AceJohnny's Journal: Android (this is not the Linux you are looking for)

There's a lot of excitement around Android. It is often mentioned that Android is a linux-based stack.

That is correct. What I tend to infer from it is not. When I hear "linux-based", I naturally think of all the ecosystem around it (this is something Stallman has been fighting against with the term "GNU/Linux"). In this case, it is quite specifically Linux-based as opposed to GNU/Linux-based, because nothing in the Android software stack comes from GNU.

Not the libc. Not the graphical system, though it's based on the framebuffer. Hell, even its Java isn't standard, in the sense that it doesn't have the standard Java Class Library (not even the CLDC/MIDP subset).

Porting anything to Android from a traditional linux system is a big undertaking, akin to porting a Windows or Mac app to Linux, or vice-versa.

Linux is cool for Android because it's GPL2, not v3, so manufacturers and vendors can lock it down TiVo-style. Had Linux been GPLv3, Google would have shopped for a kernel elsewhere.

I think Android is a cool undertaking and a step in the right direction of openness, but OpenMoko, Moblin, Maemo it ain't.