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back to article Google to devs: Fragmenting Android is AGAINST THE RULES

Android developers often complain about fragmentation of the platform, and Google apparently agrees – so much so that it's written an anti-fragmentation clause into the license terms of the latest Android SDK (software development kit). Under Section 3.4 of Google's new terms and conditions, "You agree that you will not take …

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  1. illiad

    "fragmentation"???

    How about a PROPER definition????? this cannot be 'made law' until this happens... >:-(

    The only one that seems to fit is the predominant geeky one.. corrections, clarifications, please...

    E.G...

    Do you mean that they have different specs of handset, and many different versions of the OS, with different GUI addons???

    Then look at the standard windows PC!!! lots of different specs, from 10 year old PC still running win98, a server still running win2000, lots more running the basic version of XP, some with shell customizations, even many APPLE laptops running a partition with XP, then win7 with many customizations, oh and dont forget, the home, home premium & professional versions of the above!!!!

    so WHY has everyone not called all THAT fragmented??? answers please, or at least stop the idiocy... :)

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fixed it for fa.

    The media that have never written a line of code and don't understand the platform often complain about fragmentation of the platform.

    or...

    Inexperienced android developers that don't understand Fragments, often complain about fragmentation of the platform

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Thumb Up

      Re: Fixed it for fa.

      Spot on with your first one.

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  3. alain williams Silver badge

    Not updating

    I have an HTC Desire Z - it runs Android 2.3.3, that was out of date when I bought the phone a year ago. I am annoyed that HTC seems to have little interest in providing updates. Unless they do I will be reluctant to buy HTC next time.

    I am slowly adding to my DoNotBuy list, eg Brother: who won't provide drivers for new versions of operating systems once they no longer sell the printer.

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    1. Afflicted.John
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      WTF?

      Re: Not updating

      How many times do I have to hear people complain about this? In simple terms: do not buy a device based on aspirations.

      You state it was out of date when you bought it. So why did you buy it then?

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not updating

      Errm, it's not capable of running Jellybean. They can't just download more RAM and increase the CPU speed.

      Really, the Idiocracy of some writers and commentators here astounds me sometimes.

      I have a old HTC Hero in my drawer. I'm still mad at Google for not letting HTC update it...

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  4. aquallama

    Most of the SDK is still open source. You can build it from scratch without any restrictions. However the SDK bundle on Google's site includes some proprietary stuff (eg the Google Maps / Market APIs).

    Also sometimes Google releases an SDK before releasing the source. In that case they have not licensed their changes yet (it's almost all Apache, not GPL, so there's no obligation for them to do so at some point).

    So not much to see here. What Google uses to control vendors is access to their propietary apps and their certification process (CDD): http://source.android.com/compatibility/index.html . But nothing stops a vendor from breaking with Google, forking Android, distributing their own SDK, etc

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