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Google Opens Up Android Codebase
rsk writes "It's official: Google has Open Sourced Android. The source code can be downloaded from Android's Git repository. Bugs are handled at the Google Code Android project page with documentation being handled by a collection of Google Site pages. One of the more interesting aspects of Android seems to be the seemingly Eclipse Foundation-like organization of the project, welcoming both Individual and Commercial developers into the Android development pot. One of the benefits of this arrangement is securing the existence of the project by involving commercial interests and their money in the process ... this is also one of the downsides; having commercial entities charter and lead features of a platform that their own commercial offerings provide 'enhanced' versions of, sometimes leaving the free offering always lacking in one obvious way or another. It's hard to say at this point how involved Google will be in this process, or the Open Handset Alliance in general, with managing the health of sub-projects under the Android umbrella as time goes on."
Weird.... Google said the bluetooth decision was theirs due to stability.
There is a Skype voice App in the G1 Marketplace.
File transfer? You have Mass Storage, You can attach files to emails. There is no limitation I am aware of in android which would forbid a p2p application which uses the memory card.
But I'm sure you're right. It's a conspiracy by TMobile to not offer... what is it you want again that you aren't getting? It's not like exchange missing is a conspiracy. The G1 is missing quite a bit of stuff but I would wager it's a result of development resources being insufficient not intentional desires to offer less.
One important aspect of being 'open' is whether you favor your customers or the carriers.
I see evidence of this distinction in support for bluetooth API's: the stronger and more customer oriented phone manufacturers support bluetooth API's (which makes many interesting applications possible). On the other hand, when carriers have a stronger role in designing a phone - this comes up particularly for CDMA phones - then the bluetooth API's are dropped or postponed.
So I was quite shocked to see that Android v1.0 does not support bluetooth API's!
I know that Google has claimed that they didn't have time to get the bluetooth API's into v1.0, but that is just the sort of thing that companies will tell us when they change plans due to carrier pressure. The BREW environment (for CDMA phones) has been playing this game for years: continually telling developers that bluetooth support was just around the corner.
I sure hope that Google doesn't play the same game with us. I really want this to be an open and powerful platform.
This isn't just the OS. This is the OS and the SDK. The tools are the major component of the download. There's a whole android emulator included. :P The OS itself is a couple hundred megs of linux.
There are lives at stake here!
Uh, if you read Google's releases, it wasn't T-Mobile castrating those features, it was limitations of releasing a bug free 1.0, and they've promised more bluetooth functionality in later API and OS releases. T-Mobile has not neutered the bluetooth functionality on their other smartphones, why would they do it on the one device they're touting so well as 'open'?
- oZ
// i am here.
I wouldn't say the Freerunner is "light years" behind the G1. The CPU is an earlier revision of the ARM architecture, there's plenty of memory, the phone has WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, accelerometers, a nice VGA resolution screen, it supports uSD cards for storage... And the hardware is as open and documented as any GSM phone is ever likely to be - more than the G1, most likely.
The reason earlier attempts to port the Android stack to the Freerunner failed was that the source wasn't available, and the binaries Google provided were compiled for ARMv5, not ARMv4. With the source now being available, there's a good chance Android will run on the Freerunner.
One of the reasons we chose git was to make sure that we can't do that sort of blocking. While obviously the Core Technical Team can control what winds up in the master repositories, part of the reason we chose a distributed revision control system was to make sure that ultimately we can't block new ideas and new features.
If you'd like to chat more, come by #android on FreeNode.
(obDisclosure: I work in the Open Source Programs Office at Google)
We need to port this thing to all kinds of devices
An open source platform for mobile phones isn't any good at all if there isn't a open hardware platform to run it on.
I seem to recall some chatter on the OpenMoko Community mailing lists. They'd love to have already ported Android to their open hardware but there was no ARM4 binaries available to play with. I'm sure that with this source release I'll be able to boot Android on my Freerunner sometime this year.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
there's a good chance Android will run on the Freerunner.
So much of a good chance in fact that Koolu is committing to shipping their FreeRunners with Android installed starting in November.
the HTC Vogue might be running similar hardware to the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1). either way, HTC is a member of the Open Handset Alliance, and they make a lot of popular carrier re-branded handsets. so you might be able to run Android on many of those devices.
the HTC Vogue/Touch uses the TI OMAP 850 processor while the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1 is running on a Qualcomm MSM7201A ARM11. so other HTC phones running on, either Texas Instrument's OMAP or Qualcomm's MSM line processors, should support Android as well. in fact, all HTC phones run on either TI, Qualcomm, Intel, or Samsung processors. and it just so happens that TI, Qualcomm, Intel, and Samsung are all members of the Open Handset Alliance. so i wouldn't be surprised if all HTC handsets eventually supported the Android platform.
that's the power of having a strong cross-industry alliance supporting open standards. i think Android has a very good chance of dominating the cellphone market and potentially revolutionizing the industry.