Is Endless Forking and Fragmentation What Android Needs?
by Sam Dean - Oct. 23, 2009Comments (1)- Related Blog Posts
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HTC, maker of the earliest Android handsets as well some of the best-liked current ones, has finally released the source code for its Android phones. It's available here. There had previously been a number of heated conversations in the developer community about why HTC took so long to post the code. The GPL specifically states that source code must be made immediately available, but HTC stalled. In my eyes, this is just another example of possible negative ramifications for Android if it becomes overly forked and fragmented.
Back when ARCHOS was preparing to launch its ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet, we did a post questioning whether the company really needed to launch its own dedicated Android app store. After all, Android Market is thriving, but it's far behind Apple's App Store in terms of the number of available applications. Why shouldn't Android applications stay focused in one app store?
Meanwhile, MIPS is pursuing its own flavors of Android, and a group of developers is trying to advance a version of Android that will be completely free of proprietary application influence. The problem is, though, that if too many distributions of Android come out, and app stores become fragmented too, the prospects for the operating system may become limited.
While I'm a fan of the forking and fragmenting that goes on with desktop versions of Linux, since it gives users choice, I also recognize that it fragments the development, marketing, and other components of Linux's competitive stance. Android has a real chance to become a major mobile OS, and the HTC game playing with source code, and variants on Android, can be seen as an example of why Android development efforts shouldn't be overly fragmented at this stage.
