This has come up here in a number of other threads, and I wanted to consolidate the subject somewhere.

Open has become a term being thrown around a lot, without a solid meaning behind it. Without a solid definition, it's hard to narrow down what benefits come from it. In a way, it seems to have moved from having meaning in software development more into a marketing term. Almost similar to how "HD" moved from being specific definitions on resolution in regards to a TV, to a term marketing latched onto and slaps on things from "HD radio" to "Real Racing HD" for the iPad.

As discussed in the iPad 2 thread, open even has a different meaning for a kid when it comes to tech. Instead of meaning open source, he sees it as being an open and welcoming experience. Similar to how businesses welcome in new customers with a friendly "Yes, We're Open" sign.

One of the reason I bring this up is because of the usage of Open when it comes to Android. As I touched on in my Captivate review thread, it's not really well defined on what open means to the end user of an Android device. It's open to allow carriers to lock devices down farther then the closed devices from Apple, RIM or Microsoft. It's not open for me as an end user to be able to remove an app bundled with the phone unless I cross the hacker threshold and unlock the phone, allowing the firmware to be changed. Even this avenue of "open to hackers" is being hardened with newer iterations of phones, requiring more work to defeat efuses and other lockout methods. How is open a benefit here for end users when the phone is just as closed as an iPhone?

Making news recently is the story about the Honeycomb source. "Open" as defined by Andy Rubin, VP of Engineering at Google, is access to the source code. On February 24th, the Xoom shipped with Honeycomb loaded (Android 3.0), and as of March 25th, the source is not available. And reports indicate Google has no interest in releasing the source anytime soon.

The reason the "Open" tag applied to Android frustrates me is that it doesn't seem open to me when compared against other open projects. Mozilla is a great example here. Almost everything about their company is truly open. Right now I can go and see the source code being checked in for Firefox and other products, be it the current releases, or the next major one. I can also download the source for any of their web sites, including the server side code not revealed via view source in browsers. I've even just hopped into their publicly accessible developer chat channels and attended developer meetings about milestones on projects.

Similarly, the Linux kernel is just as open. Every dev version is there, accessible to anyone to do whatever they want with, bound by the license of course. (I'm intentionally avoiding the various licenses and the discussion that accompanies that subject for now).

Because of these different open approaches and my exposure to them, the "Open"ness that Google touts just rubs me the wrong way. I'm not specifically championing open all the time (obvious by my personal use of Apple products), but I do appreciate consistent and clear communication from a company about their intentions. Apple once used to proclaim open as a feature themselves, but have backed away from using the term publicly a while ago. They do still contribute to and create a lot of true open source projects, along with open standards and interfaces. But they don't use it as a marketing term. To me, the continued use of Open from Google in regards to Android simply dirties the meaning, and misleads people by promoting benefits that don't actually exist. If they want to control their source and close down platforms, that is their decision and I'm fine with it. But at least be honest about it.