I don't think it is at all same. You can clone a Gradle-based project anywhere (e.g. /projects), cd into that directory and run `gradle build` and it will work. There is no `GRADLE_PATH` or similar environment variable determining where all your Gradle-based projects must live.

The `src` folder you are talking about is a sub-directory inside a Gradle based project. This is entirely configurable within the Gradle build script, you can use multiple sub-directories for your source code or even the same directory as the build script if you wish. The reason Gradle uses a single `src` sub-directory by default is that it follows the Maven Standard Directory Layout.