Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 21st Oct 2008 16:26 UTC, submitted by rkalla
It's official, Google has Open Sourced Android. The initial release of the source code is available via Google's Git repository with bugs, FAQs, documentation, etc. handled via Android's Google Code project page. Android's licensing structure and project organization seems to be trying to create something akin to the Eclipse Foundation, mixing individual and commercial interests into a development pot for the collective benefit of the platform on a whole.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Oh gotcha... I see what you mean, my comparison to BB (Controlled device, Controlled OS) isn't a great example.
I'd actually expect Android to function very similary to how Eclipse works. When you consider all the commercial products built ontop of Eclipse *theoretically* you are suppose to keep API compatability and drop in new replacements of the platform under your product, but that never happens, not with something *that* big. There are always API breaks, even in the patch releases, so big ISVs tend to normalize on a single version, ship their product on that version and then refresh it about a year later.
Look at WebSphere/IBM, I think they are on a 2-year refresh cycle with WebSphere IDE.
It's the unfortunate side effect of having a big open community like that with tons of contributors with no choke-point to guarantee compatibility... nor could they do that either I don't think, unless they've written impressive tools to audit code checked in?
Not sure.