Andy Rubin took issue with Steve Jobs’ analysis of the openness of Google at Apple’s earnings release, and tweeted his opinion on the matter.
Unfortunately, the tweet was either massively ironic, or completely misses the point of what Jobs was attempting to say.
The tweet Rubin sent was a terminal command intended to demonstrate the full extent to which Android is open:
the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”
However, what Rubin ultimately demonstrates is that Google simply has a different idea about the concept of openness and how it may or may not benefit customers.
Jobs made a confusing statement during his tirade yesterday about openness.
“Google loves to characterize Android as ‘open’ and iOS and iPhone as ‘closed.’ We find this a bit disingenuous, and clouding the real difference between our two approaches,” Jobs said. “The first thing most of us think about when we hear the word ‘open’ is Windows, which is available on a variety of devices.”
Really, when people think about ‘open’ they think of Windows? Apple and Google aren’t the only ones appropriating the language for their own uses. Adobe has famously defended Flash on the basis that the internet should be open.
In my mind, openness refers to two things here, but really the truth is that openness is one small part of what users want. Neither Apple nor Google sells a fully open system by both definitions, but both will be successful based on their unique definitions.
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