NewsDid Google Just Create an Android Fork From Linux?

Did Google Just Create an Android Fork From Linux?

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Brian Proffitt at ITworld might be the first to notice that Google just forked Linux.

“On Monday this week,” Proffitt reports, “kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman removed the drivers for Android from the Linux kernel’s staging tree, thus insuring that – for now – Android is not headed for the mainstream Linux kernel.”

To date, no one is using the term “fork,” Proffitt said. But if it walks like a fork and talks like a fork – it’s a fork – albeit one from a Tom Robbins novel.

However, according Kroah-Hartman, he had no choice but to remove the Android driver code from the Linux kernel staging tree because no one was working on it.

But, according to Proffitt there’s more too it than simply Android developers forgetting to check in their code.

“Apparently, there are numerous infrastructure and security model problems with the drivers themselves. Big problems, too – the kind that would prevent mainline inclusion into the Linux kernel even if the Android team was working on the driver codes.”

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