

Google and Alibaba Continue Warring Over Acer Phone - joshus
http://allthingsd.com/20120916/google-and-alibaba-continue-warring-over-acer-phone/

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modeless
"Aliyun App Store Confirmed To Be Distributing Pirated Android Apps"

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/15/aliyun-app-store-
con...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/15/aliyun-app-store-confirmed-to-
be-distributing-pirated-android-apps-many-from-another-pirate-site/)

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kumarm
Many of our apps are listed there.

As a policy we don't submit our apps in any store other than Google Play Store
for android as we believe in having one Android platform is beneficial for
community (Including Amazon Store).

Take down notice? Where to send it? So Hire a lawyer in China to fight them?
How long will that battle go on and are we too naive to assume we can fight
Alibaba and win in China under their law?

I am glad Andy picked this fight.

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option_greek
Here is a statement of Andy Rubin on this:
[https://plus.google.com/112599748506977857728/posts/hRcCi5xg...](https://plus.google.com/112599748506977857728/posts/hRcCi5xgayg)

Apparently, they even have pirated google apps. How Alibaba/Acer claim moral
high ground on this is beyond me.

~~~
josephlord
So take action against the pirates. Don't bully your partners away from
competing platforms.

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kumarm
[So take action against the pirates.] You are expecting to after a Chinese
Pirates in China and win?

~~~
josephlord
If you have emailed Aliyun and asked them to take it off then absolutely they
are doing wrong leaving it on there. I haven't seen any information about what
needs to be done to submit apps or if there is any review process (which
should at least have caught the obvious Google apps).

If they don't remove it fairly promptly then yes maybe Google can take some
action. I would expect that with clear cases of copyright infringement that
Google at least could take a case.

In the mean time update your app to detect when it is running on Aliyun and
include a half screen promotion for China's leading real Android phone.

~~~
kumarm
So I have to keep searching if a Chinese company is pirating my apps? (How
would I even know?). They had the apps for a while and we knew about it only
because google called them out.

How about you ask the guy who stole your car (After figuring out who stole it)
and if they don't return it to you, then complain to police?

~~~
josephlord
I don't know the Android platform but if your app logging shows massive
numbers of devices that aren't matched by downloads reported by the Google
store add some additional logging to try to work out why.

If the scale isn't large don't worry about it.

It is copyright infringement, you still have your car (going back to your
analogy). Also it may be that Aliyun is the used car dealer that has stolen
cars but don't know it, the pirates are the ones who uploaded/submitted it to
them.

There have been cases on Apple and Google stores of copyright infringing apps
although these get removed when reported.

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andrewcooke
in case anyone else is confused, the issue seems to be this:

* there is a group called the open handset alliance (OHA), formed by google and others, that gives certain benefits to hardware makers. to be a member of that group you have to commit to not release incompatible versions of android.

* alibaba have created software for a smartphone that acer were going to release, called aliyun.

* everyone seems to agree that aliyun is not compatible with android (in the sense required by the OHA agreement). it can, however, run some android applications.

* the disagreement is about whether or not aliyum is a "version of android". if it is, then google can kick acer out of the OHA (which acer does not want; hence the phone would be blocked). alibaba is arguing that it is not (in particular, it does not use the dalvik vm), so acer should be free to release the phone and remain in the OHA.

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mun2mun
Google is threatening Acer to not make phone based on Aliyun OS while Haier
Group who is another member of OHA have already shiped an Aliyun OS phone[1].
No question of "fragmentation" were asked back then. Hypocrisy at its best.

[1] <http://www.generalatlantic.com/en/news/article/1838>

Edit: See <http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html> for list of
OHA members.

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allenbrunson
Here's my own personal perspective.

I am very thoroughly in Apple's camp. I have owned several iPhones, an iPad,
and more Macs than I can count. This is what I use personally, and what I
program for.

Although I don't use Android myself, I'm glad it exists. It keeps Apple on
their toes. I don't think Apple will make much of a dent in the Android
ecosystem, despite the fact that Steve Jobs apparently wanted to.

But now it's turning out that Google faces some of the same issues as Apple,
doesn't it? The Android ecosystem is generally more open than iOS, but now we
see that it has its limits.

Personally, I think Google is doing the right thing here. If this secondary
phone OS really does contain a lot of Android frameworks, as they claim, then
I think Google is right to be upset about this.

Interesting to see what the fan base's general reaction is going to be to
this.

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lucian1900
Alibaba pirated google apps and put them on their appstore. That's different.

Android can be forked just fine.

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tedivm
The pirated app thing was brought up after the fact, and really has nothing to
do with the original issue- that google is strong arming a company to prevent
a competing OS from being released.

Besides, claiming that Alibabi supports piracy because there are pirated apps
in their store is the same as saying Google supports malware because their
stores have sold infected apps.

~~~
will_work4tears
That's not what I got. My understanding of the situation was that Google is
saying Alibaba can't claim to be Android compatible if they are not. Alibaba
is saying they are claiming no such thing, but their marketplace seems to not
reflect that claim.

They aren't trying to prevent a competing OS at all.

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voidr
I think Google's position is reasonable: either Alibaba make Aliyun OS pass
the Android compatibility tests, or remove the Android app runtime.

~~~
josephlord
Sounds like what Oracle wanted Google to do with Java/Dalvik/Android. Can you
explain why you think this is different or if you thought Oracle should have
got their way?

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voidr
The difference is that you are free to use the Android CTS, unlike the Java
TCK, which had a Field Of Use restriction that did not allow using it for
mobile.

The big difference is that you can do whatever you want with Android and it's
components, but don't expect any help, from the OHA if you are making
something incompatible.

~~~
josephlord
Does that really help? Sun offered a different platform for mobile which
Android is a massive deviation from. J2ME was rubbish but does that change
their rights.

Is the defence of this action that Google aren't quite as unreasonable as
Oracle? Is that the standard we hold "don't be evil" to?

The legal tool being used is different but it definitely seems anti-
competitive.

~~~
magicalist
It means you aren't beholden at all to Google to be an "Android compatible"
device, you just need to pass the freely available compatibility test.

Ask the Apache Harmony guys if that's only slightly less unreasonable than
Sun/Oracle.

------
nitrogen
The troubling thing I see in all this is that, if Google gets all contract
hardware manufacturers to join the OHA, then there will be nobody to
manufacturer your Android OSP hardware.

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recoiledsnake
Andy Rubin:

>So there’s really no disputing that Aliyun is based on the Android platform
and takes advantage of all the hard work that’s gone into that platform by the
OHA.

>So if you want to benefit from the Android ecosystem, then make the choice to
be compatible. Its easy, free, and we’ll even help you out. But if you don’t
want to be compatible, then don’t expect help from OHA members that are all
working to support and build a unified Android ecosystem.

How "open" is something if you can't fork it and be left in peace to negotiate
with the OEMs to ship it? Aliyun is already missing the Google Play Store and
the official Google apps.

The "don't expect help from OHA" line is especially ironic given that Acer
scheduled a press conference to announce making Aliyun phones before being
strong armed by Google into canceling it.

Acer really had no choice, Android has 67% of the market and iOS has the other
30%. Losing early access to code and access to the Google Play store and
Google apps will basically kill their handset business because the competition
like Samsung, HTC, Sony, Motorola etc. will have those advantages.

They would basically have to quit the handset market outside China to make
Aliyun phones for the Chinese market. Forking is a fundamental tenet and in
many cases the lifeblood of open source. If you don't want that, put that in
the license and do not call it "open" instead of artificial after-the-fact
restrictions like this. If you make something open, people are going to
eventually do something with it that you may not like.

What next, forbid retailers from selling Aliyun phones or threaten to pull all
Android devices from them?

The only differences I see between this and Microsoft's OEM restrictions
against other OSes in the 90s is that Android is not a monopoly(though it is
effectively one for Acer), and that Android is open source(again, Acer doesn't
really have much leverage to go on it's own with Android code).

~~~
sabret00the
The problem is that Aliyun doesn't simply fork Android and run it's own App
Store (as Amazon). It instead tries to rewrite bits, use some bits and create
a Frankenstein type monster. Again, that's no real issue. However the real
issue is that it's claiming to be Android Compatible, which means it's
attempting to market itself off of Android's back. Add that with the fact
they've stolen apps and apps written for Aliyun don't work on Android and
we're all in a right pickle.

If anyone wants to fork Android, they're free to. But don't claim Android
compatibility after messing with the APIs. Basically Aliyun would be a leach
for Android platform and Google has the right to throw it's weight around in
that regard.

Once again, Amazon doesn't mention Android when talking about the Kindle Fire
and they've never heard a peep out of Google or Andy Rubin. If Acer are that
convinced that Google is doing them wrong, they're more than free to leave the
OHA and start having press conferences left, right and centre.

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taligent
You know it's funny but what you wrote sounds exactly like what Google did
with Java.

~~~
orangecat
And Google isn't trying to sue Aliyun out of existence, nor forcibly prevent
Acer from shipping Aliyun devices.

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recoiledsnake
> nor forcibly prevent Acer from shipping Aliyun devices

You and me seem to have different definitions for the term 'forcibly', because
that's exactly what they seem to be doing here, like Microsoft forced Hitachi
not to ship dual boot systems with BeOS under the threat of pulling Windows.

~~~
sabret00the
Except Hitachi couldn't have still put out PCs with Microsoft on them. Acer
would still be able to put out Android devices.

