Since Google Inc. announced late last month that the latest version of Android, Honeycomb, would not be open-sourced just yet, many in the development community have cried foul, labelling Google hypocrites and questioning whether Android is really “open,” as Google so loudly proclaims it to be.
Yesterday evening VP of engineering and Android overlord Andy Rubin took to the Android Developers Blog in an attempt to clear things up. His post is titled “I think I’m having a Gene Amdahl moment,” in reference to the former IBM engineer who coined the phrase FUD – Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. In the posting, Rubin claims many have been mislead by the media over Google’s intentions for Android.
Rubin states in no uncertain terms that Google is still fully committed to keeping Android open source, and the reason for the delay in the release of Honeycomb code is because it simply isn’t ready. Although it runs fine on tablets, Rubin says the OS isn’t ready for smaller screen devices:
“As I write this the Android team is still hard at work to bring all the new Honeycomb features to phones. As soon as this work is completed, we’ll publish the code. This temporary delay does not represent a change in strategy.”
Rubin also fires a shot across the bow of recent rumours he is personally vetting Android modifications, stating that “as always, device makers are free to modify Android to customize any range of features for Android devices […] Our approach remains unchanged: there are no lock-downs or restrictions against customizing UIs”, although he does point to Android’s compatibility guidelines as a caveat to being allowed access to the closed-source components of Android (GMail, Maps, and the Market, specifically).
