I don’t understand why Google didn’t just made Android closed source. They would’ve made custom roms impossible and therefore more able to control and spy on it’s users. Why did Google made Android open source, while Microsoft’s Windows is still closed source to this day?
In a nutshell Android uses Linux as it’s base so I don’t believe they could make it closed source, where Microsoft Windows, like Apple MacOS, have always used their “own” kernel allowing them the flexibility to keep their software closed source or source available.
Kernel is irrelevant. By the way, MacOS kernel is open source and is derived from one of BSDs.
MacOS is derived from Darwin but heavily modified and now closed source. While GPL is copy left, BSD has no such requirement so you can effectively make your derivative OS closed source, which NeXT and subsequently Apple did.
Android doesn’t have to be open-source. Just because it uses the Linux kernel doesn’t mean the rest of the OS has to be open-source.
Android is open-source because Google wanted it to be. They wanted to monetize it differently, not by charging money for the OS.
Doesn’t this contradict GPL? Since Android was built on top of the Linux kernel.
No. The GPL for Linux applies to the Linux kernel.
GPL only says that one particular program has to stay open. It doesn’t say that everything else on the same computer has to be GPL.
Most Linux distros include software with a wide variety of licensed. Many people run commercial software on top of Linux.