Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
Amazon also just swiped Android, pulled Google from it and rebranded it Fire OS. Why do you think it is so easy to add Google to Fire tablets?
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“Swiped” is a loaded word—did Google “swipe” Linux to make Android in the first place? It's open-source and copyleft. Reusing it is not just allowed but explicitly encouraged.
Google was allowed (happily) to leverage Linux into a multi-billion dollar product. They benefited greatly from the work countless others did in the process. The
quid pro quo for using that code—well known going into things—is that others can, in turn, freely use (and modify, sell, distribute, etc) the parts of Android that are derived works of Linux.