I'll answer your questions in the order asked, with my own honest opinions. =^^=

1. Modifications to the middleware and lower layers shouldn't need to be modified. The reason for this is that the libraries we have for hardware control allow instancing of classes all the way up the abstraction chain, so, if we really, really need to, we can get nearly raw device access. The rest of the class cascade wraps convenience classes around this to get logic out of the way.

Given the nature of the operating system, it would be possible to 'port' the stack of another phone into the DALVIK machine by running a sort of virtual machine within a virtual machine, but the system really does not lend itself to replacing OS level components. That can be considered a weakness in some senses, but given the closed nature of the systems before, it really just considers the sacrifice of compatibility with other stacks in favor of ensuring that any newly written software is cross compatible. In short, it probably wouldn't be very easy to do that, though it would be possible.

2. I don't precisely understand your question, but I'll explain the economy of the OHA's investment as best I understand it, and I hope that will answer your question.

Since Android is distributed under the MIT license, derivative works (such as our own applications) can be closed source. You can then control distribution as you like, and restrict your channels to CD's, downloads, on-phone installs, or whatever you decide. Google and the other members of the Open Handset Alliance are giving a tremendous amount of work away for free because the competition will follow the rules of natural selection, supply and demand, and so on, and in this way their phone will have an advantage over all other phones: free economy.

Their bet is that the best way to make their phones the best is to allow the community to create what they want. This way, their selection of several phones from several manufacturers will all benefit from each other's work, and maybe even increase the number of people who buy cell phones out of the general population. Google has found a way to straddle the fence and benefit from freedom of economy, and this is no different.

In short, you choose where in the Open Source arena you play, and the question of how an open system benefits the economy may be left to the philosophers--we as developers only need look at the market share of these phones. We can hook onto the trail for free, because the community can kill us if they decide they don't like us, and that's the one limitation.

Thanks for reading!

On Dec 13, 6:29 am, anan...@mindtree.com wrote: