Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
1–10 of 82 posts
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#2Google's recalcitrance appears to stem from two issues: one is that Honeycomb is specifically designed for large-screen devices and Google is concerned that, if released, it would find its way onto unsuitable form factors; the other, hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication.
I'm not sure why Google caught so much slack for keeping 3.0 closed source. I found these to be great reasons and instead of dealing with a bunch of HoneyComb/Android SUCKS reviews when someone put honeycomb on a small screen device google just weathered it out and released something with some quality.
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#3Google's recalcitrance appears to stem from two issues: one is that Honeycomb is specifically designed for large-screen devices and Google is concerned that, if released, it would find its way onto unsuitable form factors; the other, hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication. I'm not sure why Google caught so much slack for keeping 3.0 closed source. I…
> hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication.
Sounds like their were embarassed about the quality of their code.
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#4Google's recalcitrance appears to stem from two issues: one is that Honeycomb is specifically designed for large-screen devices and Google is concerned that, if released, it would find its way onto unsuitable form factors; the other, hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication. I'm not sure why Google caught so much slack for keeping 3.0 closed source. I…
They got lambasted for not releasing Honeycomb because "open" is one of their largest marketing platforms and the reason many people use Android. I'm glad they're going to release ICS source at some point, but can anyone be sure they'll continue to publish code for future versions? That kind of uncertainty diminishes their claims of "open" greatly in my mind.
Also, a tiny nit about the headline - it's not open source until they actually release it. Who knows when that will be.
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#5Google's recalcitrance appears to stem from two issues: one is that Honeycomb is specifically designed for large-screen devices and Google is concerned that, if released, it would find its way onto unsuitable form factors; the other, hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication. I'm not sure why Google caught so much slack for keeping 3.0 closed source. I…
They're fine reasons, I just think it's lame to tout how "open" they are when in practice, it's more like "open when we think it's a good idea".
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#6Google's recalcitrance appears to stem from two issues: one is that Honeycomb is specifically designed for large-screen devices and Google is concerned that, if released, it would find its way onto unsuitable form factors; the other, hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication. I'm not sure why Google caught so much slack for keeping 3.0 closed source. I…
hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication.
They could have used some help from the opensource community to clean up the kludge....but they don't take pushes from anyone not Google.
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#7Do we have a term to distinguish between the two different models of open source? The two models being the "development in public" model (Chrome, Firefox, Rails, etc) and the "release finished code" model (Android, most GPL components of closed source software, etc).
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#8Google's recalcitrance appears to stem from two issues: one is that Honeycomb is specifically designed for large-screen devices and Google is concerned that, if released, it would find its way onto unsuitable form factors; the other, hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication. I'm not sure why Google caught so much slack for keeping 3.0 closed source. I…
They're fine reasons, I just think it's lame to tout how "open" they are when in practice, it's more like "open when we think it's a good idea".
According to this[1] data Honeycomb is [1] http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#9Do we have a term to distinguish between the two different models of open source? The two models being the "development in public" model (Chrome, Firefox, Rails, etc) and the "release finished code" model (Android, most GPL components of closed source software, etc).
Cathedral and Bazaar works here
Re: Google confirms Android 4.0 ICS is open source
#10Google's recalcitrance appears to stem from two issues: one is that Honeycomb is specifically designed for large-screen devices and Google is concerned that, if released, it would find its way onto unsuitable form factors; the other, hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication. I'm not sure why Google caught so much slack for keeping 3.0 closed source. I…
hinted at by Google employees in the past, is that much of the code is a kludge unsuitable for publication. They could have used some help from the opensource community to clean up the kludge....but they don't take pushes from anyone not Google.
This just isn't true. I know for a fact JBQ has reviewed patches (and gotten relevant engineers to review things) that have made it into AOSP. The Android team does pre-push code review using Gerrit, and they often lack the personnel to review every change that comes in. As a result, patches sometimes (perhaps often?) wither on the vine before anyone can code review them.
Also: many potential contributors are scared off by the contributor license agreement required by AOSP. Patch contributions without the CLA can't even be reviewed.
As for not releasing honeycomb, look at releasing the kludged code from their perspective. They probably didn't want phones released from HC that wasn't ready for phone use, thus giving them a bad name when awful "Android Honeycomb Phones" hit the market.