Google has found itsef under attack from all sides this week as rivals attempt to patent bash it and poke holes in its open mantra, but a new study has taken things a step further with a claim that “Android ranks as the most closed project.”
Visionmobile, the research firm behind the study, makes its claim, however, not by comparing Android to other popular mobile OSes like iOS, BlackBerry OS, WP7 or Samsung Bada, but against QT, Symbian, Meego, Mozilla, Webkit, and Linux.
This may seem somewhat unfair, but Visionmobile claims that since Google’s Android is one of the few mobile operating systems to actually define itself as open source, it’s a suitable comparison.
“It is the governance model that makes the difference between an “open” and a “closed” project,” says the Visionmobile report.
The research outfit rated the openness of its various eclectic test subjects using its home grown “Open Governance Index.”
The index measures things like availability of the latest source code, developer support mechanisms, public roadmap, and transparency of decision-making. It also takes into account the ability of developers to influence the content and direction of the project, create and distribute derivatives of the source code in the form of spin-off projects, handsets or applications and the strength and structure of the OSes development community.
Judged by this metric, Android scored a paltry 23% openness, although what that tells us in real terms is precisely nothing.
“Android would not have risen to its current ubiquity were it not for Google’s financial muscle and famed engineering team,” writes Visionmobile in the abstract.
We could be way off base here, but this doesn’t sound like a very impartial study to us.
