[Android-tools-devel] replicant SDK into Debian

[Paul Kocialkowski]

Hi,

Le mercredi 27 avril 2016 à 16:19 +0200, Hans-Christoph Steiner a écrit :
> Paul Kocialkowski:
> > Hi there, looks like I forgot to answer this in due time.
> > 
> > Le jeudi 25 février 2016 à 23:19 +0100, Hans-Christoph Steiner a écrit :
> > > Also, I don't know how closely you follow our Android Tools work in
> > > Debian.  We've gotten a substantial chunk in already, and are getting
> > > close to actually building apps with only Debian packages.
> > 
> > Well, I've been a user of it, so one could say I've been following it, to
> > some
> > extent!
> > 
> > > The big missing bit is the 'platform', i.e.
> > > ANDROID_HOME/platforms/android-20.
> > > I think this is the bit where we should probably package the Replicant
> > > source directly, and label it as such.  It would be great if you could
> > > advise us on how you put together the Replicant SDK, and how we should
> > > be including the platforms in Debian.
> > 
> > Well, you might as well want to package the upstream AOSP SDK and remove the
> > encouragements to install and use proprietary software from it, in a way
> > similar
> > to what Replicant does. I'm a bit attached to see upstream go in Debian,
> > instead
> > of Replicant.
> > 
> > Note that Replicant doesn't move forward as fast as upstream, so it's
> > probably
> > better to keep track with AOSP for this reason, too.
> 
> So from your experience, we'll be able to package the full android-20
> platform?  I.e. its all free software?  I expect to run into some
> proprietary bits in the process of packaging the whole Android SDK.
> Have you seen any?

I don't recall seeing any blob involved with the SDK. As far as I know, the only
blobs found in AOSP are Wi-Fi firmware and some proprietary modules for Nexus
devices. This may have changed in the meantime though.

However, I suggest you do patch the SDK to comply with: http://www.gnu.org/distr
os/free-system-distribution-guidelines.en.html

This is because the SDK as it is today will grab a list of things to propose for
download from Google and many of them are proprietary. There is also an opt-in
feature that is better left disabled. See:

https://git.replicant.us/replicant/sdk/commits/replicant-4.2

> At the very least, I want to make sure that the platform versions used
> by Replicant are given priority in Debian over the rest.

That's nice, but applications for Replicant can be written with any platform
version AFAIK, at least we don't have any problem with applications from F-
Droid. IMO it would be better to pack the latest version from AOSP.

We usually release an SDK matching the Replicant version (and probably will keep
on doing so), either way.

-- 
Paul Kocialkowski, Replicant developer

Replicant is a fully free Android distribution running on several
devices, a free software mobile operating system putting the emphasis on
freedom and privacy/security.

Website: https://www.replicant.us/
Blog: https://blog.replicant.us/
Wiki/tracker/forums: https://redmine.replicant.us/
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