Greg Kroah-Hartman: Android and the Linux kernel community

I'm glad the Android developer posted. He's conveyed something I didn't realize, that is that Google and their developers believe they are right regardless of what others think. It sounds like this might be a corporate problem in that they truly believe they are right and everyone else is wrong.

I don't think anyone would argue that in some instances it's better to be out of tree than in, but it's the exception, not the rule. Part of getting into mainline is listening to other people when they tell you your code is garbage and your solution is the wrong one and that a better one exists. This is especially true when the other people doing the same kind of development (embedded in this case) tell you that your approach is the wrong one as otherwise you might have an argument that what you propose is an embedded specific exception.

It's an eyeopener to me to see how arrogant the Google developers are about their code. It explains their toss it over the wall attitude precisely. I have to wonder how long Google will be able to maintain this attitude with all the other players in the Open Handset Alliance, and most particularly what will happen when Google gets tired of Android and abandons it. It's unfortunate this attitude exists, while the corporation is interested in Android it will raise their costs significantly and when they abandon it if others haven't forked the code it will die. Rather unfortunate, but as I said, it's probably a corporate problem that in the long term will see most Google code abandoned, rather unfortunate but I guess that's what happens when you can't play with others or take constructive criticism. There is an interesting sociological question on where such corporate attitudes develop and whether they are related to some demographic figure, such as average age, of the Google developers plays a role.