Android Ice Cream Sandwich Source Released 285
grcumb writes "Looks like the folks at Google have made good on their promise to release the Android 4.0 source code. Android software engineer Jean-Baptiste Queru writes: 'Hi! We just released a bit of code we thought this group might be interested in. Over at our Android Open-Source Project git servers, the source code for Android version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is now available. ... This is actually the source code for version 4.0.1 of Android, which is the specific version that will ship on the Galaxy Nexus, the first Android 4.0 device. In the source tree, you will find a device build target named "full_maguro" that you can use to build a system image for Galaxy Nexus. Build configurations for other devices will come later.' "
Once nice side-effect of this is that the revision history for the non-free Honeycomb series is also available, albeit without any release tags.
GitHub (Score:5, Informative)
GitHub provides a friendly interface to view the source without having to use the repo tool and downloading the whole thing, so I'm eagerly waiting for this to get pushed there as well. Shouldn't take long.
https://github.com/android/ [github.com]
Re:Show me the source. (Score:5, Informative)
Talk to these guys:
http://www.android-x86.org/
Re:Good to see... (Score:2, Informative)
Huh? Google was supposed to release source code for Android? Pretty sure that counts as extra.
When you build off of GPL software you're legally obligated to release the modifications, so yeah, Google releasing a significant portion of Android is not "extra" it is the minimum required by law. That's not to say they did not also release some code they did not strictly have to, but since they had promised to do so, changing their mind at this stage would have been willfully misleading consumers and partners.
Re:Good to see... (Score:5, Informative)
When you build off of GPL software you're legally obligated to release the modifications, so yeah, Google releasing a significant portion of Android is not "extra" it is the minimum required by law.
Only if you distribute binaries, which Google never did. Of course, the manufacturers did release binaries, so they did distribute the GPL'ed code from their websites. For example, you could always find Honeycomb's kernel code on the ASUS website [asus.com].
That's not to say they did not also release some code they did not strictly have to, but since they had promised to do so, changing their mind at this stage would have been willfully misleading consumers and partners.
But they weren't obligated to promise it in the first place.
Re:Don't be kissing Googles ass (Score:5, Informative)
They had no other choice legally, or else this wouldn't have happened.
Uh, no. First, they never distributed binaries, so they weren't required to release anything.
Second, the parts that *were* required to be released (by the manufacturers, not Google) were in fact released, and you could always get them. They're in the ASUS site, for example.
Thirdly, most of the code that actually makes up Android is Apache2 licensed, which means they are never required to release it - you can use it on proprietary code.
Can I type make install? Or are we still in tivo land?
That's up to the manufacturers, not Google.
Re:Good to see... (Score:5, Informative)
Samsung was still legally the distributor, and they did in fact release the GPLv2 licensed code on their website (search for "D710" on https://opensource.samsung.com/index.jsp [samsung.com], for example).
Re:Show me the source. (Score:5, Informative)
"To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs," says Andy Rubin, vice-president for engineering at Google and head of its Android group. "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut."
Rubin says that if Google were to open-source the Honeycomb code now, as it has with other versions of Android at similar periods in their development, it couldn't prevent developers from putting the software on phones "and creating a really bad user experience. We have no idea if it will even work on phones."
Re:Good to see... (Score:2, Informative)
Of course they can do anything they like with their code.Free software advocates do not propose to make it illegal to withhold your own source code. The issue is related to what is best for the customer. Free software advocates feel that free software is better for the customer than software that isn't free. Especially when you are talking about an OS, it is also better for 3rd party software developers to have access to the source code (this much should be obvious to anyone).
The issue of whether or not Google is "supposed to" release the source code, I think it is not much of an argument. From the beginning they promised to release source code. I don't think anyone was under the impression that they would only release source code for some versions. Everyone thought they would release source code for all the versions. As a third party developer, it's a bit of a slap in the face to commit to a platform on the assumption that it is free, only to find that you can't get access to some versions. To the extent that many people backed Android because Google promised to release the source code, Google is "supposed" to release the source code.
Now that they have finally done so, personally I'm happy. I'm still concerned that at some point in the future they will do the same thing, so I have difficulty backing them as much as I did in the past.
Re:Good to see... (Score:4, Informative)
ICS is designed to work nicely on both phones and tablets. Google knew that 2.x was not really ideal for tablets, hence Honeycomb. But forking their own OS was not ideal, either, so ICS now combines the best of both and should provide a great experience on either format.
Re:Good to see... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it isn't missing in action. The ICS source tree includes the honeycomb code, even though it isn't tagged... So, technically, it's there.
Re:Not until the "incompleteness" is stated (Score:5, Informative)
Well, for starters, Apple used to release all their intrusive changes to KHTML as a single patch, which made it impossible to discern what had changed and therefore "impossible" to integrate back upstream. Google has released the repository itself, with proper change history, of all the code they have been working on. That's quite a big difference, so stop spreading FUD.
Only kernel is GPL (Score:5, Informative)
The point usually made is that this applies to the android kernel source, which has indeed been promptly released directly to the kernel developers (and for download for anyone who cares). Much more promptly, by the way, than required by the licence.
It does *NOT* apply to the full android system, nor will it ever. Android itself (the various subprojects have separate licences, which I think you'll find, are all proprietary).
Just distributing a linux kernel running distribution does *not* make it GPL.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-torvalds-on-android-the-linux-fork/9426 [zdnet.com]
They already released the GPL'd stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Google did release all of Android Honycomb that was GPL'd. In particular the Kernel, and a few other userland tools. However, everything that makes Andrioid Android, and not just another linux distro is licensed under the Apache license which allows for proprietary modifications. This includes the Dalvik VM, the Harmony Java libraries, and the Android APIs. Google was perfectly with the law to not release this code, not to mention the fact that they wrote half of it themselves.
This has already been discussed ad'nausem on Slashdot, so there is no excuse for this misinformation to be moderated up. I swear only idiots that hardly read the site get moderation points anymore.
Mmph (Score:2, Informative)
Not GPL, Apache2 license (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They already released the GPL'd stuff (Score:2, Informative)
There's a tremendous amount of FUD being spread about key competitors. As you've noted, the "Android's not really free/libre" is one of the FUD talking points.
Uh, well, it's not, really. The Apache license (as well as BSD licenses) make no requirement that the source be provided, so they're not really "free software" licenses in the "freedom" sense... They're certainly not opensource licenses since they make no requirement that the source be open. They're basically just free-as-in-beer distribution licenses; you can share the binaries all you want, but you can't really change them, because nobody is obligated to give you the source to go with those binaries.
Re:Good to see... (Score:5, Informative)
Were you really worried that Google wouldn't release Ice Cream Sandwich's source code because they didn't release Honeycomb's? The reasons for holding back HC were openly stated and quite equitable... Could you have imagined the chaos resulting from people trying to hack a tablet-only OS into their smartphone with half the phone functionality, and everything that makes the form factor work, missing completely?
Also: Ice Cream Sandwich practically *is* Honeycomb, but ready for public release due to being suitable for phone AND tablet form factors...
Re:Show me the source. (Score:5, Informative)
7" LCD with a resistive touchscreen. 800X480 resolution is more than enough for a car display.