Google confirms Ice Cream Sandwich will be open source, released publicly

If you were wondering if Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich Android platform was to suffer the same fate of its Honeycomb predecessor, you can breathe a sigh of relief after Google employee Jean Baptitse Queru confirmed the code is open source and will be released to Google’s AOSP repository, Thinq reports.

Having experienced many issues with its Honeycomb software, Google decided not to release the code for its tablet-centric platform after admitting it had rushed its development to get it onto tablets to compete against Apple’s iOS platform on its popular iPad device.

However, with Queru’s confirmation, via a post on his Google+ profile, Ice Cream Sandwich should be available via the Android Open Source Project in the near future:

This is what’s been consuming my entire life for the last 6 weeks. The Android Open-Source Project is distributing source code again.

Get also a glimpse about the future (yes, that means ICS will be coming to AOSP).

http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/c73c14f9b0dcd15a

Google had previously said it would make the source code available for its Honeycomb software once it hit version 3.1. However, there has been no further confirmation of that fact.

The release of the code will help manufacturers create their own builds of the software, porting it to their new tablet and smartphone devices, increasing the likelihood of device updates for users on older versions of Android.

The first Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone will be Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, launching in November. Featuring a huge 4.65-inch screen, dual-core processor, NFC, the device is set to go head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone 4S.