46 replies to this topic

[t0mm13b]

Arr Too, on Jan 22 2011, 18:52, said:

There's no guarantee of that at all.  It's very naive to think you just throw the bits together and expect to make some sort of Super ROM, especially since we have all sorts of different bases, RILs and higher-level apps.  That's not our fault: that's ZTE's (and the restrictions placed on them).  But where there are common problems with common solutions, I'm sure that none of our devs is going to keep any of them secret.

I know, and am not being naive either... see the previous postings to yours...

+1 as I agree there, terrible eh that ZTE are not being "forthcoming"....

Thanks Arr Too

[isambard]

t0mm13b, on Jan 22 2011, 18:40, said:

I am not 100% sure if you're being genuine or sarcastic here....

Sure competition is great, there's always a BIG BUT

the fragmentation of the kernel sources, I am talking here specifically the kernel sources, not the roms,

• One set of sources is used by Japanese jellyfish
  
• Another set is used by FillyJonk
  
• Another set by Customized Bladevillain
  
• And so on... need I go on....  

The problem is the fragmentation, that's the keyword....

How many different kernel sources are there in github by those ROMs...?

That's the part where I think you do not fully understand the implications....

The question is, are those devs willing to share it, it is not exactly open source per se....the fixes are in isolation....

This can be easily confirmed and checked by looking at the config.gz found in the /proc filesystem, try matching that configuration with the official line of the 2.6.32-9 kernel sources....

There's too many 2.6.32-9 kernel sources lying around, some with patches, some with fixes, others are naked sources...

An encouragement is needed, to be brave, to envision a real mofo of a modaco rom, that unifies ALL and to be the #1 ROM for the blade....

fragmentation of the kernel is not an issue. the kernel is GPL so any changes that are made and distributed, the source needs to be provided.

there's nothing to stop someone from taking all the roms and unifying them or cataloging the changes or building a 'kitchen' to allow others to pick and choose their changes.

[t0mm13b]

isambard, on Jan 22 2011, 19:02, said:

fragmentation of the kernel is not an issue. the kernel is GPL so any changes that are made and distributed, the source needs to be provided.

there's nothing to stop someone from taking all the roms and unifying them or cataloging the changes or building a 'kitchen' to allow others to pick and choose their changes.

Sure, we all know the kernel is GPL BUT, and I think you're wrong there isambard...

I hate to nit-pick but read section 6 of the GPL, specifically,

Quote

6. Conveying Non-Source Forms.
You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, in one of these ways:

a) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by the Corresponding Source fixed on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange.

and this hammers the point home...

Where is the fixes/patches etc available, why the shroud of secrecy about it?!!!!  

[IronDoc]

t0mm13b, on Jan 22 2011, 21:10, said:

Sure, we all know the kernel is GPL BUT, and I think you're wrong there isambard...

I hate to nit-pick but read section 6 of the GPL, specifically,
and this hammers the point home...

Where is the fixes/patches etc available, why the shroud of secrecy about it?!!!!  

Have you asked them for the fixes?

Edited by IronDoc, 22 January 2011 - 08:52 PM.

[t0mm13b]

IronDoc, on Jan 22 2011, 20:50, said:

Have you asked them for the fixes?

Who's "them" you refer to? The ROM makers..

why is there no github tree for the sources anywhere... this, is where github comes in, have the main trunk for 2.6.32, let the rom makers upload the patches and fixes available for anyone....they should be available for anyone to use...? why holding on to it and not distribute them and expected to be asked?

Distributing a ROM without the sources....

Surely that is a breach of the GPL

Edited by t0mm13b, 22 January 2011 - 09:28 PM.

[wbaw]

only if they don't supply the sources when asked to...

but I agree at github is essential

[isambard]

i think the current development process works well. everybody works on their own thing. if something is good, the feature is also adopted by other developers so in the end all the good features should make it into up to date packages.

[IronDoc]

t0mm13b, on Jan 22 2011, 22:23, said:

Who's "them" you refer to? The ROM makers..

why is there no github tree for the sources anywhere... this, is where github comes in, have the main trunk for 2.6.32, let the rom makers upload the patches and fixes available for anyone....they should be available for anyone to use...? why holding on to it and not distribute them and expected to be asked?

Distributing a ROM without the sources....

Surely that is a breach of the GPL

I honestly think you're the first to ask.

[t0mm13b]

IronDoc, on Jan 23 2011, 04:19, said:

I honestly think you're the first to ask.

That a good or bad thing?  

Edited by t0mm13b, 23 January 2011 - 04:22 AM.

[tandeh]

what about a collective rom with a kitchen, so u can choose the features? so everyone can have their cake and eat it

[t0mm13b]

tandeh, on Jan 23 2011, 16:53, said:

what about a collective rom with a kitchen, so u can choose the features? so everyone can have their cake and eat it

It is not about ROMs tandeh, you have not been reading the thread throughout....

It is about kernel sources... stick to that.... without a kernel there'd be no ROM...

The point and the gist of it all, is this, there's no kernel sources with patches/fixes publicly available, there's no public repository for devs to pull down and fine tune, tweak it (and no, you should not have to ask for it) and its clearly a breach of the GPL....

I have said it in previous postings, why the shroud of secrecy? that is not the spirit of Open Source, that is shutting out and contravening the GPL by distributing a binary with no sources...

[Sebastian404]

I'm not sure what  you think we get upto..

the kernel source is available on ZTE's website...   KK has made public his video fixes.. I think if you read the thread he's also made public his over-clocking stuff...

someone on here (I forget the name) created a github of the kernel sources and the fixes....

there's no secrecy in the kernel at all

[xenopod]

forgive me for this but to all who think its a huge secret and all with rom development its not, if your not sure how to compile a kernal, dont worry because the very nice devs have already done it for you, simply take the rom unzip it and there you go a raw rom ready to work on, now you can add or take away things or update library files ect, then once your finished zip it all back up and see if it works, there are tools like apk manager for editing apk files, but you do need to learn about signing apks or not in the case of sytem files, trust me play around and you to can create a custom rom, you only need to learn building a kernal if you really want to. the editing of kernals is not for the faint hearted if you choose that path and i will almost guarentee it will no doubt go wrong for you a few times.

at present we have 3 good kernal builds

2.1 stock
2.2 jellyfish
2.2 chinese

take your pick which is to be your base and then play around, you will soon learn what does what and what does not. the devs here are very good at releasing fixes updates ect, new rils ect

just remember if your a programmer with some experience then editing the source is for you and yeah go for it and tell the world what you have done, but if you not just use the compiled roms as your bases.

[t0mm13b]

xenopod, on Jan 24 2011, 19:47, said:

forgive me for this but to all who think its a huge secret and all with rom development its not, if your not sure how to compile a kernal, dont worry because the very nice devs have already done it for you, simply take the rom unzip it and there you go a raw rom ready to work on, now you can add or take away things or update library files ect, then once your finished zip it all back up and see if it works, there are tools like apk manager for editing apk files, but you do need to learn about signing apks or not in the case of sytem files, trust me play around and you to can create a custom rom, you only need to learn building a kernal if you really want to. the editing of kernals is not for the faint hearted if you choose that path and i will almost guarentee it will no doubt go wrong for you a few times.

at present we have 3 good kernal builds

2.1 stock
2.2 jellyfish
2.2 chinese

take your pick which is to be your base and then play around, you will soon learn what does what and what does not. the devs here are very good at releasing fixes updates ect, new rils ect

just remember if your a programmer with some experience then editing the source is for you and yeah go for it and tell the world what you have done, but if you not just use the compiled roms as your bases.

... ...

[oh!dougal]

Sebastian404, on Jan 23 2011, 18:23, said:

I'm not sure what  you think we get upto..

the kernel source is available on ZTE's website...   KK has made public his video fixes.. I think if you read the thread he's also made public his over-clocking stuff...

someone on here (I forget the name) created a github of the kernel sources and the fixes....

there's no secrecy in the kernel at all

Seb, its great to learn that everything seems to have been been brought fully up-to-date in the last 10 days ...

Sebastian404, on Jan 14 2011, 18:09, said:

I believe that someone (In not good with names) had created a github of the 3(4) versions of the kernel source we got from ZTE, I think they might also of added some of the previous fixes needed to get it to compile... tho I just found out that KK has a different set of fixes that lets it work with TFT screens....

Are you now using the unified kernel github?

[oh!dougal]

It would have been so good to get a properly unified kernel source tree, so that for example Andorko's upcoming FM RDS patch could be rolled into everyone's roms, and similarly, if a fix is found for the strangenesses of the 'LEAD' tft screen, that too could be painlessly picked up by anyone and everyone compiling a Kernel.

Perhaps beyond that, something could be done around an AOSP system setup.
As kallt_kaffe is currently discovering, that too has big steps in its learning curve, where individuals have had to solve things for themselves and re-invent wheels.

And the irony is that entry-level dev's would have at least as much to gain as the elite.

/sigh

[t0mm13b]

@XenoPod, @Rottman,

Look, let's keep this thread strictly professional, if you want to trade insults, do it via pm's and not to jam up this thread - this thread is about far more than just about "unprofessional" conduct.

Transparency is the key here, there's a jvaughan's github, who's using it?

@OhDougal!
I am in agreement with your comments and yes it is a sad day, we should all be able to help each other to put patches, fixes and show ZTE what and how it should be done. Unfortunately, the reality lies elsewhere, all very fine for ZTE to bring out the sources, but there's a lot missing, of course, if ZTE does not wish to disclose the sources to their proprietary drivers at their discretion, fine, we can work together and find a way to get it to work - take the ril layer for example... what is worrying me about this whole thread is there's no single tree to work from, and transparency for the kernel sources.

Sure, one can be shifty on it and say "Oh, I cannot remember the name of so-and-so and submitted the patches..." etc and be vague on the details, etc, that's not going to help unify and to work together is it?

Each of the ROM's have their own plus'es and minus'es, one kernel is overclocked, another isn't, I do know that ZTE-BLADE has the overclocking stuff used by Japanese Jellyfish, it's just seems disparate that there's different trees... there's r3pak's who has gingerbread stuff as well....against the same kernel version...

Even writing a tutorial put together on how to recompile the kernel was helpful to others (I hope!) to be able to experiment for themselves....

I am all for transparency, and to help out in any way I can.... no sniping or snarky comments please... leave that at home!

So what you say? Work together yeah?

[isambard]

that's what the patches are for. someone already started collecting the different fixes on one thread.

unfortunately, many changes are not kernel patches and so can't be simply merged into the github.

[t0mm13b]

This is interesting... I happened to stumble on this...

Read this linky here...

[miasma]

isambard, on Jan 25 2011, 16:45, said:

that's what the patches are for. someone already started collecting the different fixes on one thread.

unfortunately, many changes are not kernel patches and so can't be simply merged into the github.

While I haven't done any android kernel development yet (!), let me voice some opinions about this situation.

It's clear that the current developers are competent and productive people and think about the best interests of the community. Having an up-to-date central repository for development efforts so far is hopefully only a matter of time. While it doesn't necessarily improve the productivity of the currently working developers significantly, a central place for the code lowers the barrier of entry for new developers. It's also worth noting that since people are doing their work voluntarily, they may quit their effort at any time. I certainly do not wish this to happen, but having the code publicly available means that it takes less work to "finalize" your work, it's already there for us to improve. It also decreases the unnecessary communication between the developers and users asking for the latest sources (something that GPL allows them to do).

Having a single tree might be a bit problematic with all the non-compatible addons and features. Also because of proprietary components which won't necessarily allow redistribution. OTOH having all patches so far in a single place seems better than in these forums, at least it's a good first step. For example I'm mostly interesting in the Jellyfish "distribution" and it already contains 160 pages of discussion. Mostly the same questions for noob users doing their first flashing attempt.

Another thing worth considering is a FAQ for all ROMs. This would work best if it was a wiki, to take away the burden from developers and it would also let people less familiar with the platform collaborate, gradually improving their knowledge. It's a great path for new developers to begin with technical questions, helping with the FAQ wiki, building the instructions and scripts for ROM development and finally contributing with new ROMs.

Third important tool would be an issue tracker. Those are also freely available via e.g. github. I've noticed several duplicates in the threads and some unresolved issues. Since managing these currently basically means going through all the posts in the threads, the help would be enormous.

Edited by miasma, 26 January 2011 - 07:08 AM.