macOS and iOS 26 are the most unstable, unpolished operating systems I've used from Apple since the early 2000s. Windows has had a set of baffling bugs, like the crashing File Explorer – seemingly the result of overzealous layoffs in favour of AI development. And on Android, restrictions to APK installations and now this – which, yes, general consumers are unlikely to care all that much about – but it all signals something deeper going on in management across the board.
I can only hope the time for Linux-all-the-things is slowly but surely arising – even if it remains a minority, seeing Linux emerge from 1-2% market rate and becoming a usable alternative for most people would be fantastic.
I have been an Apple fanboy for 10 years and their recent abysmal software quality and complete lack of the 'final touch' they've been known for made me go back to Linux and Android. Because there I can at list fix those annoying bugs myself — or at the very least, I can have them reported publicly for visibility.
I went from an advocate to 'fuck that shit' in 6 months, and if I recall it was one annoying bug too many that was the tipping point. I have a feeling many people share a similar experience roughly at the same time. And I actually think same thing is happening with Windows. So why not Android, too?
So yeah, I think companies can absolutely inadvertently reach a tipping point with one of those seemingly benign decisions.
There's simply no reason for AOSP to matter to google because AOSP doesn't matter to any serious manufacturer.
This has really stood the test of time...
> It's actually funny to go through these slides, August 3rd 2010, because the slides are like, because there's no way Oracle would be so stupid as to close the operating system. So like, that's obviously going to stay open and ... we're not going to be a fork, ... which I actually had misgivings about because I didn't necessarily want us to have to merge what was going on upstream when we couldn't control it. But that was what it was.
> Well, this was actually resolved for us, and it was resolved for us in what I think is the one of the most shameful moments in the history of Open Source. ... On Friday August 13th 2010, this memo was sent out to folks internally at Sun, and in particular, in this memo "we will no longer distribute source code for the entirety of the OpenSolaris operating system or the Solaris operating system in real time." This is absolutely shameful. And it is shameful because for so many who worked so hard to open up this system, and not just for the folks inside of Sun. The reason that this is shameful, the reason that this is reprehensible is because a social contract was formed with the community. And there are folks, including folks in this room, that had source code that was contributed back under that copyright agreement under that copyright assignment and that source code was now being made proprietary. That is reprehensible. That is shitting in the pool of open source and it is disgusting corporate behavior. And sadly, it is behavior like this that forces the rest of us to need to be cynical and suspicious. This is a body blow for open source. And the worst thing was, not only was it shameful — it was cowardly. Because this was never publicly announced. Oracle has not publicly announced once — once — that they are stopping contributions to Open Solaris. They simply silently stopped. Now I get that the lawnmower doesn't just understand why that's a big deal. Okay, I get that. But you know what, we're not all lawnmowers and that's disgusting. It's cowardly behavior. And I have never been so embarrassed of my former colleagues than I was when I saw that mail. Humiliated.
> And as it turns out it was a lie as it also says in there, "... following full releases of our Enterprise Solaris operating system, ... source license and code is going to be made available." Yeah well, Solaris 11 was shipped on November 9th 2011, and I don't see the goddamn source code. So now admittedly, in Oracle's defense, they didn't lie to us because they didn't tell us anything, right. They lied to themselves.
On the one hand, you have the CEO apparently all in on Gemini and subscriptions which should push for some kind of Office 365 "we don't care where you use it as long as you subscribe" and strong gestures towards their hardware partners.
On the other hand, you have Osterloh who won the tug of war and is now trying to turn the hardware division and Android into some kind of Apple vertically integrated machine like if he was still at Motorola while their SoC is lagging behind one to two generations and they don't seem to have the volume to sustain this kind of investment. Plus, they have regulatory pressure on the competition side from both the USA and the EU.
Google strategy is still as unreadable as ever. It's frankly a miracle this company is still standing. They are living testimony to the power of having a monopoly on a large market.
Interestingly I now view the Motorola acquisition as a massive mistake, not because of the assets, but because the culture it brought in is actively damaging to the overall company. It's so weird trying to emulate Apple exactly when the regulatory environment is focused on tearing down this model.