Developers outside Google who want to build on the mobile OS's foundation should be able to stretch out and blossom. That should pay dividends for building a better Android.
Ordinary folks may not notice much right away from the fact that Google's Android programmers are bringing their work back into the Linux kernel fold.
But it's an entirely different situation for a smaller but important group: the programmers who like to experiment with Google's open-source mobile operating system.
So predicts Tim Bird, the Sony programmer who's centrally involved in the merge of Google's Android Linux work with the "mainline" Linux kernel project. That cooperation took a big step Sunday when Linux leader Linus Torvalds released version 3.3 of the heart of Linux with some fruits of the cooperation.
Android is open-source software, though the months of delays bringing Ice Cream Sandwich-based phones and tablets to market show how difficult it is to adopt that source code once Google is done building a new version behind closed doors. Android has plenty of higher-level components such as the Dalvik virtual machine for running apps and Google's own collection of apps. But down below all that is a Linux kernel that Google has forked from the mainline kernel Torvalds publishes at the Kernel.org Web site.
Google is working to develop at least some of its features along with the mainline kernel now, though, and that should pay dividends for programmers wanting to see what Android offers and how it can be improved.
Source : news.cnet.com
