Quote:
Originally Posted by Sgt.Stubby
Suppose a device runs Debian, for example. When the manufacturer decides in 5-10 years to drop support because they want you to buy their latest model, the FOSS and Debian community will continue to supporting it well beyond its life expectancy. And every year there would be updates.
Androids rot. If you bought a device that ran 2.2, you may get an update to 2.3 the next year, but after that the maker loses motivation and drops the ball because they're already working on their next model.
This is chronic with android devices. You cannot simply go to google and ask for version 4.2 for your device. Even if they gave you some of the open pieces of 4.2, it's not a compilable fully-functional OS. (btw, google qualifies their use of the term "open source" to simply mean that some of the code is readable, not that it can be compiled and used). If you manage to port a newer kernel to your device, good luck extracting the proprietary hardware drivers from your old kernel and using them in the new. Android devices are as disposable as Apple devices.
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My Flyer originally had Android 2.3. I now run 3.2. Which is not the update HTC put out, but created by the community. I probably can't install 4.x on it (no idea what the latest version is), but, why would I care? I doubt my hardware would even support it (processor, memory), if I see the current specs of those 4.x devices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RodMyers
Android is a version of Linux
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I know that. But when I read Linux, I read an open source OS, which is not device specific. It's the core of it all, and once you build it for a specific device, or with a specific GUI, it gets another name. Such as "Android" or "Debian". (I never cared for Linux, I'm a Windows person, so I have no idea what all the various versions are called...)