[rlpb]

Linux apps generally expect a full software stack. Android's userspace is radically different (and for good reason). There's no GNU libc or GNU coreutils or GTK/Qt or X. There's a minimal libc implementation, busybox, and an Android-specific framebuffer-based GUI framework. From the source it appears that Google have tried hard to exclude GPL'd code as much as possible, too.

Getting Linux apps to (natively) run on Android isn't really affected by this news. The kernel was already as close as it needed to be. It's userspace that's the issue.

[ajross]

No busybox in android; that too is GPL software that Andy Rubin and the pre-Google Android people didn't want to ship. They actually hacked up a minimal "toolbox" to avoid shipping it. Sad, really.

[rlpb]

Of course, yes. My mistake. Busybox is one of the first things I add after rooting an Android phone.

[nextparadigms]

Why did they remove it? What is GPL stopping them from doing?

[ajross]

It's just the standard fear. Shipping GPL code you didn't write means that you need to honor a license in ways you might not forsee. Some people view that as a scary risk and some don't. Rubin is firmly in the "GNU is for commies" camp. Shrug.