Android phone: Linux and BSD

Looking at the general information page from Google and this OnLAMP article, it appears that Google’s new phone operating system, Android, is based both on Linux (the kernel) and OpenBSD/NetBSD (libc). I wonder how much of the GNU tools are on there.

I also wonder what moved them to that decision.  Part of the Android FAQ section points at this article about the Apache License (a BSD-style license) being preferable.

One Reply to “Android phone: Linux and BSD”

  1. Performance most likely was the reason for their kernel choice, not much in the open source world can really compete with a custom rolled Linux kernel that’s been tweaked, “just so.” And likely the concern of how poorly done the GNU userland components was what got them to take bits from NetBSD and OpenBSD.

Comments are closed.