Apple vs. Android: The Open Factor | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

Judging by the comments on John Kirk’s post “Android’s Market Share Is Literally a Joke,” we are well into another operating system religious war. As is always the case in religious wars, it’s tough to make sense of the the arguments. As Harry McCracken notes at Time Techland, we can’t agree who is winning because we can’t agree on what “winning” means.

Advocates often argue that victory for Android is inevitable because Google’s platform is more open and open always triumphs over closed. That proposition is debatable at best. But the arguments is muddled by the confusion of several different concepts of openness. I’m going to try to at least clarify the terms of the debate. There are at least three concepts of open clamoring for our attention; I am going to call them open hardware, open software, and open systems.

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Apple vs. Android: The Open Factor | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis