
Linus Torvalds on Android, the Linux fork - hollerith
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-torvalds-on-android-the-linux-fork/9426
======
sc68cal
While the differences between the Android fork and upstream Linux will
introduce pain points during the merge, Linus takes the long view and rightly
points out that the Linux project is poised to inherit a huge amount of code
that has gone through rigorous real world testing and quite a bit of success.

This is the great thing about the Linux project. If your work doesn't get
accepted right away (someone may have objected to the lock model that Android
uses, compared to the vanilla Linux lock model), well, just go out in the
market and prove that your work is better. Typically with that kind of proof
you can start to work on a way forward to integrate your work back in. It's a
win-win for the project, since if your endeavor fails they're not stuck with
it, but if it takes off they're poised to reap the rewards.

In summary, Forks (that are used for experimental features, not political
schisms) are GREAT!

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unwind
This was hard to understand:

 _This doesn’t mean that Android isn’t, but it has become something of a Linux
fork. That doesn’t, however, as some recent reports had it that Android and
Linux are somehow in a fight with each other._

I just gave up and glossed over that part.

~~~
jmaygarden
The article definitely needs editing. Much of it was painful to read due to
omissions, redundancy and generally bad flow.

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drdaeman
> Google didn’t help matters at all when in the fall of 2010, “Google engineer
> Patrick Brady stated unambiguously that Android is not Linux” That was never
> true.

Another example why naming popular desktop OSes as "GNU/Linux" (as opposed to
plain "Linux") is important, unless all parties know the context. And never
compare "Android" and "Linux", unless the "Android" comes right before the
word "kernel".

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casca
Summary: Linus asserts that Android, the fastest growing smartphone platform,
comes from Linux and will return to Linux.

The key to understanding this is to change the "s" in Linus' name to an "x"
and see what happens.

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dramaticus3
> Fortunately, thanks to the GPLv2, all the significant changes come back to
> the mainstream kernel.

How exactly, does that work ?

~~~
gilgad13
This is a valid questions, because iirc, as long as these companies don't
distribute their linux fork outside of their company, they do not need to
release the source. GPL takes effect when you _distribute_ binaries, not when
you create them.

~~~
pcc
If you copy or distribute the derivate work in either object code or
executable form, you are obliged to make the source available.

Arguably anyone who has a phone, has had a copy in executable form distributed
to them, and can ask for the source.

~~~
calloc
He was talking about Google's private fork of Linux for their servers to run
Google search.

~~~
pcc
He was talking about companies in general tweaking linux for their particular
uses.

Indeed, if you focus on the preceding bit about Google's in-house linux for
their own servers, then there would be no distribution and arguably GPL2 could
not force those modifications to be made public.

But I would imagine that he's probably quite versed in GPL2 and knows this --
so since he brought it up specifically, it suggests he was probably thinking
at that point more about cases where distribution does happen (e.g. Android,
embedded etc).

Perhaps he considers it a 'significant change' primarily if there's some sort
of distribution ;)

