Google Moves Android Development to Internal Branches
Ben Schoon (via Hacker News):
The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) has left most of Google’s work in developing Android as an operating system visible to the public eye. But, starting next week, Google is moving that work behind closed doors.
Google confirmed to Android Authority that “all Android development will occur within Google’s internal branches,” the publication says. This is a shift from how Android has been developed for a very long time, but also aligns with more recent moves Google has been making.
Because Google develops large portions of Android in its internal branch, the public AOSP branch often lags far behind what’s available privately. This difference is apparent when comparing feature and API availability between a clean AOSP build and Google’s latest Android 16 beta, which was built from its internal branch. While the shift to trunk-based development reduced this discrepancy, it persists and continues to pose challenges for Google.
This discrepancy forces Google to spend time and effort merging patches between the public AOSP branch and its internal branch. Due to how different the branches are, merge conflicts often arise.
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External developers who enjoy reading or contributing to AOSP will likely be dismayed by this news, as it reduces their insight into Google’s development efforts. Without a GMS license, contributing to Android OS development becomes more challenging, as the available code will consistently lag behind by weeks or months. This news will also make it more challenging for some developers to keep up with new Android platform changes, as they’ll no longer be able to track changes in AOSP.
