Motorola had so far been slow in releasing the mandatory kernel source code for the Moto X and Moto G. Now, an employee from Motorola confirms that both can be found at Motorola's development GitHub.
Identified as 'tags07,' the employee stated in his comment the words "fyi. We just posted Moto X Gen 2 kernel sources: Branch: KitKat-4.4.4-release-victara; TAG: MMI-KXE21.187-47. Moto G Gen2 is next."
The kernel is what goes between Android and the device's hardware which is responsible for both to have a flawless exchange of communication. This would mean that knowing the correct and functional ROM on a certain device would need an appropriate kernel which would act as the drivers for the device's hardware.
Since Android is an open source platform, anyone can tweak and poke at it. When a new build comes up, it is imperative that the source code of that build is released back into the community. It doesn't matter if the developer is a big time manufacturer or a small-scale ROM tinkerer.
The initial kernel source coded for Motorola Moto X and Moto G are codenamed as 'Victara' and 'Titan' respectively. They are available for download as a standard and browse-friendly zip or tar files in GitHub.
Both devices are powered by Android 4.4.4 KitKat. Motorola has confirmed that it is rolling out the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop for both.
Motorola is expected to publish the new kernel source codes as soon as it launches the Android 5.0 Lollipop version for the two devices.
Back in September, the kernel source code of Android 4.4.4 KitKat for the Android One devices was released by Google in India. It was reported that the source codes needed a minor fix on issue with the gyroscope bug.
Now that the kernel source codes are out, the modding community may be able to come out with a slew of custom builds real soon. The Moto G is popularly known as the king of affordable phones on earth today while the new Moto X is also getting a positive feedback.
For those who understand and get their pleasure from updating hardware or loading new ROMs for features that are customized and specialized, having the added ability to source the code and modify it at the same time is like a dream come true. However, a phone or tablet would usually require an unlocked bootloader in order to flash a custom kernel which would bring users of AT&T and Verizon out of the picture.
