Dell’s official blogger Lionel Menchaca late last evening promised that the Streak’s approach to be Android would be open-sourced. He made that rebuttal Following criticism that Dell wasn’t giving out the source code for the tablet’s device drivers of the streak, Menchaca stressed that the company would adapt to “all applicable requirements” and post details. A timetable wasn’t available, but more information is hopefully coming “soon.” Maybe they are afraid that people will do the legal and make their own ROM that happens to be light years better than the one they came up with or even UPDATE to a higher OS than the despicable 1.6 that the Streak ships with..
The version of Android 1.6 used by Dell is based on a Linux kernel and by definition fits under the GNU Public License (GPL), which requires that it open-source any new code. Without Dell’s custom portions of software, programmers haven’t had access to the drivers and other code that talks to the Streak’s exact hardware. Using the GPL doesn’t carry a deadline for when code must be published, but it’s usually assumed code will be available almost immediately or shortly before any hardware or software ships. So Hurry up Dell, users are ready to make their own FROYO streak
Most Android phone manufacturers that have their own custom interfaces, such as HTC, have already posted any changes they’ve made that would be covered by the GPL.