Yes, working off a tarball image will make version control of updates produced within that tarball more difficult. However, right now it is nearly impossible to get a good filetree in which to develop updates and new ideas in the first place!

If you could spend a day or two and produce a coherent file tree which builds a mostly-stable image with basic functionality (just like the images which you have been publishing here), and document any build steps outside of make and fastboot, I will host the tarball for you. As a grad student, I have plenty of access to storage with high internet bandwidth.

You can be the door through which the open source community comes to Android, because as you said, Google is making it more of a headache than it is worth.

Thanks!

And I would just prefer git in favor of tar balls, because changes can be tracked using git.

So, do you see a way to set up a stable/running/compleate fork of Android?

(I’m going to rant now because it is late and I am frustrated. Please turn away.)

I have been trying for 2 days to use the revert.sh script you packaged with the 03-16-2009 image to produce something resembling the 03-16-2009 binary, and the closest I have come (after greatly massaging the source code) is a system with no sound (because it states at boot that it cannot find htc_acoustic.so, even though I cannot find that file on any other phone image) and the Home button disabled.

Maybe I am using your revert.sh script incorrectly. I created a new directory, ran “repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git”, loaded the local_manifest.xml file from android’s “Building for Dream” webpage into .repo, ran “repo sync”, then ran your revert.sh script from within that directory. I ran make, and minutes later got a Java compilation issue in
“packages/inputmethods/LatinIME/src/com/android/inputmethod/latin/LatinIME.java” because “frameworks/base/core/java/android/view/inputmethod/EditorInfo.java” lacked a bunch of attributes and methods it required. And then the fun began trying to use a completely current build to drop in missing pieces all over the system from there.

If I’m doing something wrong, please tell me. There is no documentation on building a single stable image for ADP1. I’ve pieced together my knowledge primarily by reading makefiles and shell scripts in JesusFreke’s BuildEnviroment. (Like Grandpa Simpson’s sugar packet based knowledge of history…) Not that it helped… I never managed to build a JesusFreke image with wireless or stable enough to touch anything. I would run the repoinit.sh script. I tried building that… unusable. I tried running the various patching scripts provided. Most of them introduced such egregious syntax errors, that I know he/she never used them. (The patchinit.sh script caused a git merge conflict, and after resolving the conflict: macros and functions were missing. The browser patch installed a java file that had a package name that didn’t share a word in common with where it was installed.)

Anyway, to finish up this whining… There are a lot of people who would really appreciate just one coherent source tree to use for personal projects. Fill in binary blobs where necessary for the actual hardware dependencies or have an extract-files script which is guaranteed to work. This tree does not need to be updated any more often than Google releases new sdks. The linux kernel is managed in git, but I never need to know that because I simply grab a tarball whenever I need to kernel dive. An open source operating system doesn’t imply that everyone hacking on it is trying to productively advance the state of the art.

I’ve seen you around the android-platform message boards, you follow the src changes pretty closely. And I know you can build a stable and useful system because your 03-16-2009 binary image ran great. Please, please, please… give us a well documented way to build that same image without assuming any steps.

If I am an idiot and missing something obvious, please tell me and make fun of me for it rather than ignoring me.

If you want to reach me directly, please email blackbu at gmail dot com.

Thanks

Android development is not open (yet) but it’s much more open then Symbian or WM, so i think it’s a good starting point. As floks at google are ok with forks, why not set up a fork of Android, which is developed in the open community?
As a first step it would be great if one could get access to your git repository with all the features like Maps and Market app in it.

I think Google did the minimal of what open source software entails.
I am okay with the open source -> closed vault -> put back into tree.

Any party that puts in effort should – i feel- fulfill some of the commercial self-interest (stronger influence) to be fair.

I’m more worried this becomes a vehicle for Google to be the next MacroSlob of the Web by bundling all kinds of G-stuff under the facade of OHA, or adverts. A benevolent monopolist is still better than an evil one.

Symbian is right: Android is not an open project, neither was S60. nor do I believe that by being an open project, you are any better at creating value for this world as a well-executed closed one.

only question is on everyone’s minds – in a weird Android way, what is Google’s true Intent, and how are we going to Filter it…