Google Android phone OS is "100% open source"

Posted by Joel Johnson, June 3, 2008 5:32 AM |

Android, the upcoming Linux-based mobile operating system from Google, will be completely under open source licenses, reports Ed Burnette.

I confirmed with three different Google employees at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco that the core Android platform will be 100% open source. Even multimedia codecs, which historically are held close to the vest will be open. Except where noted, everything will use the Apache software license (ASL v2). This is the same open source license used by projects like the Apache HTTP server, Tomcat, Harmony, and many other large projects in the open source community.
This is excellent news. An open source phone operating system with the power of Linux but the polish and acumen of Google will be compelling on its own, but for specialized users — say, someone who wanted to build a highly secure mobile phone with heavy encryption — Android will be a great platform on which to build.

Android will be 100% open source, says Google [Blogs.ZDnet.com]

Previously • Video: Google Android phone user interface (looking great!)
• Google Shows Off GMaps Street View on Android
• Google Phone: It's "Android," a Mobile OS, Not Hardware

posted in: Phones and Wireless
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Discussion

Take a look at this
#1 posted by Anonyman , June 3, 2008 6:00 AM

Can't wait. I've been looking for quite a while now for a perfect convergence of phone, GPS, and media player. Currently I'm pinning all that hope on the forthcoming Neo Freerunner, presumably running either Openmoko or Android.Although if Apple makes an iPhone with decent GPS first, I might be tempted to get one of those instead.

Take a look at this
#2 posted by AceJohnny , June 4, 2008 4:41 AM

Right. I'm not entirely familiar with the APL, but what's to prevent the phone manufacturer from Tivo-ing the handset?

This was actually an important reason for the creation of the GPLv3, and I think it's extremely notable that Google chose the APL instead.

Tivo-ing (named after the guys who most visibly applied the concept...) means that, even though you have the source code of what's running on your device, you can't get the device to run anything else than the digitally signed binaries approved by the manufacturer. Hence, you can't do all that cool tinkering and improving of the code that Free Software allows.

I reserve my enthusiasm, though I still believe that Android is an awesome opportunity in the realm of smartphones. I'm just being carefully cynical.

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