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Android and the Linux Kernel Community

Posted by timothy on from the cathedral-in-the-bazaar dept.

An anonymous reader links to Greg Kroah-Hartman's explanation of a rift (hopefully mendable) in the development culture of Google's Linux-based Android OS and the Linux kernel itself. "As the Android kernel code is now gone from the Linux kernel, as of the 2.6.33 kernel release, I'm starting to get a lot of questions about what happened, and what to do next with regards to Android. So here's my opinion on the whole matter ..."

3 of 354 comments (clear)

  1. One sentence to say it all... by Jorl17 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Because of this, Google has now prevented a large chunk of hardware drivers and platform code from ever getting merged into the main kernel tree. Effectively creating a kernel branch that a number of different vendors are now relying on."

    That's all. It's obvious that Google doesn't care about it that much. And yet nobody demanded them to do so -- if Google wants it its own way, why shouldn't it be able to?
    I may be a crazy open-source lunatic, but I am tired of all of this "It's a world conspiracy against Linux"-thing. Let's get a grip, talk less and code more.

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  2. Re:Google by Colin+Smith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is that why we already succeeded at Year Of Linux On Desktop back in 2003?

    Haven't you noticed? The desktop is irrelevant. It's been abstracted to an Internet access platform. It's the phone in the pocket which is the current battleground, and Linux has won that already.

     

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  3. Re:Google by Microlith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And how is Android not open? The entire thing is FOSS.

    I wondered that myself when looking into the N900, and the explanation as to why Android is not open is because while it is Open Source, it does not have an open community.

    If you look at the OHA FAQ, they explain why an open platform is good for everyone EXCEPT the end-user. Unless you mistake who your customer is, you'd realize that the end-user's input is just as important as those who apply your OS to their device. Both the OHA and the cell vendors make that mistake, as the OHA thinks the user of Android is the handset maker, who themselves think their customer is the carrier. The only true customer is the person who pays for and uses the device in the end, and they should be able to have input into their device and its OS should they care.