As it has been previously announced, Google Android platform justifies it’s open-source attribute - the source code is released.
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The Google Android source code includes the complete Android software stack (i.e. all software layers) comprised of:
- the Linux kernel
- the system libraries
- Dalvik virtual machine (Java Virtual Machine version for low-memory and battery-powered environments)
- the application framework
- all of the applications developed using the framework (at least those found in T-Mobile G1 mobile phone)
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I believe that the revolution of Internet of Things can now begin. I expect that several companies will announce their plans to build various devices using Google Android open-source platform. Some ideas: set-top boxes, portable internet devices, car dashboards, etc. and of course - a series of new (and old!) mobile phones. Also, better support for cheaper VoIP mobile calls (SIP anyone?) is expected to come.
I see good times for Java software developers ahead. This step from Google will surely stimulate business and technical innovation.
One thing that might slow things down a bit, at least initially, is the fact that Google Android source code is 2.1GB big and that it requires 6GB of memory on your hard drive to get build. In fact, as Rich Miner (who was with Andy Rubin and Nick Sears a co-founder of Android Inc. that was acquired by Google in July 2005) told to Techcrunch:
This is probably the largest repository of open source code that has been released at any one time. We have worked on the things we thought were important. But there is still a lot of work to do in all aspects of the platform, from tying it into different carrier networks. multimedia, speech recognition, and the graphic subsystems.
In addition, build Android from source code might eventually include learning to use Git, a distributed revision control system, and a thing or two about Python.
As the Android team at Google says: “What would you do with Android?”
