benefit if Google makes an official Youtube app or allowed Microsoft's version with ads in it. Am I wrong?

The would also benefit if Google gave a free android phone to all WP users so they can watch it. So? Google is not a charity. They set terms and conditions for implementing a YouTube app. There are tens of youtube apps for both iphone and android that abide these rules (not talking about Google's official apps here! see e.g. Jasmine on iOS).

Microsoft insists on not observing the terms and conditions, and then blames google.

> they would do what Amazon does with Kindle and have a proper app on every platform that lets them publish one.

There's no kindle app for Linux. Or the Raspberry Pi. Or the the BeagleBone Black. Or the Chumby. or my smart Vizio TV. And yes, I run all these platforms at home. Does that mean Amazon doesn't care about Kindle content? (incidentally, the Chumby, Vizio and Linux all have native apps for YouTube, and each of them has sold more units than the Windows Phone).

> The fact that they don't shows that the reason is all about Android and not about Youtube.

Next time, you should start with the facts and work out to a logical conclusion, rather than starting with a conclusion you want, and trying to fit the facts into it.

>That assumes that those people will not watch that movie anyway (on a desktop, on a friend's phone, or on the WP using the browser) - which is a completely bogus assumption.

The degraded experience causes many folks to leave the web app instead of going on to watch more videos, especially related ones. Also assuming that fickle users with low attention span are going to remember to search for the video later on on their other devices is also a bogus assumption.

Lack of an officially sanctioned solution definitely hurts content producers.

>(incidentally, the Chumby, Vizio and Linux all have native apps for YouTube, and each of them has sold more units than the Windows Phone).

Just Nokia seems to have sold 20 million phones in the past few quarters.

Anyway, if Windows Phone has very few users, how are the content producers hurt if they watch videos without ads?

How are the same number of WP users simultaneously not worth monetizing by YouTube enough to make an official app and at the same time hurt their revenues if not monetized by being shown ads to?

Even Vimeo with its puny marketshare and revenues compared to Youtube has developed an official Windows Phone app!

Ok. Nintendo has sold more than 100 million Wii consoles. It has no kindle app. It has a YouTube app. Your comparison to Amazon is still bogus.

> How are the same number of WP users simultaneously not worth monetizing by YouTube enough to make an official app and at the same time hurt their revenues if not monetized by being shown ads to?

I'm sorry, we appear to be living in different planets.

Google is under no obligation whatsoever to give preferential treatment to Microsoft, regardless of how much money it costs or earns them. And as Microsoft is still bullying Google's Android partners with patent threats, Google refuses to give Microsoft a preferential treatment. It's so simple. And yet, it seems so hard for many people on this thread to understand.

And if YouTube's content providers and users are hurt by this, so be it?

Imagine YouTube tomorrow decides to encode videos with a new codec, one which a particular processor can't decode easily?

Will the users which own that processor feel "hurt" / get "hurt"?

Yes, but if I install Linux expecting to have support for nvidia cards, it is my problem.

> - Do you want to connect to a windows share from Linux or OSX?

Yes, but if I install Linux or OS X expecting to connect to a Windows share, it is my problem.

> - Do you want to print to a windows share from Linux or OSX?

Yes, but if I install Linux or OS X expecting to print to a windows share, it is my problem.

There is no problem when you extrapolate this reasoning.

If Google is a monopoly and this is probed in some court (EU/US) the issue will crystallize in another way.

Meanwhile, it can be analyzed in an ethical way and some people think that the problem extends beyond you.

The argument is about openness, not about rights.

It's in Microsoft's favor to damage that image. Don't take it personally.

Then what does open mean? To me it means to provide an API on an equal footing among the various platforms. If Google is providing access to secret Web service APIs to their Android and iOS Youtube Apps, but not to Windows Phone, how is that open? Requiring to show ads is still understandable, but requiring HTML5? Why do they care if it's HTML5 or something else? It sounds fishy, and Google should come out with a real reason for requiring HTML5 if there is one, after all they call themselves open.

It is probably well within their rights to screw around since it's their stuff, but lets not pretend it's open. Didn't MS get lambasted for private APIs in Windows? Why does Google get a free pass now and get away with calling itself open?

To most of the world, it means "you can interoperate with me as long as follow my terms and conditions", with those terms being considered reasonable. it does NOT mean "I must let everyone compete with me on equal footing".

>"you can interoperate with me as long as follow my terms and conditions", with those terms being considered reasonable.

I wonder if the HTML5 requirement can considered reasonable. Why does the server's web service API care if the client is HTML5 or not?

Microsoft says this in their post:

>There was one sticking point in the collaboration. Google asked us to transition our app to a new coding language – HTML5. This was an odd request since neither YouTube’s iPhone app nor its Android app are built on HTML5. Nevertheless, we dedicated significant engineering resources to examine the possibility. At the end of the day, experts from both companies recognized that building a YouTube app based on HTML5 would be technically difficult and time consuming, which is why we assume YouTube has not yet made the conversion for its iPhone and Android apps.

Google's statement is totally mum on the matter except for "it violates terms of use". If they want to call themselves open, they should atleast let us know what the HTML5 requirement is about, as it is certainly strange for a web service API. And in my opinion this makes it a 'unreasonable' condition for an open API and Google's silence does not help it. I do think Google is within their rights(absent monopoly concerns) though.

Yes, it is very reasonable.

The server doesn't, but google does. The HTML5 requirement means that google can change everything about their service (e.g. they can switch the ads from being h264 videos today, to javascript games tomorrow, to 3d interactive items the next day when 3d screens become the norm on phones). If they had to expose an "ad inventory API", they couldn't change these things without breaking older clients.

An analogy: Microsoft relies on the TCP packets coming from YouTube being always 100 bytes or less (because they are). Google says "no, you must use a general TCP stack, because one day we might want to make our packets longer". Microsoft dedicates significant engineering resources to examine the possibility, and at the end of the day recognizes that even though they have a general purpose TCP stack, switching to it will result in some inconvenience to users. So they release an app that has a TCP stack that expects 100 bytes or less -- and google refuses to serve it.

This is exactly the same, except at a higher abstraction level. Google doesn't care to spell it out, because anyone who is capable of understanding that issue already does.

Everything. As I explained above, please reread.

> The app would still have to be updated when the API changes.

With an HTML5 API, the API can be stable and still support many new features, video formats, ad formats, etc without change. NOT SO if you don't let google have their iframe.

> Additionally, if that were a concern of Google's, why aren't their apps written in HTML5?

Because they can update their own apps whenever they want to, but they cannot force Microsoft to.

No they can't. Not on the phones, where it matters.

What is clear from this debacle, though, is that Microsoft was unable to write their app according to Google's guidelines, and then took 3 months and still couldn't fix it - which means that Google definitely cannot expect them to upgrade to newer APIs ever - so it doesn't seem onerous to require them to actually use the official API now.

Google isn't forcing Microsoft to write better code. They're trying to force Microsoft to write no code at all, and instead execute whatever javascript comes from the Google servers, sight unseen.

Google is refusing to provide a real API that deals in discrete chunks of data, where the consumer chooses how to interpret them. Even though Microsoft is willing to display ads or presumably do anything else Google asks for that its own apps do.

That's demonstrably false. Have a look at the "Jasmine" app for iOS - it's way, way better than the official iOS client, despite using the same HTML5 API. It does NOT, in any way, provide a degraded experience compared to the official app using.

> and instead execute whatever javascript comes from the Google servers, sight unseen.

Well, yes. Microsoft also doesn't vet the videos it is going to show - google might instead stream rickrolls. Google is not asking Microsoft to execute arbitrary javascript (which allows e.g. stealing credentials). They're asking them to use an iframe, which is perfectly sandboxed. And they actually need to run javascript for functionality - I don't know if you've noticed but Google keeps adding features like captions, annotations, multispeed, multiquality, etc - they need to run code so they can add more features and make them accessible to all.

> Google is refusing to provide a real API that deals in discrete chunks of data, where the consumer chooses how to interpret them. Even though Microsoft is willing to display ads or presumably do anything else Google asks for that its own apps do.

Well, Microsoft is refusing to let me sell Windows Premium addition DVDs for $10, even though I'm willing to pay them the $0.50 that a DVD costs, and displaying their logo and whatever it is they do themselves when they sell a Windows equipped computer on the Microsoft store.

Do you realize how stupid it sounds? Google/YouTube is not a charity, nor a utility, and not even a monopoly. They're accessible on Windows Phone, and they're happy to have Microsoft play according to the same rules they set for everyone else. I understand Microsoft is really not use to playing by the rules, granted - but that's hardly Google's fault.

It doesn't? Because one of the other posts in this thread says that it is degraded.

> Well, Microsoft is refusing to let me sell Windows Premium addition DVDs for $10, even though I'm willing to pay them the $0.50 that a DVD costs, and displaying their logo and whatever it is they do themselves when they sell a Windows equipped computer on the Microsoft store.

Okay, I can work with this analogy. First off, Microsoft would be giving Microsoft-made DVD printers to the other major stores and letting them do the exact same thing you want to do, on official Microsoft hardware. And you've worked hard to make your hardware be up to spec to theirs, but they don't want you to be in business so they only let you use the method that gives them more control: buying full Windows boxes for $0.50 and packing them with the computer. But they won't let you actually take the disc out of the box and install Windows yourself, leading to a degraded experience.

It seems like a reasonable request to me now, though Microsoft can refuse if they want. But they can't call themselves 'open' at the same time.

> They're accessible on Windows Phone, and they're happy to have Microsoft play according to the same rules they set for everyone else. I understand Microsoft is really not use to playing by the rules, granted - but that's hardly Google's fault.

Google is the one explicitly providing an app that doesn't follow the rules. I'm sure Microsoft would be thrilled to not have to write their own app, but they've only tried to write an app that follows the same rules as the official apps. If they can't, then it really sounds like it's not open. Half-open, maybe.

If you were a youtube user then, you were using the website - which is PERFECTLY USABLE on your windows phone. Your experience is not worse in any way than it was then (although it might not be as good as android or ios users; but then, you didn't buy an android or an iphone)

> Had MS or Apple pulled a similar crap, everyone would be crying an antitrust river and carrying a nail to the cross. Why does Google get a free pass at this?

Google is asking Microsoft to respect terms of service - nothing more, nothing less. Twitter does it every other week, and so does facebook - and people are upset, but everyone understands that this is entirely within their rights. (Unlike stuff Microsoft did, for which it was convicted of antitrust violations).

> Its by now clear that Google wants to provide a degraded experience to the windows phone users, thus deliberately rigging the market place.

The only thing that's clear is that Microsoft is using its customers as pawns in a PR game against google. I know what my response to that would have been: No more MS products.

> What guarantees that the same wouldn't be pulled when Firefox OS or Ubuntu OS comes to the market? If so what can possibly replace Youtube? 90% of the video links on the web are to Youtube.

AND THEY ALL WORK PERFECTLY WELL ON YOUR WINDOWS PHONE, INSIDE THE WEB BROWSER, LIKE LINKS ARE SUPPOSED TO! WHAT ARE YOU UPSET ABOUT?

No its not, you know since flash is disabled.

>Google is asking Microsoft to respect terms of service - nothing more, nothing less.

And they did respect the terms of service with their new app - nothing more, nothing less. Using a HTML5 client is not part of that terms of service.

>The only thing that's clear is that Microsoft is using its customers as pawns in a PR game against google.

I would have to agree with you on that, especially with their scroogled ads campaign. However without such public announcement, no one will ever know what the reason behind the app's breaking. Remember when google maps was blocked on Windows phone's browser? A negative PR was required to caused Google revert the stance.

>AND THEY ALL WORK PERFECTLY WELL ON YOUR WINDOWS PHONE!

Again, no they don't work perfectly and Youtube is sadly not something you can just substitute!

Did you try to open your web browser on your phone and go to http://youtube.com ? please try. I don't have a windows phone, but when I tried it in a store, it seemed to work well - and other people on this thread claim it also works well,

> And they did respect the terms of service with their new app - nothing more, nothing less. Using a HTML5 client is not part of that terms of service.

The terms of service actually mandate either flash or html5, nothing else. Microsoft chose not include flash. Microsoft chose to avoid using HTML5 for the youtube app. They are not complying with the terms of service, and it is ENTIRELY their fault.

> Remember when google maps was blocked on Windows phone's browser? A negative PR was required to caused Google revert the stance.

Yes, and at that time Google was at fault, and it took them a couple of days to make things right. In this case, Microsoft has been playing the PR game for more than 3 months now, instead of doing the right thing (honoring terms of service).

> Again, no they don't work perfectly and Youtube is sadly not something you can just substitute!

Again, go to youtube in your web browser. it worked for me. Yes, it's not as nice as a YouTube app, but you don't actually lose out on any content.

Wait a minute, isn't Google using YouTube content providers and advertisers as pawns in this game to hurt Windows Phone?

Windows Phone holds about 3.5% marketshare, and by refusing to make an official app (with ads) or allowing Microsoft's version which shows ads and because of the degraded experience of the mobile site which discourages people from searching, watching related videos etc. , they're hurting revenues of content providers to help Android.

So if you're a content provider, you can and will be used as a stick to further Google's selfish interests even if the actions hurt you.

Sounds like a reason for "No more Google products" if anything.

No, they're just refusing to give Microsoft preferential treatment. Microsoft can write a native app as long as they comply with Google's terms. There are at least 5 different YouTube native apps in the iOS store last I checked, and at least 5 in the Android Play store. See "Jasmine" on iOS for a great example.

If Microsoft is so bad at writing software that they can't follow simple terms and conditions, maybe they should hire the Jasmine guy.

> allowing Microsoft's version which shows ads

That would require them to develop a new API for microsoft, and maintain it. Why would they do that, when they already have a perfectly good API that Microsoft refuses to use?

> because of the degraded experience of the mobile site which discourages people from searching, watching related videos etc. , they're hurting revenues of content providers to help Android.

This is an assertion without proof, which personally I find implausible.

> Sounds like a reason for "No more Google products" if anything.

You are welcome to stop using Google products. Especially, you should stop using YouTube. Please do. Please. Blacklist the youtube.com website (which works perfectly well on WP) so you don't go there accidentally.

Anyway this is a good read from Google's official blog.

From http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/meaning-of-open.html

"At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. Many companies will claim roughly the same thing since they know that declaring themselves to be open is both good for their brand and completely without risk. After all, in our industry there is no clear definition of what open really means. It is a Rashomon-like term: highly subjective and vitally important."

It's hard to read that and then say Google is not being hypocritical here.

If Microsoft can't put a simple web frame in their own application and have only an iframe, video tag, or whatever it is that Google wants to display the video, Microsoft has a problem.

The data is open, and free for anyone to use, provided they follow the rules. Microsoft doesn't want to follow one simple rule. One. Simple. Rule.

It's apparently not a very pleasant rule if the largest API consumer doesn't follow it.

It's not 'open' if some users get the good API and some users get the bad API.

And it makes you sound ridiculous to put so much emphasis on 'one simple rule'. It's very easy for rules to be both simple and unfair at the same time. How about '$500 entry fee for short people'.

And that degrades the experience how? Just because Google doesn't use the same API (nor are they required to) doesn't mean everyone else gets a poorer experience. There are a number of unofficial YouTube clients for iOS and Android, and they all use the public API.

Again (and I say again because I replied to another one of your comments), if Microsoft doesn't have a web frame for their mobile apps, and has to make the entire app web-based, how is that Google's fault? They didn't create a (in that case, because if it's not the case, I have no comment) sub-par API for their mobile OS.

> It's apparently not a very pleasant rule if the largest API consumer doesn't follow it.

Again, how so? They don't need to follow the rule because they know when their advertising is going to change, nobody else does. The overhead involved in allowing everyone to do things the same way Google does is too high compared to just saying use a web view. Would you want to monitor every use of the API and make sure everyone was up to date by a certain point of time?

> It's not 'open' if some users get the good API and some users get the bad API.

How is the public API bad? Because it requires a frame? What's bad about that?

Also, really, no users are using a "good" or "bad" API, everyone who isn't the producer has access to the same API. All users get your so-called "bad" API.

> And it makes you sound ridiculous to put so much emphasis on 'one simple rule'. It's very easy for rules to be both simple and unfair at the same time. How about '$500 entry fee for short people'.

But how is this rule unfair? You've yet to convince me that the rule is unfair. This argument only works if everyone agrees that the rule is unfair. I don't see any preference for anyone other than the producer. Everyone who doesn't manage the entire infrastructure is given the same treatment as the other people not managing the system.

How does that make Google un-open?

> It's apparently not a very pleasant rule if the largest API consumer doesn't follow it.

The largest API consumer is also the API provider. They can (and should, and do) iterate faster than a stable API they provide to others. That's almost always the case.

> It's not 'open' if some users get the good API and some users get the bad API.

All users get the same API, but provider is using a different API (which may, and does, change every other day). And it's perfectly open. Openness does NOT mean everyone gets to be on equal footing! Google can shutter youtube tomorrow, but Microsoft can't, which is always going to be the case.

Open is about having access to the data at all, under reasonable terms and conditions, that Microsoft refuses to follow.

> It's very easy for rules to be both simple and unfair at the same time. How about '$500 entry fee for short people'.

It sounds even more ridiculous to compare "use a standard HTML5 iframe section provided to you" to "special fee for short people".

History shows that indeed, Microsoft and standards don't mix well. But that's hardly a Google problem. Microsoft could have spent a tenth of the energy (and money, and goodwill) in this case, and just hired someone who knows what they are doing (e.g. the guy who wrote Jasmine for iOS, which provides an experience way better than the official client, using only this 'one simple rule')

Which assertions am I making that are unfounded or not supported by fact (and examples from other native apps)?

> It's hard to read that and then say Google is not being hypocritical here.

It's actually quite easy. They are hypocritical in some places, but not here.

IMO, it's not about rights. It's about anti-competitive behavior of Google. WP might easily get on par with Android and OS and this why Google doesn't allow Youtube there.

Google can close and shutter youtube, Microsoft cannot. Therefore, by your definition, there is no way for youtube to ever be open unless Google commits to irrevocably fund youtube forever and ever. Alternatively, they could give Microsoft the option to close YouTube at any point in time for any reason, just like Google can.

?!?!?

ergo, your definition of openness makes no sense.

Don't be willfully dense.

When you get to define terms, that may be. Here on earth, you're just making no sense whatsoever.

When people say talk about something being open, they mean in a specific context. They don't mean that literally the entire business is open and you could wander into their meetings, etc.

I think a bigger problem here is why people think YouTube or Google are "open" to begin with. There are some areas in Google businesses that being more open than the alternatives (note the emphasis on more, sometimes they are just "open" in comparison with Microsoft and Apple policies) serves them well, thats why the do it, but it's not a dogma inside the company and will never be.

IF you are at equal footing with everyone else, THEN you are "open". But the other way around does not follow.

e.g. Mozilla (or Digia, or SourceFire, or thousand others -- take your pick) can relicense their open source software as closed source, and put out binaries for future versions without releasing the source. Others using the same source code base cannot. That does not make that source code any less open.

2. The property of being 'open source' applies to specific copies of software. All that 'closed' stuff you were talking about is applied to non-public copies so it has no relevance to the discussion of the open source copies.

But it's still an "open" system by everyone's definition of the word - the source is open, the API is open, everyone is welcome to use it and make changes. It's just that Google is not obligated to accept them into the official tree. Who cares how the development process looks like? Android is open, and claiming otherwise is foolish. e.g. Amazon's Kindle Fire version of Android.

> The property of being 'open source' applies to specific copies of software. All that 'closed' stuff you were talking about is applied to non-public copies so it has no relevance to the discussion of the open source copies.

Do you actually have an idea of how the GPL works? Because what you wrote here indicates you do not. SourceFire (the company that makes Snort) used to provide the source under the GPL, but then continued to develop it and provide PUBLIC copies without source. No one, except themselves (as the right holder) could legally do that. That does not make the open GPL versions any less "open source" or "open" in general.

We agree then on that, I think, but it has nothing to do with the API openness so I'm not going to pursue it.

If microsoft had a signed contract with google, (which would probably entail payment to google) they would have a case. As it stands, they don't.

The Platform Vendor making the app ignored the rules for using that API and got blocked.

Instead of changing it, they spend time deciding not to change it, release it again with only some of the issues fixed, and are then surprised when it gets rejected due to the outstanding issues already mentioned.

I smell the same anti-trust bullying that MSFT did in the 90s and early 00s.

They decided that they wanted a set of rules for when other people play with their toys. If Microsoft had followed the rules, instead of ignoring them, after saying they were going to follow the rules, it's their problem, not Google's.

No, they're not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

Yes, they can't literally do whatever they want, but in this instance, it's their code, their servers, their data (in a sense), they're permitted to define how others may use it, and use it in a separate way themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom_International_Inc._v._Yo....

Heck, isn't this Microsoft's own point of view? Or do they have plans to write Office for Linux?