What is open
I confirmed with three different Google employees at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco that the core Android platform will be 100% open source. Even multimedia codecs, which historically are held close to the vest will be open. Except where noted, everything will use the Apache software license (ASL v2). This is the same open source license used by projects like the Apache HTTP server, Tomcat, Harmony, and many other large projects in the open source community.
What is not
Google chose the Apache license because it gives carriers, OEMs, and application developers the freedom to use whatever license they want for their own software. While Google encourages everyone to make their own code open if possible, it?s not required by the license. Even Google plans to make a few of their applications closed-source, including their GMail application. These programs are not part of the core Android system, even though they may be bundled with Android phones.
I think that the Android being open source is a great thing, more and more applications and usage would be built for the Android, more customization, more usage. But i think that carriers like verizon should not and not be able to lock down phones running the Android platform, current verizon phones are not allowed to receive files via bluetooth etc. Gosh, i think i want be part of the crazy people that wait in line for the iphone, but instead, for the first Android phone.
Link to Article on ZDnet: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=579
