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Android Source Code Gone For Good?
First time accepted submitter vyrus128 writes "Many people were upset at the revelation, reported here in May, that the Honeycomb version of Android would not be open sourced. But Google promised that the next version, Ice Cream Sandwich, would have full source available. Now that ICS is out, though, the source is nowhere in sight. In the thread, Android's Jean-Baptiste Queru offers the following, as to the question of whether source will ever be made available: 'At the moment I don't have anything to say on that subject.'"
http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/c73c14f9b0dcd15a?pli=1
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Wait, so the fact that the OS was announced 24 hours ago, its not been released on any phone/device/etc yet and people are STILL whining that the source is not released?! I want their time machine!
This is a dumb news story. History has shown that the source release hits the AOSP shortly after the update is pushed to phones (presumably to protect against any major flaws before it is rolled out to devs).
SDK has been released, SDK Roms should be out soon and by December ICS source should be under heavy development for CM 8 and other roms if history is any indicator.
Google reported on the live stream last night plans to put the ICS source up, something they said they had no plans to do with Honeycomb.
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> "Now that ICS is out" Wow. What has happened to Slashdot? ICS is not out. The first device, the Galaxy Nexus, doesn't get released until next month. And Google did announce ASOP would be released once it is released to the first ICS devices. Basically, everything posted was incorrect. Nice try though
This is FUD based on nothing. Google has said for quite some time that Gingerbread was available, that Honeycomb would be closed and only suited for tablets and that Ice Cream Sandwich would have the source available once it was released. Google was true to their word and everything for 2.x is available and 3.x is closed. The post linked to in the main article is the sources they are required to release (GPL) now that the Ice Cream Sandwich SDK is available. It should be noted that Ice Cream Sandwich itself as an OS has not been released and is not available on any shipping product. They've already said "We plan to release the source for the recently-announced Ice Cream Sandwich soon, once it’s available on devices." It's not available on devices yet.
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Why should they release the source for an OS that isn't even out in the wild yet? They've already said that the source will be released once the Galaxy Nexus is in stores (probably so that the Nexus is actually the first phone running 4.0. I'm there will be plenty of custom ROMs for other phones/tablets within days of the ICS source being released)
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I welcome that kind of pressure to keep Google honest. Something has to push back against the many pressures to keep Google dishonest, and to keep Android source unavailable. Pressure from the large geek community is good.
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So, essentially, this "story" is nothing more than I-Hate-Google-The-Sky-Is-Falling conspiracy speculation nonsense.
Is Slashdot pandering for page-views?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Fear mongering headlines followed by outright lies in the summaries, and people eat it up...
Or do you happen to know someone who has a device running Honeycomb and was able to follow up on the legal requirement that the source be made available to them?
I haven't followed Google's behavior with the Android source code that closely, but what legal requirement are you talking about? I thought Android was Apache licensed?
Regardless of Android's license, there is no legal requirement for Google to release any code except portions to which they do not hold the copyright and are licensed (to Google) under viral conditions (i.e. GPL). Google's own code (as long as it is not classified as a derivative of someone else's work under the GPL), even if it was released under the GPL (or any open source license) in the past, does not have to be provided freely because Google is the copyright holder and therefore is not subject to the license as if they were a licensee.
As far as I'm aware, Google is adhering to any licensing terms that they are subject to. They also open source some of their own code, as well. Non-story.
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4.0 is out? Where? The first phone running 4.0 (the Galaxy Nexus) doesn't come out til next month.
You can run ICS quite happily in the android emulator from the SDK right now. So, yeah, it's out.
The source isn't out yet, but Google's been very specific that it will be released in the next few weeks ("We plan to release the source for the recently-announced Ice Cream Sandwich soon, once it’s available on devices") just as Gingerbread was.
This post is a joke -- it focuses on the comments on an engineer who has nothing to do with the ICS code release, and says as much. However, some people seem so convinced that Google's gone full-evil that they're jumping on every "no comment".
Don't /. editors check stories for troll submissions these days?
Quoting JBQ's post from today: "yes, that means ICS will be coming to AOSP".
https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/HB5qQHeNKBQ