Google insists AOSP will remain open-source despite switch to private development

The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) has accorded access to the source code for one of the world's leading operating systems for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to pretty much everyone for nearly 16 years. However, Google is now making a significant shift in how this process takes place.

AOSP development has historically been maintained under 2 different branches of its documentation for most of its history: the public one released under Apache 2.0, and its private counterpart that requires a Google Mobile Services (GMS) license instead.

The 2 have started to diverge ever more widely over the last few years, to the extent that the public branch is now often quite outdated compared to the private one. 

Now, Google has decided to formally migrate all aspects of AOSP onto the latter. When asked for comment on this change by Android Authority, the Mountain View behemoth stated that it had been done in order to "streamline its development process".

The company has committed to keeping AOSP open-source by continuing to publish the source code - albeit only after work on the private branch is complete, apparently. 

Therefore, the change is projected to have minimal impact on regular users - although it could also be seen as the final nail in the coffin of custom Android development, as some pundits might suggest.