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[REF]Android is now Open Source[Code released]

Android was announce as Open Source 6 hours ago.
Anybody now can download and work over Android.
http://source.android.com/
Let's work together to bring the Android to our loved Elf(in)!
Good luck!
Sry for the english.

Android is now available as open source
Oct 21, 2008 7:52 AM posted by Dave Bort [updated Oct 21, 2008 9:59 AM by Dave Bort]
Today is a big day for Android, the Open Handset Alliance, and the open-source community. All of the work that we've poured into the mobile platform is now officially available, for free, as the Android Open Source Project.
You'll be hearing a lot about Android devices. We've all put a lot of effort into the first Android device, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. But one device is just the beginning.
Android is not a single piece of hardware; it's a complete, end-to-end software platform that can be adapted to work on any number of hardware configurations. Everything is there, from the bootloader all the way up to the applications. And with an Android device already on the market, it has proven that it has what it takes to truly compete in the mobile arena.
Even if you're not planning to ship a mobile device any time soon, Android has a lot to offer. Interested in working on a speech-recognition library? Looking to do some research on virtual machines? Need an out-of-the-box embedded Linux solution? All of these pieces are available, right now, as part of the Android Open Source Project, along with graphics libraries, media codecs, and some of the best development tools I've ever worked with.
Have a great idea for a new feature? Add it! As an open source project, the best part is that anyone can contribute to Android and influence its direction. And if the platform becomes as ubiquitous as I hope it will, you may end up influencing the future of mobile devices as a whole.
This is an exciting time for Android, and we're just getting started. It takes a lot of work to keep up with the changes in the mobile industry. But we want to do more than just keep up; we want to lead the way, to try things out, to add the new features that everyone else is scrambling to keep up with. But we can't do it without your help.
What will you do with Android?

Damn....i read a bit and then realised this is not gonna work for the Elf
Elfin users yes but not elf......... maybe someone can hack it for elf users or provide a workaround

Please maintain subject line as per posting policy in the announcement. I have edited the same right now in spirit of this discussion. Please bear in mind for further times

Open source softwares on Android platform?

Hi everybody!
It's my first post here, I'm quite a noob at all these Android things, but I got my HTC Hero last year and have been using it quite a lot since then.
I'm also fond of FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software), and I always try to find an open source equivalent to what I'm using. That's how I switched to Ubuntu Linux 6 years ago and never came back to Windows
I've been looking on the Web, reading Android news websites, and I realized they never talk about open source software being developed for Android phones. At most, they will talk about free (as in beer) softwares, but most of the time these are ad-supported or quickly become ad-supported if they're popular.
For instance, I looked for a music player (cause the one offered by HTC is quite slow and poorly reads OGG music -- yes I'm also in open formats!), and I could only find ad-supported free-ish softwares (MixZing player for instance)... but no open source choice!
On Linux, there are dozens of music players, and of course they're all open source, so you just choose the one you like the best, and even if it doesn't suit you perfectly, you can modify it or develop a plugin for it!
I was wondering if all that was because of the Android Market. Could it be possible to push an open source application on the Android Market? Would it be accepted?
Anyways, to summarize: Is there an open source community on Android?
Thanks in advance!

I'd say yes, you can find many oss in android market, but generally the source is in devs personal page. For instance my apps are open-source, the rom hackers generally give out their source, and more. However i don't know if there are oss apps for all categories...

Hi!
Thanks for your answer! (and congrats for the supertux port )
I'm pretty concerned about the multimedia part... So far:
MixZing Player ==> Ad supported, closed sources
Tune Wiki ==> Ad supported, closed sources
Astro Player ==> Commercial software, closed sources
Cubed ==> Closed sources
etc.
The only one I see was Rock On, which used to be closed sources until the project was discontinued (now the sources are available on github I guess).
As for the other softwares, a lot of them are created by people who think they're going to be rich by selling 0.99 USD softwares... therefore all these softwares are (obviously) closed-sources!

not to be a smart ass but, as long as it works, does it really matter if the source is available?
Yes FOSS is great but if there's a closed source app that does the job I'll use it, there's nothing wrong with closed source vs open when it comes to functionality

Of course, it's mainly a philosophical/ethical topic.
But to give you an example, MixZing recently decided to add an ad-supported system. In the initial release after this system was applied, ads were displayed every 10 seconds, it became almost unusable!
Of course, because a lot of people complained, the MixZin developers changed that. Yet, it's still heavily invaded with ads everywhere...
Another thing is that if you like a software but think it lacks a functionality, with open source you can add it. Of course, it requires technical skills, but the most important thing is that it is possible. With closed source, the only thing you can do is to send a feedback to the developers, then cross your fingers and hope that your request will be implemented in the next version.
A last thing: if the software is discontinued (e.g. the main developers lack of time to keep maintaining the software), the source is available for anybody to maintain it. With closed sources, well... use your software until the next Android update tells you it's too old to run on your system!
By the way, I should twist my fingers 7 times before typing anything: the main developer of RockOn created a project called ^3 (Cubed) which is open source as well, and which has evolved a lot since the last time I checked it! It might become my music player of choice!

I personally use Music Mod. I'm not sure if it's open or not, it's based on the stock music player.
As for open source vs not, I use the best tool for the job. I've used Linux for 11 years and Unix for years before that but I'm no source code tree hugging hippy..
There are many open source software.. I'd have to guess most on code.google.com are open..

arcMedia is based off ffmpeg and so should be OSS
(appbrain playing up today so link here)
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/multimedia/arcmedia_jpez.html

Where is all the open source software for android?

Okay, this will be more of a rant.
So on non-android linux there are about 10000000000 useful, top-notch, cutting-edge, great, perfect and all round ass-kicking programs around. You can download all sorts of crazy super cool stuff for free because the free software and open source software community is producing awesome things. In many cases the open source and/or free alternatives are much better than the proprietary ones. I can't really think of a need when I couldn't find a really great open source library or full program to do the job.
But with android it's different. On Google Play there is all sorts of crap, feature-less and expensive stuff, the free version of a program is typically unmitigated ape****, the reviews/ratings/etc are useless. There are some exceptions like the terminal emulator, or sl4a, but for gods sake where is the geek community here? With fedora/ubuntu/debian/arch/etc we didn't need a centralized crap store and fancy useless ratings/reviews/etc and everything was still wonderful and you could actually get things done. In android, not so. There isn't a single fully functional open source and free GUI for browsing webdav or files over scp, but that's just the latest frustration of mine. Whenever I think of a program I'd love to just search for, download, install and use in 5 minutes which is the norm in a usual linux environment I know in advance that 8 out of 10 cases it won't be that easy on android.
And so where did all the non-free stuff get us? Now everyone is offering crap for money, all ****ty stores incorporate this supposedly to create incentives for developers to innovate because you know, without money there is no innovation at all on the face of this Earth but let's face it, when things were open source and/or free things worked (i.e. ordinary linux) but now they don't. Seems like the model is just not working.
Why can't I have the same linux experience on my bloody phone as the one I have on my laptop and desktop?
Who screwed this up and when?
Can we still fix it?

Android was meant for consumers as an option to the iPhone. Not for people to get all techy with it.
And most Android users ARE simply consumers who want a smartphone with "app and games," internet browser, texting, email, facebook, and calling
Ask that same consumer about computers, and I can almost guarantee they think its a Mac and PC (in which they mean Windows) battle. Mention Linux, and they'll look at you puzzled.
Sent from my DROID2 using xda premium

Android isn't totally open source. Still better than apple though.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Exhibit 4G running Cyanogen Mod 9.

We are not limited to the Play "crap store" since we can sideload .apk files from alternative stores, or from wherever you get them. Also, I wouldn't call the Play store's reviews "useless;" I actually think they're generally helpful, and certainly better than the reviews in the Ubuntu "store."
Also, remember that Google built it's empire on selling advertising, and selling access to analytical data. The general *nix community doesn't have that. That's the difference between "open source" & "free."
-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

Yes, we don't need to use google play, but how many software packages are out there for android outside of google play? Not many. Certainly orders of magnitude less than ordinary free software available for desktop linux.
I see the fact that google invented android in order to make money, sell ads, etc. That's clear, so I agree with a commenter that android is not really techy from the get go. But why isn't there an ordinary linux based phone? I hear meego is dying, but why is that? Or why isn't there an alternative to meego which follows the ordinary linux philosophy, being community driven, perhaps with a corporate sponsor like redhat or canonical?
The same path that worked for the desktop is currently does not seem to be there for the phone although I'd think it's just another computing platform, not much different after all.

I honestly think we will never see a true open source phone. There are carriers that have to carry that phone and they want users to be able to have the latest and greatest when it comes to their phones and they want it to be easy for them to use. Android & IPhone both offer that experience a full functional Open Source phone would not offer that experience, you would have to build the source from scratch and flash it to your phone which wouldn't be fun for most users. Plus android has the full source code available here http://source.android.com/source/index.html which is how you get Cyanogenmod builds most of the time, they use google source to build that ROM.

tortib said:
I honestly think we will never see a true open source phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Openmoko-Project has grown very far,
the FreeRunner is pretty cool:
> www.openmoko.org
not only the software development is open, you can already even print your case at home if you own a 3D-printer:
> projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/page/CaseDesign/

Pine: A new cross platform framework for Android, iOS, Windows and Mac

Hi all!
I am excited to share a project I have been personally working on for a few years now. I call it Pine, and it is a new cross platform framework for developing apps for Android, iOS, Windows and Mac. It is a modification and extension of the LibGDX game framework, so apps are written in Java, hardware rendered, and extremely fast and smooth. Pine will be released open-source under the Apache 2.0 licence, and it only needs a few more months work before it can be released.
I would be extremely grateful if people could please support this project, more details about how it works and some of the things it can do, including demo apps for Android and Windows, are available on my kickstarter campaign.
I can't post URL's due to being a new user, but if you google "Pine Cross Platform Framework" you will find it.
I have tried posting this around on a few forums but people report it as a scam. Please, if you feel like it may be a scam, just check out the demos. My Android app at least is only available on the official Play Store. Also, there are certain things in the demos that prove the apps are built using this new framework. For example my 'Perspective Group', which allows rendering all 2D elements in 3D. This can be seen on the 'Videos' page - with a video playing while it spins in 3D, and the 'Fun Layout Example' page - which demonstrates an interactive 3D carousel. These things can't be done natively, and I don't think any other cross platform frameworks can do it either.
Thanks guys, and I hope you like it!
All the best,
Graham

[APP] Seeking Help To Rev Engineer My Own App

First I want to make this clear right from the start that I am the developer/author of the app I am wanting to reverse engineer. There is nothing illegal or questionable about my intentions.
If I have posted this in the wrong section I do apologize and would ask that it be moved to the appropriate section.
Before I go into any specifics of what the app does or what it is used for; the reason why I am wanting to reverse engineer the apk back into source code has a somewhat unique origin that very few people will ever encounter. About 4 years ago I began development on my app that is now known as Ls Droid. I did not know any Java code and I had an idea at the time that lead me to find a development tool created by MIT that was known as App Inventor 2. If you've never heard of this before, App Inventor is a GUI based programming language based on Googles Blocky that allows the user to combine various types of blocks that each represent different code functions and create working Android apps. I'm not going to discuss how App Inventor works but you can read the overview of it at appinventor.mit.edu/ . Over time my app outgrew what MIT's version of App Inventor was capable of and I moved my app to another platform(Thunkable) that was still based on App Inventor but greatly expanded on it's functionality and was capable of dealing with larger projects than what the MIT servers would allow. I used Thunkable for several years and ran my app though it's entire Alpha development life cycle and into an open Beta. Unfortunately Thunkable had been creating their own(improved) version of App Inventor from the ground up and not only was it incompatible with app's created on the App Inventor platform but they did not include many of the things my app required to work and I was forced to look for another platform to move my app to in order to continue development. Unfortunately by this point all of the spin off versions of the original MIT App Inventor had created advertising components and the majority of people using these GUI based programming platforms were now focused on creating earning apps. As a result the people running spin off versions of App inventor are now focused on providing tools based around add based apps and less interested in fixing basic functionality for core components as they are rarely used in earning app.
So this brings me to my current situation. The compiler used by the current GUI programming platform I have been using for the last 8 months or so has become unreliable and buggy. Core functionality of how specific blocks function has also been altered several times in the last 6 months and each time a change like this is made requires dozens of hours to restructure my apps logic to work with the new changes. I have tried to leave these GUI based programming platforms several times and move my app into Android Studio but have never been successful. Attempting to recreate my app from scratch in Android Studio would be a massive undertaking even for someone fluent in Java and I only have a basic understanding of Java at best. I can however work from existing code and alter or restructure it with out a lot of trouble and that's basically all I need to do in my app at this point.
I have worked with a number of people in the past who have tried to help me turn an APK back into source code that worked in Android Studio and about a year and a half ago I was working with someone who was able to decompile the app and successfully import it into Android Studio where it did mostly work with the emulator. Unfortunately this person was killed in a car accident, I do have a copy of what they had done that was close to a working version but I was never able to get a copy of the source they had working in Android Studio. I have had a couple of other people look at this code since then but no one else was able to do anything with it. At this point the version that was being worked on that did open in Android Studio is old enough that it bears very little resemblance to the current version of the app and attempting to even work from this code now would be a massive step backwards.
In the past I have always looked for help from automotive reverse engineering forums since my app has a very unique purpose, it is used to read and write the binary code from an engine's computer on a number of General Motors vehicles that are popular/common in the hot rod community using a Bluetooth tool connected to the vehicles OBD II data port. I created this app to remove the cost barrier that had previously been required when you wanted to make changes to an engines program on fuel injected vehicles....my app is free and uses a relatively cheap OBD II tool. There are thousands of people that have used my app over the last couple of years and successfully re-tuned their vehicle with many of these people being able to do this with no cost out of pocket as they already had the tool my app was designed to work with.
My app is now at the point where even making basic changes or bug fixes is becoming an issue due to constant changes in the GUI based programming language. I have exhausted the help of various automotive community's, mixing smart phones and cars was a long shot in the first place and here I am 4 years later with a very successful app but it's well beyond what my network of car hacking colleges are able help me with. It's no secret that XDA has some of the best Android developers(and hackers) anywhere on the web so I figured this would be the best place to turn to for help.
Maybe this would be fun for someone here? I doubt people get a chance to decompile and reconstruct an app legally....and if they do it's extremely unlikely it was done on an app built with a program like App Inventor. I have no issues making my apps source code public so I have no issues discussing anything to do with this publicly, but if someone would prefer to discuss this by PM or Email I'm fine with that as well.
My app can be found at ls-droid . com near the top of the page, there are a couple of versions posted currently with 2.2B being the last public release but it's not exactly current. I do not want to post the APK for the most recent version of the app I have been working on at the moment on the off chance someone wanting to use the app were to find it since it has some pretty nasty bugs right now due to compiler changes. You can search Youtube or Facebook and should have no trouble finding information on my app if your wondering how it works.