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Google Opens Up Android Codebase
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:00 PM
from the now-even-more-open-sourced dept.
from the now-even-more-open-sourced dept.
rsk writes "It's official: Google has Open Sourced Android. The source code can be downloaded from Android's Git repository. Bugs are handled at the Google Code Android project page with documentation being handled by a collection of Google Site pages. One of the more interesting aspects of Android seems to be the seemingly Eclipse Foundation-like organization of the project, welcoming both Individual and Commercial developers into the Android development pot. One of the benefits of this arrangement is securing the existence of the project by involving commercial interests and their money in the process ... this is also one of the downsides; having commercial entities charter and lead features of a platform that their own commercial offerings provide 'enhanced' versions of, sometimes leaving the free offering always lacking in one obvious way or another. It's hard to say at this point how involved Google will be in this process, or the Open Handset Alliance in general, with managing the health of sub-projects under the Android umbrella as time goes on."
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Let the porting begin! (Score:5, Interesting)
We need to port this thing to all kinds of devices, and would also be nice to port the framework to run natively so you could develop Android apps that would run natively on Linux.
Re:Let the porting begin! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Let the porting begin! (Score:5, Insightful)
You might be able to port the framework to the iPhone, but you could never release it via the App Store.
Erm, the whole point of porting it is to NOT deal with App Store. We are taking replacing the whole iPhone OS with something else (BSD based OS/X with Linux)
Getting the OS onto iPhone is easy - thats how Jail-breaking process works, the real hard part will be writing the drivers.
Can't wait though - I was very disappointed since I found out G1 does not support AT&T's G3 frequency and that I am stuck with iPhone for a while. Android on iPhone would be a decent cancellation prize - at least until better hardware that works with AT&T and runs Android comes out. ....wonder if someone will port it to Treo too? There are number of linux drivers for some of those already.
-EM
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
...cancellation prize...
Word Nazi says you should try using words you know you know instead of ones you think you know. Your consolation prize is a reprimand from an A/C.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to port this thing to all kinds of devices
An open source platform for mobile phones isn't any good at all if there isn't a open hardware platform to run it on. Good luck modifying android and running it on your shiny new phone, tmobile wouldn't let you.
Re:Let the porting begin! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I ran Linux on my xbox for several years but never did anything graphical...it was pointless. I just ran a game server (bf1942).
The most useful thing you can do with the Xbox is run XBMC which is built using illegally acquired XDKs. The hardware can't handle high def sources, but the hardware on the 360 could, and now XBMC is ported to Linux....so where is the Linux on the 360?
And before you talk about Linux on the PS3 let me ju
Re:Let the porting begin! (Score:5, Informative)
We need to port this thing to all kinds of devices
An open source platform for mobile phones isn't any good at all if there isn't a open hardware platform to run it on.
I seem to recall some chatter on the OpenMoko [openmoko.com] Community [openmoko.org] mailing lists [openmoko.org]. They'd love to have already ported Android to their open hardware [openmoko.org] but there was no ARM4 binaries available to play with. I'm sure that with this source release I'll be able to boot Android on my Freerunner [openmoko.org] sometime this year.
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Re:Let the porting begin! (Score:4, Interesting)
The Openmoko isn't ready for prime time at all. It reminds me of using Linux in the nineties--lots of configuring stuff by hand--but at least back then when you got it working it was stable. I'm still getting lots of slowdowns and crashes. The GSM reception drops out every few minutes... sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse depending on the distro you're using and what updates you've applied. Even Qtextended (formerly Qtopia) crashes a lot. I don't think the GSM reception thing is hardware related because I've had it running perfectly before. There are also basic problems like how it doesn't always wake out of suspend when you have a call or a text message, but I think that's been mostly resolved.
Something I discovered the other day was that even if you leave the phone plugged into the wall charger all night you might wake up with a dead battery. Once the battery is charged it starts draining. The best part is that if the battery is completely drained you can't power up the device even when it's plugged in. You actually have to get a new battery if you ever let it completely drain... or have the tools and knowledge to resurrect a dead battery on your own. Thankfully my brother also has a Freerunner so I managed to power on with his battery then swap mine in after it booted.
Watching from the outside it seems like the Openmoko team really lacks leadership. They started working on a GTK+ based system and released it as 2007.2... that one was close to being functional but the GSM parts were unstable. So they started working on ASU (now called 2008.8 or .9) which is a mish-mash of Qtopia ported to X11, Enlightenment and PyGTK. That's what they're focused on right now. But they've also got the project called FreeSmartphone.org, so they have a third distro called FSO. FSO has its own phone stack instead of using the one from Qtopia. Eventually they'll bring the FSO phone stack to 2008.8.
They also just announced that they're going to stop developing the applications they've been working on and focus on stability and reliability of the basic phone functions and suspend/resume. That's the best news I've heard out of the team yet.
Of course there are also community distros. Rasterman releases some of his own experimental builds and so do a few others. There's a distro called Fat and Dirty Openmoko (FDOM) that is just 2008.8 with a bunch of apps installed and some fixes applied. And you can run Debian on it too, but I haven't tried that yet.
As far as applications go, I imagine you could port anything that runs on your Linux desktop to the phone as long as it's not to resource intensive. The phone has X11 and it's even got 3d acceleration.
Right now on my phone the address book, dialer, calendar and sms/email are from Qtopia. I have Pidgin, Pythm (an mplayer front end, untested), Navit and TangoGPS for GPS, Linphone for VoIP (haven't really used it yet). For browsing I've got Minimo 0.2 (it kinda sucks) and Midori (webkit based, just installed it today). And I have Duke Nukem 3d which is controlled by tilting the phone. Sounds like fun, but it's actually a little tiresome. I was thinking of installing Abiword but I don't know how much word processing I'll be doing with the touch screen keyboard.
So I guess to wrap things up you shouldn't get this phone unless you've got money to burn for a cool pocket linux gadget. I still use my cheap Nokia flip phone most days. But the Openmoko is fun to play with and it comes with a really nifty stylus/pen/laser pointer/flash light. Really.
I'll probably try Android on it, but only after someone else releases kernel and rootfs images so I don't have to do much work. I'm still much more interested in the Openmoko platform than in Android because the Openmoko is much closer to a familiar GNU/Linux system than Android ever will be.
One thing that would be nice though is if the market gets flooded with smart phones that boot Linux kernels with all devices working. Because I was thinking that down the line I might buy an Android phone so I can put Debian or an Openmoko derivative on it.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As other people have pointed out, the Freerunner is not a mainstream device and will not be for quite some time, in fact the current revision of the hardware has a number of acknowledged bugs that cannot be worked around in software. The software is hardly beta quality, more like alpha.
My own feelings vary from awe to frustration. We're talking about a handheld device with GSM nad GPS and bluetooth radios that is an order of magnitude more powerful than the first machines I ran linux on. (My first linux mac
Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:2, Interesting)
When G1 was first introduced, it became painfully clear that it was severely hamstrung by the carrier-dictated limitations on software features.
The Bluetooth stack was totally castrated, leaving out not only tethering and PAN, but also voice features, as well as file transfer.
There are a lot of these glaring omissions in G1s software, that were clearly dictated by T-mobile. My question is this... now that Android has been open-sourced, will Google and T-mobile team up to block 3rd parties from filling in th
Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:5, Informative)
Weird.... Google said the bluetooth decision was theirs due to stability.
There is a Skype voice App in the G1 Marketplace.
File transfer? You have Mass Storage, You can attach files to emails. There is no limitation I am aware of in android which would forbid a p2p application which uses the memory card.
But I'm sure you're right. It's a conspiracy by TMobile to not offer... what is it you want again that you aren't getting? It's not like exchange missing is a conspiracy. The G1 is missing quite a bit of stuff but I would wager it's a result of development resources being insufficient not intentional desires to offer less.
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Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:4, Informative)
But I'm sure you're right. It's a conspiracy by TMobile to not offer... what is it you want again that you aren't getting?
(1) A2DP and AVRCP
(2) Bluetooth tethering (can be implemented as a DUN)
These are two things that work fairly well on my WinMo 6.1 (HTC6800) and should be a piece of cake. I would switch to the G1 for those things (and if TMobile had a 3G network comparable to the EVDO revA that I'm on now -- they don't).
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Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:5, Insightful)
They just ran out of time with Bluetooth. They also had to cut stereo bluetooth audio, why would t-mobile want to cut that?
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Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:5, Funny)
They also had to cut stereo bluetooth audio, why would t-mobile want to cut that?
So you would have to buy one phone for each ear.
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Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not the main reason. Apple is trying to encourage the ubiquity of the iPod connector interface, and including A2DP would severely undermine this, as car and electronics manufacturers would just use that to interface with iPods and iPhones instead of the proprietary iPod port. This would put Apple's competitors on much more equal footing with Apple with accessories and 3rd party electronics integration.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is a far more likely reason than any of the others that have been given, because:
1) Apple very likely pull in a fair bit of revenue from 3rd. party accessory manufacturers who license their proprietary iPod connection protocols and logos.
2) iPods are ubiquitous, so those connectors crop up in all sorts of unexpected places, and the fact that Apple won't license the protocols to other MP3 player (and phone) manufacturers means that people who want to use anything that has such a connector have to buy fr
Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:5, Interesting)
It bothers me when people complain about this, because the software is open. Branded versions will always be based on the open version, much the way you see MyEclipse staying in tune with the vanilla eclipse releases. Combine this with the fact that there is existing open hardware available (and opportunities to create more) and this supposed "community" that can put it all together, it leaves me wondering, what is there to complain about?
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No (Score:3, Insightful)
No, carriers want strict control over *your* and *my* devices. You know, the ones we either paid up front for, or the ones we paid out subsidized by our contract.
This bothers me quite a bit.
I want a computer (Score:3, Interesting)
I want my General Purpose computer to be able to fit in my pocket, run whatever programs I want, and be able to make phone calls. Why is that hard or unreasonable?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's my take on the situation. Google realizes that carriers want strict control over their devices.
Of course they do. So what? Why should they get it? I want strict control over people being allowed to park in front of my house. That doesn't mean I have any right to it. AT&T wanted strict control over what could be plugged into their telephone jacks. That doesn't mean they got to have it, and I for one am grateful that it was decided that the network should be open to innovative new devices, because I like the fax machine, and I thought the MODEM was pretty handy for a while there. So what if
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Google didn't have a production-ready BT stack, they have already said this was their fault, not T-Mo.
Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, if you read Google's releases, it wasn't T-Mobile castrating those features, it was limitations of releasing a bug free 1.0, and they've promised more bluetooth functionality in later API and OS releases. T-Mobile has not neutered the bluetooth functionality on their other smartphones, why would they do it on the one device they're touting so well as 'open'?
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Not sure you are right there (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:5, Informative)
One of the reasons we chose git was to make sure that we can't do that sort of blocking. While obviously the Core Technical Team can control what winds up in the master repositories, part of the reason we chose a distributed revision control system was to make sure that ultimately we can't block new ideas and new features.
If you'd like to chat more, come by #android on FreeNode.
(obDisclosure: I work in the Open Source Programs Office at Google)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
T-Mobile is one of the most customer friendly carriers out there.
For example, if you have your phone for more than 3 months they will unlock it for you so that you can use other SIM cards while travelling. I learned this after paying to unlock my T-Mobile dash.
Additionally, they fully "tolerate" tethering. Again with the Dash, it was a matter of firing up the PAN app and connecting my laptop, no call required.
I don't know if this was just becuase I had a special rate plan but I also found that I was never c
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So in short, i don't think it's readily portable to other machines (i'm not positive though, it'll depend on the differences in chip architecture and the like, dunno how similar the G1 is to other phones).
Re:Allowing "Banned" Features (Score:5, Informative)
the HTC Vogue might be running similar hardware to the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1). either way, HTC is a member of the Open Handset Alliance, and they make a lot of popular carrier re-branded handsets. so you might be able to run Android on many of those devices [wikipedia.org].
the HTC Vogue/Touch uses the TI OMAP 850 processor while the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1 is running on a Qualcomm MSM7201A ARM11. so other HTC phones running on, either Texas Instrument's OMAP or Qualcomm's MSM line processors, should support Android as well. in fact, all HTC phones run on either TI, Qualcomm, Intel, or Samsung processors. and it just so happens that TI, Qualcomm, Intel, and Samsung are all members of the Open Handset Alliance. so i wouldn't be surprised if all HTC handsets eventually supported the Android platform.
that's the power of having a strong cross-industry alliance supporting open standards. i think Android has a very good chance of dominating the cellphone market and potentially revolutionizing the industry.
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What other devices will we see? (Score:3, Interesting)
When will we see a port to the Palm Treo?
And how about a lightweight netbook version?
Or just a light weight GP disto based on Android.
The hard part will probably be the JVM/JIT compiler.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Android on a Netbook would be superb
How open is Android? (Score:5, Informative)
One important aspect of being 'open' is whether you favor your customers or the carriers.
I see evidence of this distinction in support for bluetooth API's: the stronger and more customer oriented phone manufacturers support bluetooth API's (which makes many interesting applications possible). On the other hand, when carriers have a stronger role in designing a phone - this comes up particularly for CDMA phones - then the bluetooth API's are dropped or postponed.
So I was quite shocked to see that Android v1.0 does not support bluetooth API's!
I know that Google has claimed that they didn't have time to get the bluetooth API's into v1.0, but that is just the sort of thing that companies will tell us when they change plans due to carrier pressure. The BREW environment (for CDMA phones) has been playing this game for years: continually telling developers that bluetooth support was just around the corner.
I sure hope that Google doesn't play the same game with us. I really want this to be an open and powerful platform.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, when carriers have a stronger role in designing a phone - this comes up particularly for CDMA phones - then the bluetooth API's are dropped or postponed.
My HTC PPC6800 (Titan, Mogul) was designed for Sprint and VZ (CDMA/EVDO) and it has a perfectly functional BT implementation. External applications (e.g. pdanet) can even provide bluetooth services (DUN).
I got my G1 yesterday (Score:3, Interesting)
Got my G1 yesterday. What I've played with so far is pretty nice, the camera is very light sensitive though, so far the only complain I have.
You can install apps from the market, internet or memory card, and the possibilities are endless just with the original OS. Can't wait for some hacked versions of Android so I can really have some fun though.
2.1 GB?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no developer.
Can someone explain why the source code for a mobile phone's OS would be 2.1 GB?
Re:2.1 GB?? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:2.1 GB?? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's actually not all that unusual for the source code for an OS (or any project, for that matter) to be much, much larger than the resulting installable code.
Take a look, for example, at the Linux source. The kernel source is like -- what? -- 300MB?
The resultant compiled and compressed kernel on a 32-bit system is like 1.7MB.
So the source is like 300X the size of the resultant kernel.
And that's just the kernel.
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Re:2.1 GB?? (Score:5, Funny)
It's extremely well documented:
ADD FUNCTION
Created by KSP on the morning of the sixth day of the eleventh month of the year one thousand nine hunderd and ninety eight (Gregorian calendar)
*/
This function takes 2 integers, by value, and adds them up, returning the result as one number!
*/
int add(int a, int b) {
/*Here we start our function*/
/*The line below will be executed when this function is called*/
/*Declare a temporary variable to store the result*/
int c;
/*Initialize it with the value zero (0)*/
c = 0;
/*Doublecheck that c is really zero*/
if (c == 0) {
/*All good so far... */
/*Let's add them up! */
//c = b + a;
/*20080109 - JDS: above line commented out. The calling function CLEARLY wanted to sum up a plus b. NOT the other way around... I'm surrounded by aholes! Sheesh!*/
c = a + b;
} else {
/*DANGER! HERE BE DRAGONS!*/
/*For some reason our temporary variable lost its initial value. Oh my Lord! We need some error handling here. Perhaps we could raise an error, telling whoever called this function that something went berserk. Or maybe we can silently just return zero. I like that! This will certainly be better for the other programmer, after all, he won't have to deal with error catching, etc... Let's make life easier for everybody!!! Actually, I like the number 3 better. Ever since I was a kid, it's been my lucky number. I'll return that! I'm so good, I'm BATMAN!.*/
c = 3;
}
/*Here's where we return the final value...*/
return c;
}
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Linux vs Ubuntu (Score:5, Funny)
wtf? How do I emerge that?
Re:Linux vs Ubuntu (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't true. I'm sure it will build fine under Debian.
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wtf? How do I emerge that?
Slowly...
Doesn't mean much... (Score:3, Informative)
This does not mean that you'll be able to run whatever version of Android you want on your phone. I would imagine there's very likely situations with code signing involved that ensures that if you're using XYZ's phone, that you'll only be allowed to run the XYZ versions of Android.
This open sourcing does not mean that you simply get to buy an Android phone and then download a version that you want and run that. Not only due to "artificial" reasons such as code signing, but due to hardware features (or lackthereof).
All this really means is that the companies get to have someone else do heavy legwork for them. Beyond that, it means more familiarity with the Android platform which means there's potentially more market for the platform on the bottom line.
More developers means more applications, more applications means more market for Android. Google and the phone carriers are happy. As an end user, you still get a locked down piece of junk--but hey, at least you'll have 50 variants of a card game to buy instead of 40.
That's what hackers are for... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be surprised if some of the code-signing stuff wasn't gone soon.
Yay Google! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's so ironic that the same day Google releases one of the largest and most impactful open source projects, Microsoft declares the day "Global Anti-Piracy Day". Horray for Google -- thanks for making our cell phones more powerful at as low a cost to the user as possible. Now if only there were more free and open carriers around....
OH SNAP (Score:5, Funny)
"To build the Android files in a Mac OS environment, you need an Intel/x86 machine. The Android build system and tools do not support the obsolete PowerPC architecture."
quite the burn there
I need more features (Score:5, Funny)
And there's no word on its ability to make my dinner, either. What good is a cell phone if it can't deep fry?
Re:Earth to Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
Earth to Slashdot... this is how almost every major OSS project runs; people who pay for developers [such as me] will get the features they want.
No. There is a big difference.
Typically when a commercial entity leads development of OSS where they have a propriety solution that enhances it, they PREVENT those key proprietary feature from EVER being added to the free version. Thus the ONLY way to get it to use their paid version.
Even if the community WANTS the feature in the free version, and volunteer developers are willing to build it, the commercial entity prevents it from happening. Refusing those patches, playing politics, and so on.
Of course the OSS community can always fork the project... but then they lose out on all the good things the commercial entity IS feeding into the development, and you get all the other community fragmentation issues that go along with forking too... there is no win-win.
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Re:Hackability (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't say the Freerunner is "light years" behind the G1. The CPU is an earlier revision of the ARM architecture, there's plenty of memory, the phone has WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, accelerometers, a nice VGA resolution screen, it supports uSD cards for storage... And the hardware is as open and documented as any GSM phone is ever likely to be - more than the G1, most likely.
The reason earlier attempts to port the Android stack to the Freerunner failed was that the source wasn't available, and the binaries Google provided were compiled for ARMv5, not ARMv4. With the source now being available, there's a good chance Android will run on the Freerunner.
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Re:Hackability (Score:4, Informative)
there's a good chance Android will run on the Freerunner.
So much of a good chance in fact that Koolu [koolu.com] is committing to shipping their FreeRunners with Android installed starting in November.
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