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Sep. 30, 2009

Just a few days after Google took action against the CyanogenMod project for offering customised Android firmware which copied portions of proprietary code, a group of Android developers formed the Open Android Alliance.

According to the project's site, the group is "Pro-Android" rather than "Anti-Google".

Their modus operandi is to replace all of the closed source, proprietary applications included in all OEM Android installations with open source alternatives that can be freely distributed.

In addition to the operating system itself and various open source components, default installations of Android include several proprietary Google applications, such as Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps, which aren't open source and, as such, are not included in the Android source code repository.

Provided that customized ROMs don't include their closed source applications, Google welcomes "custom Android builds" from mobile and open source developers.

The Open Android Alliance, which is currently using the Google Code platform, plans to release its source code under version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3), meaning that all code based on the project will remain open forever.

It currently isn't clear if Google will endorse the initiative's name or fight it under trademark law.

How Android all started
In July 2005, Google acquired a little-known company called Android Inc., co-founded by Andy Rubin, now director of mobile platforms at Google. Little was known about this company even within its own industry. In fact, all that was available in terms of a description was that "it developed software for mobile phones." Two years before getting involved with Android, Rubin conducted an interview with Business Week. Rubin said there was tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences.

"If people are smart, that information starts getting aggregated into consumer products," said Rubin at the time.

Hot on the heels of the iPhone launch, rumours began to increase of Google bringing out its own handset, to help leverage its burgeoning mobile search functions.

Widespread reports of Google hawking its wares around to all the major wireless device manufacturers and mobile carriers began to circulate.

At the time, it was believed the new mobile handset would be designed to work around location-based services and implement a whole new range of Google Labs' ideas, as well as the old favourites Maps and Mail.

The best way to describe Android was to say that it was making all sections of the system like Lego bricks. Where before developers might have struggled to break down the bits of a mobile phone OS, and even if successful, would find that getting one part of the system to talk to another was very difficult indeed, as they were packaged in their own little programs.

However, with Android, the rules were changed at that time. Building a new GPS application that used SMS location updates? The two sections would fit together nicely.

If you wanted to add in some location data from the Internet, all you needed was to pop on a piece as well.

The theory behind Android is very similar to that which has made Google such a success with its search platform: mobile advertising and revenue share are likely to become the big buzzwords for such a platform, and will need to be leveraged well to make Android a success for Google.

Now that the secret was out, the pressure really was on to actually get Android to market in enough time that other companies and organizations wouldn't be able to steal the show.

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    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: Google.