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Android OS development is going fully private, but Google still wants help from other developers
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
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Android
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Misleading headline. Instead of public repos, they'll use source snapshots of each release. It's technically correct because the development is going private, but the releases will remain open source.
If I understand you correctly, the developmental changes occurring between releases (every little step change/test) won't be visible to us, just the final results in the form of the release code? (All corrections/clarifications accepted, hell, requested). We'd still be able to compile, but we wouldn't necessarily have code for those small, incremental changes.
It's always been like this for most repositories that make up Android. The few projects that were truly developed in the open, such as ART, will now follow the same private branches as the rest of Android.
Correct. We will, of course, be able to create diffs between the released versions, for the whole project or for individual files (assuming they haven't moved around).
Isn't that sources available, not open source since they aren't allowing community contributions, or am I misunderstanding that?
Kind of like how greyjay is source available but not open source?
Android is licensed under the Apache license 2.0, which is an open source license. Their Linux kernel modifications are licensed under the GPL v2. https://source.android.com/license
Accepting contributions is not required to be open source.