Google's Andy Rubin defends delay over Honeycomb code release

A month has passed since the arrival of the Motorola Xoom - the first Honeycomb tablet – but to the disapproval of many Android developers, the source code for the OS is yet to be released.

Feeling the heat, Google's VP of Engineering Andy Rubin has used his blog to defend the delay.

“We continue to be an open source platform and will continue releasing source code when it is ready.” he said.

“As I write this the Android team is still hard at work to bring all the new Honeycomb features to phones. As soon as this work is completed, we'll publish the code. This temporary delay does not represent a change in strategy."

It is presumed that Rubin was responding to a recent article published by Bloomberg, which reported that Google has been demanding Android licensees to abide by non-fragmentation clauses.

This would mean that Google would have the final say concerning the tweaking of the Android code, as well as who it partners with.

Rubin denied this however.

"We remain firmly committed to providing Android as an open source platform across many device types. As always, device makers are free to modify Android to customise any range of features for Android devices," he said.