Google explains why it stopped Acer's Aliyun smartphone launch (updated) | The Verge

[Chunlin Zhang]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/14/3335204/google-statement-acer-smartphone-launch-aliyun-android

Earlier today there was some strange drama as Acer abruptly cancelled
the launch of a smartphone. The phone was running the Aliyun OS, which
is created by Alibaba and which Google says is actually a
"non-compatible [version] of Android." At the time, Acer said that
Google had "expressed concerns" about the launch, and now Google has
come forward to explain its side of the story in a statement:

Compatibility is at the heart of the Android ecosystem and ensures a
consistent experience for developers, manufacturers and consumers.
Non-compatible versions of Android, like Aliyun, weaken the ecosystem.
All members of the Open Handset Alliance have committed to building
one Android platform and to not ship non-compatible Android devices.
This does not however, keep OHA members from participating in
competing ecosystems.
This is the first time in recent memory (if ever) that we've seen
membership in the OHA actually have repercussions. To date, it has
appeared to be a feel-good consortium of companies that ostensibly
contribute to Android. However, now we see that membership has meaning
beyond feel-good PR, and Google is not being shy about stopping
fragmentation where it can within the Android ecosystem. Amazon is not
a member of the OHA, by the way, and therefore there's nothing to stop
it from creating its own Android variant that powers the Kindle Fire.

The situation is a bit murky, as the extent to which the Aliyun OS
uses technologies from Android is a little unclear. When it announced
the OS a year ago, Alibaba took pains to point out that the Android
app compatibility feature came from its own work, not the "Dalvik"
virtual machine from Android: "The cloud OS is the result of three
years of development and uses AliCloud's self-developed distributed
file system and virtual machine; the cloud OS is also fully compatible
with Android-based applications." In a statement to the WSJ today,
however, Alibaba stepped back from those claims, saying that "Aliyun
OS is not part of the Android ecosystem so of course Aliyun OS is not
and does not have to be compatible with Android." Alibaba reiterated
that sentiment in a statement to The Verge, "Aliyun OS is built on
open-source Linux and is not part of the Android ecosystem."

Whatever the technical or political justifications, canceling a phone
launch while journalists are en-route is a fairly serious flub and
both Google and Acer will need to spend more time working out what
happened here. Google may yet have to resort to such heavy-handed
tactics again to help keep Android fragmentation in check, but as
Amazon has shown, some companies don't need Google's cooperation to
take advantage of the OS it created.

Update: Andy Rubin has posted a fuller explanation of its stance on
Android compatibility on the official Android blog, although he does
not directly address this particular drama, Rubin does say that the
OHA hopes to create a "virtuous cycle" of development for the platform
and that each member of the OHA "contributes to and builds one Android
ecosystem — not a bunch of incompatible versions."

Update 2: Andy Rubin minced fewer words in his posting on Google+,
where he flatly claims that Aliyun "incorporates the Android runtime
and was apparently derived from Android."