this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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[–] EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 83 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's important to note that this is them moving in-development branches/features "behind closed doors", not making Android closed source. Whenever a feature is ready they then merge it publicly. I know this community tends to be filled with purists, many of whom are well informed and reasoned, but I'm actually totally fine with this change. This kind of structure isn't crazy uncommon, and I imagine it's mainly an effort to stop tech journalists analysing random in-progress features for an article. Personally, I wouldn't want to develop code with that kind of pressure.

[–] balder1991@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Not only that, the Android Police article mentions they had a lot of trouble merging the internal branches and the public branches, so I’m guessing as time went on they’ve diverged more and more.

[–] thann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Why would you want people to test your software on all sorts of random hardware when you could just pay people to test it on a smaller scale!

[–] EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

C'mon, that's what PR's, RCs, and betas are for

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Lots of people make a PR very early though, just to keep track of development and have a space to jot down thoughts and ideas, and get feedback during.

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Would you really want everyone in the world looking at every end of day commit before you've refactored it into something vaguely passable?

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Who tf looks at feature branches unless it's particularly relevant to them or they're reviewing a PR?

It's not like they merge half-baked features straight to master every day lol

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

So what exactly are we losing?

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

You can't review changes in the next build before it's actually released?

Currently you can still keep up with the master branch. PRs are merged a fair bit more often than new builds are made.

Ah and nobody outside of Google can contribute to Android development. I believe up till now if you found a bug you could fix it and open a PR? No?

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

When that code is used on devices all over the world for many very important tasks, yes.

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 points 6 days ago

Why do you feel that Vs when merges happen?

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Would you really want everyone in the world looking at every end of day commit before you've refactored it into something vaguely passable?

Honestly, it has been fine. Almost nobody really pays attention to anything they don't care about, and most people who do care tend to be pretty helpful.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Heck, I'll sometimes make a wip.diff file and scp it back and forth between work and home machines just because the code feels not ready for other eyes.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

While I'm way too lazy to do that myself, I respect you for the skill and effort.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

😅 it's not often nowadays, I'm not fresh meat at work anymore so I feel less insecure these days lol

I'm not a fan, but I understand it and am generally okay with it. I still wish it all happened in the open like Linux.