
Google releases full Android 4.0.1 source code, includes Honeycomb too - patrickaljord
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-building/T4XZJCZnqF8
======
pingswept
In the past, I've spent a fair bit of time criticizing Google for calling
Android "open source", but not releasing the source. Now that it appears that
they are actually doing it, let me be the first to say that this is great.

Well done, Google.

~~~
vladd
What people criticized about them was the delay of an open source release to
sustain their business strategy (commoditize their products' complements via
open source but keep a integrated experience by proprietary early-access
agreements - see also
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html> ).

This release doesn't change Google's strategy nor the fact that they will
continue to release Android's source code in the future with a significant
delay compared to early-access partners. There's no reason to congratulate
them now nor complain louder some months from now, they'll continue to do what
makes sense for them from a business standpoint. The only news are the yet-to-
be-discovered jewels in the just-released source code.

~~~
shareme
ahem if you check mobile dev history you will find Nokia did the same thing
with open source Symbian, etc..

No viable successful open source mobile OS gives equal access to public and
OEM partners to a private tree

~~~
hrktb
Well, if Nokia boasted about Symbian's openness, they were in the position to
be criticized too. It's mostly a PR problem.

------
imurray
[dead] comment by cdibona: "Please don't sync yet, it's currently in a mixed
state. The 'repo for-all git push' is still running and will take some time to
complete, so if you sync now you'll get some parts with Gingerbread and some
parts with ICS."

(If you accidentally post something twice, be careful about deleting one. The
other one may be automatically killed, but you don't see it when your posts
are killed.)

~~~
wx77
It looks like it happened because he posted the same thing twice in different
threads, not because he deleted it.

~~~
cdibona
That's correct. It wasn't clear which one was going to end up on the front
page and I was covering the bases.

Stand by :-)

------
pasbesoin
Why is Chris DiBona's comment in this thread dead? What he said is "from the
horse's mouth", i.e. Google Open Source.

Comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3235947>

Profile: <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cdibona>

Personal site (includes mention of his job): <http://www.dibona.com/>

P.S. Chris, you have <http://dibona.com> in your HN profile, but it just
redirects.

~~~
hollerith
>Why is Chris DiBona's comment in this thread dead?

He posted the same text in 2 comments (in two different threads). Probably the
second of the 2 was a victim of an automatic dup detector/killer.

~~~
pasbesoin
Interesting. I wasn't aware that HN checks comments across threads. Makes
sense.

~~~
cdibona
I guess I'll start salting my dupe comments :-)

~~~
bostonvaulter2
You can salt them by including a link to the previous comment you made :)

------
cppsnob
Related: how's Apple's "open" FaceTime specification coming along? Still
waiting on just the specification here. Not even code.

~~~
greyish_water
Troll.

(Edit: You'll downvote me, but not the troll? WTF?)

~~~
wgren
One word (or few word) posts like "Troll", "Fanboy", "This", or "LOL" are
frowned on at Hacker News because they don't add anything to the discussion.

------
decklin
There are two links to this post on the front page right now. This one,
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-
building/T4X...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-
building/T4XZJCZnqF8) , loads fine on my computer and comes up in the "new"
Google visual design. It completely fails on my phone (Android 2.3),
displaying "Loading..." for a while and then bumping me to the front page of
Google Groups with a little message saying I am now logged in (I tried several
times). The other link, [https://groups.google.com/group/android-
building/msg/c0e01b4...](https://groups.google.com/group/android-
building/msg/c0e01b4619a1455a?pli=1) , just works, everywhere, but shows the
old Groups interface.

This is a really sad state of affairs. If Google can't guarantee that their
fancy new Javascript-dependent links won't work everywhere, they should not be
used as permalinks.

I really don't care about any arguments people might want to make about the
visual redesign, or how to properly implement #! paths, or the extra effort
involved in generating resilient URLs, or Google paying special attention to
how the Android browser handles pages, or what evil things my phone company
might be doing my my data stream, and how that's not their fault, or whatever.
Permalinks should work. Everywhere. Period.

------
rst
Not _quite_ full source code --- some proprietary graphics drivers are
supplied in binary-only form. It won't matter much for most uses of the source
code, but purists will be displeased.

<http://source.android.com/source/building-devices.html>

~~~
Maakuth
That is probably not in Google's hands to change. It's the same with the
vendor-supplied GPU drivers in desktop Linux as well.

------
juliano_q
Google releases every source code except Honeycomb. I think the code was
really ugly, released urgently to support tablets. I cant blame Google, we who
works with software in big companies know how pressure and strict timelines
can be a pain, but I am glad that things are back on track.

~~~
pingswept
I agree that pressure and strict timelines can be a pain, but compliance with
the GPL is not optional.

~~~
guelo
Only Android's modifications to the Linux kernel and a few other tools are
under GPL. Most stuff is Apache 2.0.

~~~
vog
That's what Google used to tell us, but according to the guys of gpl-
violations.org, this has always been a flat-out lie. Those "few other tools
under GPL" are quite a lot and in no way negligible.

------
shn
while I found the opportunity that many commenting and interested in this
topic, let me ask a question. Can one upgrade any android phone by himself? (I
do not own one), or one need to wait for the carrier and or manufacturer need
to do it?

~~~
jtreminio
If your phone is rooted, or rootable, there's a bunch of devs over @ XDA-
developers forum that create custom ROMs for most Android phones.

The most famous of these is CyanogenMod, which works across most Android
phones out.

Once they port it to your phone you can flash the ROM and run ICS on your
phone!

~~~
shn
Thanks for the reply. Using the keywords like "custom ROM", "rooting" you
mentioned in your reply I am also able to google for more.

------
melling
Now the only thing missing is a winning strategy for desktops/laptops. :-)

Seems like Chrome OS should be folded into Android and many people would be
comfortable using it at home. Same apps could run and sync on all devices.

~~~
chimeracoder
Unfortunately the two systems are very different and largely incompatible.

Merging them would not be impossible, but it's not easy.

~~~
Maakuth
I don't know about that. Certainly there are large differences under the hood,
but isn't Chrome OS just supposed to run browser apps really well? I don't
think that's a very hard compatibility measure for Android to match.

~~~
Andrex
The entire point of Chrome OS is that it's _only_ the browser. Saying you want
Chrome OS merged with Android is the same as saying you just want a Chrome
APK. Chrome OS's key tenets of security and simplicity are simply not
compatible with traditional operating systems.

------
bri3d
Why don't they just tag all of Honeycomb?

If the reason is that there's no combination of project commits that can
create a building Honeycomb, they should just admit to it and explain why.

The current approach seems like a weird attempt to snow something over - I
understand that Honeycomb was a rushed, trashy Android release, and that
there's some pride involved, but _supposedly_ all of the rushed, trashy code
is in the tree now, and hence there's no going back. The first thing everyone
on xda-developers is going to do is go hunting for bad Honeycomb code anyway.

~~~
RobAtticus
I don't know that it was so much "bad" code as they didn't want other groups
to try and put Honeycomb on devices that it did not work on (i.e. phones).
This would hurt the brand and fill the tech blogs with "Honeycomb is unstable
and buggy!" when it really didn't belong on those devices in the first place.

There's a new release now that is stable for all kinds of devices, is it worth
it to concern ourselves with what exactly is or isn't Honeycomb? I don't think
they were trying to snow something over, I think this was their plan. Release
Honeycomb after ICS since device manufacturers will use ICS anyway since it's
new.

------
blantonl
I've heard so many complaints from developers about the delayed source
release, however I've never known Google to withhold source code for Android.

Could the slight delay in release simply be due to legal issues such as
scrubbing patent issues and verification that OSS code isn't infringing?

~~~
feralchimp
Honest question from a maybe-future Android dev: is it notably more
challenging to develop for Android during periods when the source is not yet
public? For example, is a lot of platform doc written from the POV of someone
who expects you'll just peep the code when questions arise?

Update: +1 to everyone thinking 'man, I bitch about google sometimes, but this
kind of thing is totally legit and awesome'

~~~
jasonostrander
I do Android dev full time and it's pretty rare to actually _need_ to look at
the source. The only time is when encountering a strange bug that you suspect
is caused by the underlying implementation.

Google has generally been good about releasing emulator images prior to
releases, though usually it's only a few weeks. Luckily, it takes time for
Android versions to achieve large market share, so any bugs can be squashed
before it's a big problem.

~~~
babebridou
Sometimes when I'm in a bad mood, the API and online doc are not cutting it -
I start wondering why it doesn't work the way I'd expect it to, and from there
I have multiple options, from StackOverflow to Google Groups to ordering a
book on Amazon.com, and this is the true productivity killer because of, you
know, the internet.

The definitive and fastest answer will always come from reading and
understanding the source code, as I don't have to hope that someone had the
same problem I'm having and someone else had an answer, or that someone will
reply to my question before I give up. Eclair, Froyo and Gingerbread sources
were enough for 99% of my needs though, but there was always this shadow of
doubt for Honeycomb-specific features...

For the most part, having the latest source readily available will greatly
reduce the amount of open browser tabs, and for that I'm thankful :)

------
thristian
So, the Android website is packed full of information about how to clone the
Android repository and build it from scratch, but I just want to browse it
online. Is there some official "gitweb" site or something that I can poke at?

~~~
asmosoinio
Android sources get mirrored to <https://github.com/android/>, which allows
browsing of the code. The latest release is probably not be there yet, though.

For example, source of the MMS conversation list:

[https://github.com/android/platform_packages_apps_mms/blob/m...](https://github.com/android/platform_packages_apps_mms/blob/master/src/com/android/mms/ui/ConversationList.java)

\-- update: Another great place to browse the source, with working links to
other classes, multiple versions etc, is grepcode:

[http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/co...](http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android-
apps/2.0_r1/com/android/mms/ui/ComposeMessageActivity.java)

~~~
eslaught
github.com/android seems be a mirror of kernel.org, which isn't where Android
is hosted any more...

------
DonnyV
I'v never seen so many people BITCHING about getting free code. No less an
entire OS that runs on hundreds of devices. Maaahhhh you didn't release it
fast enough. Stop whining!!

------
tomlin
_Meanwhile at Daring Fireball_

crickets <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg>

------
xxiao
I criticized google for holding back honeycomb, now it's finally releasing the
code again. Great! Thanks Google.

------
cnxsoft
That source tree is huge. Over 6GB of data and it takes several hours to sync
on my machine (not done yet).

------
zobzu
'bout time !

------
Srirangan
Well done Google!

------
ErikRogneby
Only the Honeycomb GPL modules are available. The entire platform source is
not available. see here: <http://source.android.com/source/build-numbers.html>

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I think that link is just outdated, it doesn't mention ICS at all.

The link for this submission says:

 _"This release includes the full history of the Android source code tree,
which naturally includes all the source code for the Honeycomb releases.
However, since Honeycomb was a little incomplete, we want everyone to focus on
Ice Cream Sandwich. So, we haven't created any tags that correspond to the
Honeycomb releases (even though the changes are present in the history.)"_

------
vog
Many thanks to <http://gpl-violations.org/>! Without their pressure this would
have taken considerably longer. (Or wouldn't have happened at all?)

~~~
vog
To the person who downvoted this comment: Could you explain what's wrong with
it?

~~~
roflharrison
From what i can see there is no pressure being put on Google from gpl-
violations.org (presumably because the haven't made any violations).

Plenty of heat being put on manufacturers with Android devices but that is
hardly Google's fault or related to the ICS release.

