Android technology is built on Linux. In the last few years, Android deviated from the main Linux platform. In 2010, Android officially became a ‘fork’ of Linux, which has been the cause of much thought among Linux developers. Now Android and Linux are being reunited. This reunion is making life easier for developers, who will now have faster access to the latest developments in Linux. This will affect Android training classes too as Linux platform is a part of the course.
Events Leading to Android Becoming a ‘Fork’ of Linux
In early 2010, Greg Kroah-Hartman, a developer for Linux, along with Novell Fellow removed the Android driver code by Google from Linux’s kernel stating incompatibility of the mobile operating system with the project’s key hierarchy. This action is what led to Android becoming a fork of Linux. A fork is essentially an alternative. It is something that is a sideline or something that is excluded by the main community. Forking may not be a negative thing, but in this scenario, it caused doubts. The doubts rose among Linux developers as they have been critical of Google’s poor support for inherent Linux tools.
Finally, Google introduced a development kit about two years ago. All Android based applications function on Dalvik, which is a Java virtual machine of Google. In Android devices the version of Linux is customized for Google and it handles all OS tasks, for instance caching and multitasking among several others. But the Google customized version was being operated on a different code base compared to the main repository that was directed by Linus Torvals.
Bridging the Gap Between Android and Linux
The leader of the Linux project, Linus Torvalds, launched the 3.3 version of the kernel towards the end of March 2012. The launch bridged the gap between Linux and Android by putting both systems on the same code base. The act marks the end of a two year separation period during which the platforms were on similar but isolated paths. Tim Bird, who is a programmer for Sony and works with the Linux Foundation’s patron’s electronic project, announced the start of a project centered on mainlining Android features and patches into the Linux kernel. The project resulted in Linux 3.3. The common platform will be incorporated in all Android training courses as it will be used widely by developers in the future.
Bringing Torvald’s version of Linux and Google’s version of Linux on a common platform will enable much easier programming. It will also give both companies the advantage of benefitting much sooner from fresh structures that are added to Linux branch. These changes could be the indicators of Google becoming more of an open mainstream player. The search engine giant draws greatly from several open source communities, but maintains stringent control on all the aspects of development. For example, the integration of Google Chrome with its Android browser is a different fork inside the Webkit platform. Chrome depends on the mainstream Webkit project.
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