Google has released the code Android 4.0, better known as Ice Cream Sandwich. Google delayed releasing the code for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), which criticism from some open source advocates. The acquisition of Motorola furthered fears that Google was backing away from its commitment to making Android an open platform. So the release of Android 4.0, preceding the release of the Galaxy Nexus, is welcome.

But Google still isn’t in the clear, as its development process remains closed to the public, with development occurred behind closed doors at Google and only released to the public when the project is completed, instead of being developed in public and accepting patches from developers outside the company. Furthermore, Google is still providing early access to new Android versions to partners, such as Samsung, before releasing it to the community.

JavaScript creator Brendan Eich, an employee of the Mozilla Foundation, has called this approach to open source “delayed open source” and it’s generally considered to be a form of open washing because it means a a company – rather than a community – remains in control of the project. Eich once explained the problem on Hacker News: “You can port and fork such code, but you can’t depend on the single proprietor, especially if it’s a hostile competitor. You’ll have to co-maintain if you don’t make a long-term fork of your own.”

Android isn’t the only place that Google employs delayed open source – it takes the same approach with the Dart programming language. This is in stark contrast to Chromium, which includes nightly builds and offers outside developers the chance to contribute.

If Google wants to be a real open source company, it needs to put this delayed open source model behind it after this 4.0 release. Outside developers need to be able to contribute and all vendors and engineers should have equal access to the source. The odds of this happening seem low at the moment, but developers and vendors should put pressure on Google.