To the Delight of Mod Makers Android Ice Cream Sandwich Source Code Is Coming Soon

Google has always said that the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), will be open source. Of course, Android has always been open source, so that may seem a bit redundant. But Google didn't release the source code for the tablet-oriented Honeycomb version of Android and never will.

It said that Honeycomb was not 'clean' enough to be released publicly, but Google promised that the next version, which combines new features and updates from Honeycomb and the 'phone' version, Gingerbread, will be made available.

Well, Android's open-source "tech dude" Jean-Baptiste Queru announced that the source code for ICS will be made available as soon as devices running the latest Android become available as well.

He also announced that the current Android Open-Source Project code is now available again, after going down along with everything else related to kernel.org, which was hit by a security breach.

What's more, AOSP is now hosted on Google's own servers on a dedicated Git.

The big news though is that ICS code is coming. This will enable third-party Android flavors, like the very popular Cyanogen Mod, to get to work and release a version based on ICS.

It will also allow other companies to build ICS-powered devices, even without any licensing from Google, which means no Google apps but also more freedom.

Amazon, for example, was able to use Android source code to create a unique experience for the Kindle Fire, but it relied on an old version, not even the latest Android 2.3.

Amazon wasn't able to use Honeycomb either, since the code for it hasn't been made public. However, Amazon and other tablet makers will be able to get a hold of ICS and use that, in the short term future.

Android developers will also be glad to know that there are now new public APIs made available to everyone. Google also explained why some APIs, available in the source code, are undocumented, the company is not confident enough in them to make them public and thus commit to updating and maintaining them.