Old Town New World CONFERENCE - Oct 23rd, 2009 - Old Town Rock Hill, SC

This week, much of the talk in the smartphone arena surrounds the new Android-based Droid phone, which is the result of a partnership between Verizon, Motorola and Google. Lost in the buzz over the phone–for many people at least–is that the Droid, like all Android phones, is Linux-based. Early reports show that there were approximately 100,000 Droids sold on its opening weekend, which is nothing to shake a stick at. Meanwhile, there will be approximately 20 Android phones by the end of this year, and the operating system is spreading out beyond phones as well. So just how Linux-based is Android, and is its Linux heritage a good thing?

Linux Magazine notes that in a talk at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Grenoble, France, speaker Matthew Porter noted that while Android has Linux roots and components, it's not, strictly speaking, a Linux OS. "He concluded that Android is not Linux in the strict sense of the word because important userspace components are missing, thereby making Android comparatively inaccessible and inflexible," the report says. 

It’s true that Android doesn’t carry over many of the device compatibility and other types of plumbing in most Linux distros, but there is no doubt that its Linux roots saved Google engineers from lots of coding and gave them a sense of direction as they shaped their new operating system. Embedded versions of Linux don’t carry over lots of userspace components, either.

The real beauty of Android, true of other Linux distros too, is that it is proving to be malleable and flexible–properties of promising open source software platforms (Gigaom Pro research report, subscription required). Android is headed for everything from digital entertainment devices to VoIP phones to smartphones. Google itself is saying that the many directions the OS is headed in add up to a hopeful future. Android is Linux, and it is open source–one of the better open source stories in recent years. 

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