Android - Opportunity, Complexity, and Abundance: Management Is the Challenge

The Android mobile operating system is an excellent example of the power of open source software. Android's ascent is attributable not only to demand for feature-rich mobile devices but also to the flexibility, extensibility, and developer-friendly openness of the core Android project, which has brought similar and rich functionality to a wide variety of mobile devices, available from many carriers. Android is about abundance and opportunity for carriers, developers and consumers. Yet with opportunity and abundance comes complexity: managing development of software designed to extend an open-source operating system with parallel development forks, governed by multiple licenses, with rapid development cycles and frequent commits is not a simple task.