Wow, the lack of understanding in this thread is astounding.
So much for "open source" huh? Maybe what they really didn't want is folks finding the security holes and releasing Apps that exploit them. Makes them look bad and all.
Having code out in the open helps with finding bugs and holes in the software. As noted by
Linus' Law, "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." The more people you have looking at the code, the better chance a hole is found and fixed. Are you implying that a closed source model is inherently better for developing secure software? I suppose that's why the opens source LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) powers most of the web and its applications.
Let's also not forget that a significant part of OS X is open source. OS X is powered by Darwin (
APSL) and comes with Java, Perl, Python, Ruby and PHP all of which are open source. Evidently then open source is good enough for Apple. As an aside, guess what the A in the open source APSL stands for. It rhymes with chapel.
And people say Android is open and iOS is not. But in this respect they are both exactly the same. THis proves all the open vs closed neysayers wrong from both sides.
No they aren't. iOS is under a closed source license. Android is released under the
Apache license. In fact, it took one search in Google for "Android source code" and three clicks to get
this - instructions from the Android project on how to check out the code. That's open. The fact that they have decided not to release the honeycomb code yet is irrelevant. In no way are open source coders obligated to release code as soon as it's done. No license requires this of authors anywhere.
Google have finally realised 1 thing. That total openness means you can do absolutely anything. Sure that's nice if everyone is nice and knows how to use the OS. But a lot of people don't know what to do and need something simple. The whole "you can do anything you want" just confuses them. And secondly if you can do anything means you can also make viruses for the OS. And this has happened for Android. Hence Google new stance on bulling what it thinks are infected apps.
It's not as if Google expects every smartphone owner to download the code, build it and install it themselves (you can if you wish though). Smartphone makers do this - the end user never sees any of this process. If you're going to critique the simplicity of the OS, don't critique the build process, something done by manufacturers as if this was the responsibility of the end user.
Secondly, the argument that being open source means that more viruses are written for is just plain daft. I suppose that's why Windows is constantly targeted for viruses and Linux continues to dominate on high power critical servers. Just because you know the innards of something doesn't mean you can circumvent it's security. If that were the case, ssh would be utterly useless given that the major implementation (
OpenSSH) is, you guessed it, open source. I also suppose this is why
GPG is quite possibly the most popular implementation of the PGP cryptographic method.
The dislike of open source around here is astonishing sometimes despite the fact that you depend on it constantly if you own a Mac or an iOS device. In fact, you are all using open source software right now in some capacity - Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera all have open source components integrated.
If you don't like it, so be it. If you're going to critique it though, try not to be sensational. Honestly, if you dislike open source software this much, you may as well purchase a copy of Windows and run that full time. Move away from an OS powered by open source software and move to an OS written by a company that shares the same distrust in open source software (this is not sensational - search for quotes by MS about open source software and you'll see what I mean).