Android How to Program, 3/e

1.3 Android Features

Openness and Open Source

One benefit of developing Android apps is the openness of the platform. The operating system is open source and free. This allows you to view Android’s source code and see how its features are implemented. You can contribute to Android by reporting bugs:

http://source.android.com/source/report-bugs.html

or by participating in the Open Source Project discussion groups

http://source.android.com/community/index.html

Numerous open-source Android apps from Google and others are available on the Internet (Fig. 1.1). Figure 1.2 shows you where you can get the Android source code, learn about the philosophy behind the open-source operating system and get licensing information.

Fig. 1.1 Open-source ...