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Android 4.0 Source Code Coming "Soon"
itwbennett writes "Good news today for those of you who have been waiting for news about whether Google would be opening up the ICS source and for those of you who thought it was gone for good. Android engineer Dan Morrill revealed new information in the Android Building Google group yesterday evening, saying that Google plans 'to release the source for the recently-announced Ice Cream Sandwich soon, once it's available on devices.'"
I can predict the next story already: "Android 4.0 Source Code Coming Any Day Now".
Followed by "Android 4.0 Source Code Coming Tomorrow".
After that there will be "Android 4.0 Source Code Coming Today".
Followed on the same day by "Android 4.0 Source Code Just Released".
And the next day "Android 4.0 Source Code Released Yesterday".
Closing with "Android 4.0 Source Code Release Confirmed".
So... please dump your comments to any of those below here and /. can skip posting them and post some actual news instead.
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Open Source doesn't mean "I'll release the source for this because I think it's useful to you" or "I'll not release the source to this, because we don't want you to hurt yourself, even though we're claiming that it's as easy as "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git. kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make""
Open Source means you release the source. Plain and simple.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Did you even read the summary? They haven't said anything about making sure it's stable (which doesn't mean they haven't done so, before any trolls leap on that), but they have said they're waiting until the devices are released. Probably because they don't want people's first impression of Ice Cream Sandwich to be a barely functional custom ROM with half the drivers missing.
which is totally what she said
The big question has been, since 'Ice Cream Sandwich', whether it would continue to be closed development/open source, or whether it would go closed entirely, except for a few GPL-obligated kernel bits...
No, that's never been a question for anyone other then the conspiracy minded. Google has been extremely clear and consistent about their reason for not releasing Honeycomb's source and about continuing with the open sourcing of Android as soon as the code base is fixed in ICS.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Personally, I agree with their decisions. If something's going to be crap, don't release it until it's fixed.
Don't be taking a holier-than-thou stance and say you're open and the competition is closed though.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
I think the confusion is between Open Source, and Open Development.
The id Tech engines are usually released as open source after several years in use as closed source. But when it's released it's still 100% "Open Source".
Google + android = open source fail.
At least with Apple you generally know where you stand.........(what did I just say!??)
Steve Jobs says:'I'm going to destroy Android': - Jobs declared 'thermonuclear war' on Google
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/im-going-to-destroy-android-jobs-declared-thermonuclear-war-on-google-20111021-1mbaq.html#ixzz1bPhM8NJY
Now the source code to android is open everyone on the planet can get IOS features (and more). We're way ahead because of Google.
No need to be an apologist for Apple. They've got enough cash to keep you in new shiny gadgets for at least 10 years. The rest of us can build and play with linux and android.
Don't be taking a holier-than-thou stance and say you're open and the competition is closed though.
Except that they are holier than either Apple or MS -- they are releasing their code base as open source (and not doing anything to stop AOSP-based ROMs).
And here's the thing: even if Google turned around tomorrow and said that they were never going to release any more source code, period, it wouldn't matter: people such as the CM team would continue to develop the existing code, and we'd still have a fully-functional open sourced phone OS running on top of linux. That used to be every geek's dream five years ago, and we've got it in spades. You don't need any closed source (Google) code to run a fully-functional Android system -- the only things you'll miss out on without the Google apps is a native Gmail client (which doesn't matter, as you still get the native email client OSS) and the Market (which doesn't matter because you can side-load apps, and even use a marketplace like GetJar's if you want to have a market interface). There is no way you could claim that iOS or WP7 provide anything like this level of openness or freedom.
To me, that's worth a few brownie points for Google any day, and Android definitely gets my vote in the OS-of-choice awards.
Nokia owns Navteq (they sell map data). With focus on Android this asset would be wasted. They provide an offline navigation software. Incidentally I'm working on the location where this software is implemented. This would have been wasted as well. Nokia has a business unit around location based services. This is direct competition to Google and would have been wasted. OTOH, Bing maps is already using Navteq data for some time, MS and Nokia are both cooperating with Yahoo for quite some time, etc. All this is public available information, and I think it is enough reason to turn down Android. So I think it was rather a decision of building the own ecosystem for MeeGo faster or going for WP.
Of course the 1Billion did not hurt either, and I can imagine that Elop did have some good contacts to MS which helped building up the trust for negotiations. But I don't think this was the decisive issue.
Trolling is a art!
They've said this from the start, but Open Source means you can get the source, and they're not giving the source, which means that an entire release is not Open Source. Maybe every other version of Android is, but those with those devices are running a non-Open-Source version of Android, period, the end. Clear and consistent? Clearly, consistently, not Open Source, until they release the source, at least to their customers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"