Ah, this is the news we’ve all been waiting for (well, it’s old news already but I had more urgent matters to attend to today): Ice Cream Sandwich is definitely going to be released as open source. I still think not releasing Honeycomb’s source code is a massive cop-out, but at least this is something.
What can you do with the source, once you get it? Can you make changes, compile it, and then put it on your phone and use the changes?
Of course. Depending on your ability to configure and compile it for your phone, naturally. Some phones have locked and encrypted bootloaders. Some encrypted and locked bootloaders have been cracked. Some (most) phones with encrypted and locked bootloaders can still load modified binaries, and so on.
In the end, there’s a lot you can do with the code, if you have knowledge.
Personally, I use Android 2.3.7 on a phone with a locked and encrypted bootloader that never had an official Android release beyond 2.1.
If you have the source code for Android, then you can do something like this:
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-apps/2011/02/08/alien-dalvik-bri…
This means you could, perhaps, have a full Linux OS + Plasma Active desktop on a tablet, for example, yet still use the same OS plus Alien Dalvik to run Android apps as well if you wished.
http://plasma-active.org/
http://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-active-one/
Then you would get a “Google apps” tablet that could also easily double as your desktop (if you plugged in a keyboard and a decent screen). Best of both worlds for the price of one device.
AFAIK you simply can’t do anything like this with iOS or WP7.
Edited 2011-10-22 02:16 UTC
Would be interesting to see that with something like the Always Innovating Smartbook http://alwaysinnovating.com/products/smartbook.htm Though I’ve not been able to find any actual reviews of their hardware. Though a tablet with a detachable KB and dual screen capability sounds pretty awesome.
But nobody cares except for you.
Everyone manufacturer that matters will use Android and customize it a little bit, not really f–k about with it big style because their devs will tell the manager it ain’t worth the bother.
Stop being a KDE-$hill.
Also nobody that uses iOS or WP7 cared about your super KDE tablet … we want to make phone calls and check our mails thanks … 😉 …
trollololo.
Edited 2011-10-23 01:10 UTC
Of course, if you don’t happen to like KDE and Plasma Active with Calligra Active, since the source code of Android is available I’m prety sure you can just use another “alien” OS on which to run Alien Dalvik and thereby Android apps.
For example, Meego on the Nokia N9 (whith which one can check email and make phone calls) could use Alien Dalvik to run Android apps.
http://www.osnews.com/story/25250/Nokia_s_N9_Swan_Song_Be_Still_My_…
Such a shame that Meego has been scuttled.
PS: right back at you.
Why are you always on the KDE bandwagon … constantly?
It gets old and boring …
Meego, Mer, Tizen and the Nokia N9 are not KDE.
http://www.merproject.org/
This is OSNews, and these are OS subjects being discussed. It is what one would expect posts on this site to be about.
Why are you always complaining about anything that doesn’t fit with your apparent more-profit-for-Microsoft and one-size-fits-all agendas? It gets old and boring.
Hey, I have got a semi-on-topic piece of news that is bound to irritate you:
http://dot.kde.org/2011/10/24/plasma-active-arm
“In a cooperative effort, the Mer team and the basysKom integrators have succeeded in booting a Plasma Active image on NVidia Tegra 2 devices, opening the door bringing Plasma Active to a wider range of hardware. The image is based on Mer, a successor to the MeeGo operating system.”
One step closer to Plasma Active plus Android (via Alien Dalvik) on the one (tablet) device.
Sweet.
Edited 2011-10-24 23:34 UTC
I get tired of the constant pro linux brigade spamming every thread on pretty much every tech site.
I like Microsoft products … because they work. Windows has been the leading desktop Platform for years … for some very good reasons that you can’t seem to grasp or unwilling to admit because it doesn’t fit your rhetoric.
I am quite decent at using *nix based operating systems, Redhat Linux, IRIX, Solaris, OpenBSD … I am quite familiar with. And I still find Linux a PITA.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/diy-it/why-ive-finally-had-it-with-my-lin…
This guy is having problems and he has contributed kernel code.
Not really … KDE team doesn’t annoy me (I used to use KDE 3.5), it is your constant spamming of every thread with KDE evangelism.
Au contraire, through various circumstances I end up running both Windows systems and Linux systems every single day, and I have done so for years. I also have occasion to fix problems on both Windows systems and Linux systems. Every time I have had to fix a system which has been compromised, it has been a Windows system.
In any direct and practical head-to-head comparison, Linux is the superior system by quite a margin. The criteria by which Linux is superior include cost, stability (in terms of up time), security, performance and ease-of-use. Without doubt there is more choice of applications for Windows but that barely matters when every application area (for the majority of users) is well covered in Linux. The fact that almost all malware and malicious attacks are written to attack Windows is not the fault of Windows itself, but this fact is still pertinent to people’s actual use of their systems. In the real world, malware is a Windows-only problem.
Finally, from a “people’s systems” point of view, there is the often-ignored but nevertheless important point of ownership of the system. The system, not just the hardware. People do not own the software on their systems, but users must rent Windows and there exist anti-user features within it (such as WGA, DRM, rent-seeking codecs, lock-in proprietary formats and protocols, etc). In addition, via a EULA agreement, Windows carries a significant legal risk if proof of having paid that rent is not available, and users can be subject to audits. The software for Linux systems, OTOH, is written by its users, there is no EULA, and every person on the planet has permission (via its license) to run as many copies as they desire on any hardware under any circumstances for any purpose.
If you believe Microsoft products work good for you, but by any sane objective criteria GNU/Linux/FOSS products work far better, for people.
Edited 2011-10-26 00:08 UTC
Just on this topic, there are a couple of points to ponder.
The first point is the enormous COST of the rent-seeking behaviour of proprietary software vendors to ordinary people, and to the economy as a whole.
http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/opinion/all-patents-are-theft/
The second point is about who should be in control of what people can (or cannot) do with their own equipment.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111021/11554216450/eu-politician…
Proprieatry “trusted computing” software is so 1984.
FTFY
Edited 2011-10-26 09:56 UTC
FTFY
Edited 2011-10-26 10:03 UTC
xda-developers…. check it out.
If you don’t have knowledge to use the source, other probably does. So if you are not able to modify/fix/extend your system by yourself, there are plenty of ROMs with “hacked” Android for your device. With new version of Android in your old phone you may have more opportunities to use and enjoy your device (use your native language, play games, use better apps, etc).
I dunno about a phone, but I’ll definitely be dual-booting it on my HP Touchpad!
I’ve already got the Alpha2 Touchpad CyanogenMod7 (Android 2.3.7/gingerbread) running on it – and it’s working pretty good
Well, at least you can take a look at it and figure out how it works.
you should let your marketing department to compare it with a closed source-platform so that it looks cool…<Google>
of course you can always sue < Microsoft, Apple, Oracle,>
you can install it on your own hardware, modifying it by adding some “crapware” , thinking that you are differentiating yourself from other vendors who are doing exactly the same think<samsung,sony-ericson, htc.etc style>
you can fork it and never mention that the os on your reading devices is android<Amazon>
you can look, learn from the code and even install it on you device < advanced user>
you can change the wallpaper on your device without worrying because you have learned that this OS is “open source” < simple user>
Tom, are you familiar with how version control works? ICS is Honeycomb + some delta. It does not make any sense saying that the Honeycomb source code will not be released. maybe it won’t be formally released in the sense that there will be a specific tag for it, but the code will all be there (except, possibly, code that has simply been made completelly obsolete by ICS).
Of course I know that. I don’t mean they should release the Honeycomb code NOW, I mean they should not have not released it in the first place.
Are you stupid?
You can’t build honeycomb easily … if at all now. It isn’t the same source and you cannot build the same thing.
Really?
No, I am not stupid. You, on the other hand, seems to be a pretty big effort to show that you are.
How exactly can you say that “you can’t build honeycomb easily” when you have absolutelly *NO* idea in which form the code will be released?
And even if, by chance, you happen to be right, why exactly what I said is suddenly not true? ICS is Honeycomb + delta so, as I said, all the honeycomb code will be there except for code made completelly obsolte by ICS.
So it isn’t honey comb … it is ICS. Just because it contains some code that was in honeycomb doesn’t mean you are getting honeycomb … you are getting ICS.
Have you ever worked with any version control system? They way they (well, most at least) work is that they are a collection of deltas and, because, of that, you can find every single version that ever existed.
If Google does a single code drop without the intermediary deltas then, yes, it will technically be something else (but something else that is honeycomb improved).
*BUT* (and this is a big but) this is not what Google did with previous versions.
You can find it but it would be a PITA to go through the whole thing to find the whole of honeycomb unless it was branched.
Edited 2011-10-23 11:06 UTC
That may or may not be true (depending on the version being tagged or not). But even if it is not (and assuming the code drop will include all deltas) the entire Honeycomb code would be there so, yes, the honeycomb code would have been fully released.
I guess we will just have to wait and see (well, I don’t, but this is a difefrent matter). The code should be available soon enough.
I was wondering.
In the earlier release of the Android source code, how much // explanatory notes was there.
I saw on some Foss projects that the notes can sometimes make out 20% or more of the file size of the actual file size.
How usefull will such code be to the intermediate programmer without notes?
Very useful. just think of the experience you will have analyzing the source!