Google have announced that they will delay the distribution of the source code for its Tablet Android operating system for at least the foreseeable future. The Operating System referred to as ‘HoneyComb’ is not yet ready to be investigated by developers for other purposes such as modification or porting onto additional devices.
Andy Rubin, head of the Android project, says:
“To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs. We didn’t want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut.”
What does this mean all in all ? No ones quite sure. Google began its Android Open Source venture promising all things good and Open Source and this does not seem to be the case, at least with the Tablet version of its Operating System. Will the same happen with other Android distrubitions ? I think these questions and many like them will be addressed by Google at its upcoming I/O event, scheduled to take place in May. For now Larger manufacturers will not be affected by this decision, but it will impact heavily on smaller companies who had their eyes set on HoneyComb as their OS of choice for their tablets.
For now we have to gloat that MeeGo remains an Open Source project with as much of its Development / Discussions and meetings taking place in the open and every day any closed portions are seeing the light of day as vested parties figure out the best ways to accomplish these golas. To find out more head on over to MeeGo.com
You see, The Grass isn’t always “Greener” on the other side of the fence for the Open Source community 😉
