Google has officially released the code behind its Android smartphone system as open source. The firm has even suggested some specific projects independent developers might work on.

The release coincides with this week’s launch of T-Mobile’s G1, the first handset to use the Android system. That’s likely no coincidence: not only is it a good publicity tie-in, but it shows would-be developers that there will be credible hardware support for the project.

One of the main attractions of Android is that it includes a ‘virtual machine’ called Dalvik, which can run programs written in Java. Not only does that make it much easier for developers to produce programs, but it effectively removes the need to worry about the particular handset a user owns.

Officially, the open source nature means that developers can now do whatever they like with the system, subject to the accompanying Apache 2.0 license. Unlike many open source licenses, it doesn’t require any software based on the system to be open source itself; the only major requirement is that the original Android code be acknowledged.

However, to try to keep some coordination between different developers, and encourage collaboration and sharing of ideas, Google has created an official structure under which individuals can play particular roles such as Verifiers (who test suggested changes), Approvers (who give suggested changes the thumbs up or down) and Project Leads (who oversee a particular development). The idea is to reduce unnecessary duplicated efforts and to cut down on incompatibilities between applications based on Android.

As you’d expect, there’s already an official version of Gmail for Android, while independent developer Thomas Marban has created Twitroid, a way of accessing Twitter on Android handsets. (At the moment it’s in a ‘pre-launch’ edition, in which Marban warns “things will break”.)

Posting on the official Android blog, Google’s Dave Bort pointed out there are already projects to produce speech recognition software and even virtual machines under Android. The Los Angeles Times reports manufacturers of ATMs and even refrigerators have shown an interest, though for the moment Google is focusing on handheld devices.

Related:

Entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 2:41 pm under Google, Open source.

Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!