After removing Google's Android driver code from the Linux kernel, Novell Fellow and Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman has argued that the mobile OS is incompatible with the project's main tree. Kroah-Hartman deleted the Android drivers on December 11 - Android code is no more as of version 2.6.33 of the kernel release - and yesterday, with a post to his personal blog, he explained the move in detail.
"No one cared about the code, so it was removed," writes Kroah-Hartman. "As I've stated before, code in the staging tree needs to be worked on to be merged to the main kernel tree, or it will be deleted."

But the larger problem, he continues, is that Android uses a new lock type, new hooks for its "sometimes bizarre" security model, and a revamped framebuffer driver infrastructure. All this, he says, prevents "a large chunk" of Android drivers and platform code from merging into the main kernel tree.

Google, he ultimately argues, has forked its mobile OS.

Google did not immediately respond to our request for comment. But in a pair of posts to LWN.net, Mountain View open source guru Chris DiBona says that Android isn't in the main tree because the main tree doesn't want it.

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