chrisjrob: floss https://chrisjrob.com GNU Linux, Perl and FLOSS en-gb Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:22:31 +0000 Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:22:31 +0000 Time To Accept That Android Is No Longer Open Source? https://chrisjrob.com/2011/10/22/time-to-accept-that-android-is-no-longer-open-source/ Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000 chrisjrob@gmail.com (Chris Roberts) https://chrisjrob.com/2011/10/22/time-to-accept-that-android-is-no-longer-open-source I read today that Google and Samsung have unveiled Galaxy Nexus Android 4.

It has been well known that the Android 3.x is not open source yet, but I had expected 3.x to be open sourced at any moment. Now that 4.x has been released and there is still no sign of the 3.x or 4.x source code, I think we have to ask - is Android really open source now?

Well Google has given some reassurances that 4.x will be open sourced “We plan to release the source for the recently-announced Ice Cream Sandwich soon, once it’s available on devices”, but this lacks credibility when they still haven’t released the code for 3.x.

This could all change in moment, all it takes is for Google to publish the source code, but this is truly not how an open source project is supposed to be run.

2011-11-03: Further to this article, Google has announced that Android 4.0 is to be open sourced in the coming weeks.

]]> May the source be with you https://chrisjrob.com/2009/06/09/may-the-source-be-with-you/ Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000 chrisjrob@gmail.com (Chris Roberts) https://chrisjrob.com/2009/06/09/may-the-source-be-with-you From time to time I see the comment advocating a closed source program, with the response “as I’m not a developer it doesn’t bother me whether or not I have the source code”. I believe that that view is wrong, and that there are many occasions where non-developers will find benefit from having access to the source code.

For example,I’ve just found that Kmail will not auto-complete email addresses from an LDAP KDE resource. A simple bug; although strictly speaking it’s not a bug, as it was a deliberate feature. Fortunately there is a fix, with a modification made to one of the components. Unfortunately this fix has not found its way into Debian Lenny or Squeeze, and Sid is now KDE4.

I could install from the KDE SVN repository, but that version has not been tested with Debian, and I don’t really want to have such a significant part of a production server to have come from outside of Debian. Perhaps I am being overly cautious.

Anyway, I changed to /usr/src and ran apt-get source kdepim to download the source from Debian. I used “find” to locate the offending component, and used diff to determine what differences there were between the modified KDE version and the standard Debian version. I was pleased to note that only one line had changed. I copied in the new component and ran apt-get build-dep kdepim (with help from Dominic in #surrey). Then a quick ./configure, a very slow “make”, and a quick sudo checkinstall make install and the fix was made.

There are many many more benefits to open source than the ability to modify the source, but I just wanted to point out that, even for non-developers, there is a very real and very direct benefit to having the source.

May the source be with you.

Update - the actual patch may be found here.

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