As reported by Computerworld (from the recent Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2010), Google plans to assign two developers to work on integrating enhancements developed for the Android Linux kernel into the official Linux development tree maintained by Linus Torvalds.

Android developer Arve Hjønnevåg has already taken a first step in this direction and sent a number of changes to the kernel development team for appraisal. Kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman notes that integrating these patches into the official Linux kernel should also make it possible to merge a number of drivers. Some kernel developers have criticised parts of the submitted code, and it will require at least one round of revision, but this is entirely normal and frequently occurs even with code from old hands.

Some time ago, with only broad agreement from the Google developers, a number of Android drivers had been merged into the staging area in Linux kernel 2.6.29. Then, in a highly public fashion, these drivers were ejected from Linux 2.6.33 and a number of accusations were made of poor collaboration between Google and the kernel developers. Now the situation, which is even more complex when examined in detail, looks to be improving somewhat. Time will tell the extent to which this leads to genuine collaboration and alleviates or dispels the causes of the current criticism of Google. Greg Kroah-Hartman outlined the problem areas in a recent talk at the Embedded Linux Conference. LWN.net reproduces them in some detail in its article "ELC: Android and the community".

(crve)