Here is some incredibly disappointing news for Android fans worldwide. JBQ a.k.a Jean-Baptiste Quèru, the project lead for AOSP (Android Open Source Project) in Google is quitting from his position. The reason behind this is the lack of the factory images for the new Nexus 7. The Nexus 4 factory images also took their own sweet time to appear on Google’s developer website, but they did after quite a bit of internet media frenzy.
So, what’s the deal about these factory images, AOSP and JBQ quitting his job you ask? Whenever Google releases a new Nexus device, they also release its factory image and any proprietary drivers for developers to play around with for that specific hardware. With the new Nexus 7, Qualcomm is playing the devil and is not allowing Google to release the factory images or proprietary drivers for its Adreno GPU. Due to the lack of proprietary drivers, an AOSP build of Android 4.3 for the new Nexus 7 won’t even boot to the home screen. Since JBQ is the project lead for AOSP, he is the one who will be spammed with questions and even blamed by (angry) developers about this. Sadly, the truth is that JBQ does not have the authority to fix this issue, and he even escalated all the anticipated issues more than six months ago regarding this matter. In the end, as an Android community follower, I am sure JBQ quitting AOSP will make a lot of people sad and angry with Qualcomm at the same time. Also, if you are a custom ROM developer, don’t expect the factory images for the new Nexus 7 to show up anytime soon. Via – JBQ
