• NewOldGuard@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Android is NOT open source. AOSP is, but the android distributions you get on a retail phone add proprietary and closed source features atop AOSP. It is at best open-core but even that is questionable given the release cadence of AOSP

    • rnercle@sh.itjust.works
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      23 hours ago

      you’re right. thanks for the precision

      At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run the proprietary Android version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed, most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS), which includes core apps such as Google Chrome, the digital distribution platform Google Play, and the associated Google Play Services development platform. Firebase Cloud Messaging is used for push notifications. While AOSP is free, the “Android” name and logo are trademarks of Google, who restrict the use of Android branding on “uncertified” products. The majority of smartphones based on AOSP run Google’s ecosystem—which is known simply as Android—some with vendor-customized user interfaces and software suites, for example One UI. Numerous modified distributions exist, which include competing Amazon Fire OS, community-developed LineageOS; the source code has also been used to develop a variety of Android distributions on a range of other devices, such as Android TV for televisions, Wear OS for wearables, and Meta Horizon OS for VR headsets.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)