GUADEC: porting GNOME to Android

Posted Aug 16, 2012 19:01 UTC (Thu) by jmorris42 (guest, #2203)
Parent article: GUADEC: porting GNOME to Android

The problem is there is no easy way to distribute new software to Android devices. Heck, just getting an updated Android is a crapshoot unless you have a very popular device. Ask the cyanogen mod guys.

With a PC we have a open and understood boot process and fairly standardized hardware. Removing the OEM preloaded OS and installing a free OS on a PC is therefore fairly easy. Each Android device has to be undertaken as a new port. Without even a plan to crack that that problem there isn't much point trying to make a tablet or phone version of any free OS.

GUADEC: porting GNOME to Android

Posted Aug 17, 2012 2:58 UTC (Fri) by Ford_Prefect (subscriber, #36934) [Link]

This is just how the ARM world works (at least for now). Nevertheless CyanogenMod _does_ run on a very large number of devices. Heck, hardware manufacturers have even become a lot friendlier, making it possible to unlock bootloaders and actually supplying hardware to devs to help the port.

I disagree with you about there not being a point in try to make a phone/tablet version -- we don't have to target every device, just as many as we can (and we can happily just aim for Google's reference devices to start with). More devices will end up being supported by the community if we provide a compelling reason to use our platform.