Well would you look at that. Earlier today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs went on a bit of a tirade against Google and Android in particular. And you know that couldn’t have made Android chief Andy Rubin too happy. But how was he going to respond? Well, he decided to awaken his dormant Twitter account and send his first tweet tonight. And sure enough, it’s clearly (but subtly) in response to Jobs.

Without further ado, here is Andy Rubin’s first tweet:

the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”

For those keeping score at home, that’s Rubin using some geeked-out lingo to explain exactly what open is to Steve Jobs. In other words: Android.

Well played.

Rubin has about 100 followers right now. That should skyrocket shortly.

Welcome to Twitter, Andy! I wouldn’t expect a response from Jobs, as he doesn’t use the service. But maybe Apple SVP Scott Forstall will respond instead (he has yet to tweet and still only follows Conan)?

Earlier, I didn’t have a way to verify for certain if it was Rubin or not, so I had some qualified words just in case it wasn’t. I’ve since confirmed with a couple of people in the know that it is in fact him, so I’ve updated the wording.

[thanks Jon]