Ruth Suehle

There are plenty of people who feel pretty strongly that open is an all or nothing proposition. While I'd like to see the world embracing openness, I'd rather reward steps towards open than criticize what's still closed. Think of it in terms of parenting--I get a lot better results from praising my five-year-old for remembering to do something right than yelling at her for doing it wrong.

Google is not without its faults. I don't disagree that we've centralized a lot of data with a single power. And anybody who doubts it need only log into their Google dashboard.

But I think it's useful to "parent" those who are headed in the right direction by appreciating the good steps they've taken, like Android. And if you're not going iPhone or Android... well, you're left with what I have right now for a "smart"phone, which is to say, a pretty dumb phone.

Android isn't perfectly open. But it's based on the Linux kernel. There's the Open Handset Alliance that helped spawn it, and the Android Open Source Project that maintains it. Most of the code was released under the Apache license. And in the grand array of mobile choices, it's a far, far better choice than an iPhone. What would you recommend for an open source phone instead?