Question

Which among the following is not a proprietary mobile operating system ?

• A. Android
• B. iOS
• C. BlackBerry
• D. Windows Phone

Answer 1

Answer:

A. Android

• The primary difference between a proprietary and an open-source operating system is the accessibility of its source code.

• A proprietary OS has a closed source code, which is owned and controlled by the company that created it.

• Users can't access, modify, or redistribute the code. In contrast, an open-source OS, like Android's core system, has its source code publicly available, allowing developers to view, modify, and build upon it.

• iOS: This is a proprietary operating system developed by Apple. Its source code is closed, and it's exclusively used on Apple devices like iPhones and iPads.

• BlackBerry: The original BlackBerry OS was a proprietary, closed-source system developed by Research In Motion (now BlackBerry Limited). It was designed specifically for their line of smartphones.

• Windows Phone: This was a series of proprietary mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft. It was the successor to Windows Mobile and was a closed system.

• While Android has a proprietary user interface and many apps that are not open source (like Google Mobile Services), its core is based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), making it fundamentally different from the other options which are completely proprietary.