Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Android Honeycomb Will Not Be Open Sourced

Posted by timothy on from the hard-to-see-the-harm-really dept.

At the ongoing Google I/O conference in San Francisco, Google today officially announced the next version of Android, named Ice Cream Sandwich, as well as Android 3.1, an "incremental platform release" of Honeycomb. An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to understand the landscape for developers, Andy Rubin was asked if, since Ice Cream Sandwich would be open, Android 3.0 and/or 3.1 will be granted the same courtesy. Rubin answered definitively in the negative. Honeycomb on its own would not be open, because its phone functionality is very broken. Ice Cream Sandwich will take all of the Honeycomb functionality and open source it alongside code that is much more universally friendly."

4 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Re:editors already asleep? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    hide behind your chosen pseudonym some more feeb
    you're completely pathetic

  2. Embarrassment rather than dislike of open source by William+Ager · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These comments seem very much to indicate that the source code issue, as I think most people expected, is less of a "we don't want people using this code for their purposes" and more of a "we think this code is horrible and don't want anyone laughing at it." That really suggests that, rather than be upset about the lack of open sources, people should be concerned as to why Google felt it reasonable to release software they're reluctant to release sources to because they're embarrassed.

    Open source also opens organizations to criticism when they try to push out code that isn’t ready, and I think this is very much a problem for Google with Honeycomb.

  3. Re:User perception by markkezner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think the guys who make custom ROMs are significant enough to really be of concern for Android's image, ill conceived as some of those ROMs may be. I think the bigger concern would be careless manufacturers selling bad devices to Joe User. Anyway the people who flash custom ROMs onto their devices generally know they might break some things.

    --
    Dangerous, sexy, turing complete: Femme Bots
  4. Re:User perception by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Informative

    Right, TiVo-ization. That's why Googles own devices are reflashable out of the box, and that's why Android is open source (it doesn't have to be, right?).

    Your bizarre rant might make a shred of sense if Android was heavily based on GPLd code written by other people. Other than the kernel and one or two components, the vast bulk is non-GPLd code written by Google.