Android often gets reprimanded for its restrictive practices despite being an Open Source OS. And now a new report released by
VisionMobile has confirmed the status. The study entitled 'The Open Governance Index' analyzed various open source systems such as Android, Symbian, MeeGo, Linux and WebKit. VisionMobile then ranked these projects on the basis of their openness, placing Android at the bottom of the heap, with Open Governance Index of 23 percent. Eclipse bagged the top position with 84 percent on Index.
Android, however, has also been rated as one of the most successful open source operating systems, but the report has taken pretty critical view of the operating system. It also said that Android is basically successful due to powerful backing of Google. The report said, "Google's strategy has been to subsidise Android such that it can deliver cheap handsets and low-cost wireless Internet access in order to drive more eyeballs to Google's ad inventory."
The report has also slammed Android for being the "only mainstream open source project that does not freely provided the source code access to all developers at the same time." The systems have been graded after testing their performance on several criteria such as accessibility to source code, developer influence and community structure.