After Google released on Monday an initial set of detail about its architectural plan to falsify how mobile applications are create and lot , industry viewer are compiling a long list of follow - up questions about theAndroid political platform and the Open Handset Alliance .

IDG News Service had a prospect to talk to Rich Miner , a primal penis of Android ’s technical staff and a co - founder of the namesake company Google take in 2005 , and ask him some of those questions .

During the brief phone confabulation , he say all members of the confederation have to agree to protect Android from proficient fragmentation and explained why Google decide to set in motion its own mobile Linux effort when several others already exist .

Here is an emended copy of the interview :

IDGNS : Other mobile Linux initiatives be on the food market that are trying to accomplish a similar thing as Android . Wo n’t Android vie with them and complicate those effort ?

Miner : When we looked at the other [ Mobile River ] Linux activities out there , oftentimes they ’re initiatives that are based on Linux but their resulting platforms are n’t all subject . Or they ’re completely open and they ’re Linux , but they ’re escape most of the things that [ Android has ] . They probably do n’t have video codecs , Midi sequencer , speech recognition . So they ’re not a thoroughgoing phone stack . The goal with Android was to build into it everything you needed to release a earphone : an entire lot to ramp up a competitive smartphone or in high spirits - end feature film earpiece .

IDGNS : The description you have given of Android ’s internet browser sounds exciting . Will it in fact replicate the PC browser app experience on fluid devices ?

Miner : Yes . It ’s based on the [ open source]Webkitbrowser engineering . That ’s the same web browser app that Apple ship with theiPhoneand that ’s used in the Nokia Series 60 phones . So it ’s a full desktop internet browser , base on the same Webkit core Apple uses for theirSafaribrowser , but extremely optimized for our mobile surroundings . … It ’ll be a bang-up peregrine Web experience .

IDGNS : Speaking of the iPhone , any idea why Apple is n’t among the Open Handset Alliance ’s partners ? Are there any conversations die on between Google and Apple over this ?

Miner : You ’d have to involve Apple about Apple .

IDGNS : Some people marvel whether the freedom to broadly speaking qualify Android might backfire in case people start build proprietary extensions and tweaks , or requiring them , so that you terminate up with developer back to square one , hold to modify applications for every earpiece .

Miner : It ’s a good question but every fellow member of the coalition has agreed to an antifragmentation clause . They ’ve essentially agree not to fragment nor do thing that would leave in different versions of the program . So we ’ve built into the alliance mechanism so that everyone harmonize they wo n’t support that kind of atomization .

IDGNS : Is that a bind mandate that Google can in some way of life enforce , or is it more like an honour - system , good - religion dedication by members ?

Miner : The most important thing is that everyone has match to the heart of it because they realise that one of the big authoritative things of this alliance is to build up a vivacious third - political party developer community . And they all match that if they were to do things that would compromise the integrity of the political platform , that would break third - party software , and nobody wants to do that .

IDGNS : When you talk about Android ’s operating system ingredient , are we talking about a exclusive O or multiple OSes ?

Miner : We refer to it as a platform because it ’s much more than an group O but it ’s base on Linux . It ’s a substantial complete stack . We ’ve worked very hard all the way from the ironware up through all the package levels : the Linux OS , machine drivers , all of the middleware , all the direction up to the app . It ’s a very highly optimized stack for Mobile River that ’s based on Linux .

IDGNS : Google has said it will supply a lot of flexibleness for how developers , French telephone maker and carrier will be able-bodied to apply and adapt Android and its components . Can you swap out the atomic number 8 objet d’art and use a different Linux - based OS ?

Miner : It ’s base on Linux , so it will be released supporting a particular freeing of Linux , but as long as there ’s Linux underneath the program and our machine drivers , you should be in ripe physique . It ’s not a readiness of applications that could run on top of Linux or Symbian or different os . The platform is based on Linux .

IDGNS : And the Linux distribution will be called Android ?

Miner : The handset dispersion will be called Android and it ’s based on Linux but with a whole bunch of other components for things like optimized computer graphic for wandering phones , optimized database , address credit , video codecs . It ’s all of that other package that pull in a French telephone optimized in a Linux surroundings we ’re delivering .