Google is holding back a widespread release of the open source code for Honeycomb, the latest version of the Android OS which is designed specifically for tablets. The company said while “it was excited to offer these new features to Android tablets” it still had “more work to do” on Honeycomb before it was ready for “other device types including phones.” Google did not give a timetable for Honeycomb’s wider availability.

The decision does not impact larger vendors such as Motorola, HTC, Samsung and LG, which have either already launched (in the case of Motorola) or plan to launch Honeycomb-based tablets and have a privileged relationship with Google. But the delay will hit those smaller vendors which had planned to deploy the latest version of the Android OS in their devices once it had become more widely available. The decision will certainly put a stop to any smaller vendors putting Honeycomb into their smartphones 

Google will face criticism from voices in the open-source community for seeming to go against its often espoused open philosophy. Some commentators view it as an attempt at maintaining quality control over the production of Android-based tablets; rather than many potentially second-rate Honeycomb-based products circulating on the market, a smaller number of models from top vendors might be better for the Android brand and more likely to produce a champion against the iPad.

But Andy Rubin, vice president for engineering at Google and head of Android, says the delay is technical. “To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs,” he told Business Week. “We didn’t want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones.” Rather than pledge the additional resources and put back its launch schedule, Google chose to take “a shortcut”, he says. But he reaffirmed the company’s commitment to Android as an open-sourcee project The delay to Honeycomb’s open source code release will “probably be several months”, according to the publication.