[guardian-dev] GP libraries and apps that will be impacted by Android L changes?

Wed Oct 15 22:27:48 EDT 2014

Josh Steiner wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 4:47 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner
> <hans at guardianproject.info> wrote:
>>
>> It would be worthwhile to see if this can be done without gradle.  There is no
>> gradle setup on the build server, and gradle is very much a moving target,
>> with incompatibilities between versions and no clean, easy way to install it,
>> so its a lot of work to support it on a build server.
> 
> I think the gradle wrapper we ship in our project should handle off of
> this for us.

I haven't tried gradle, but I've heard a lot about it from the FDroid team.
It sounds like the gradle wrapper does not live up to its promise.

>> I think gradle will only really help if we go the approach of building
>> multiple APKs.  Having each APK include only the exact targeted platform
>> (armeabi, armeabi-v7a, x86, mips, armeabi-PIE, armeabi-v7a-PIE, x86-PIE,
>> mips-PIE) means that users cannot do FDroid swapping of that app unless the
>> two people swapping have the exact same platform.
> 
> That's true, so maybe we need to make a giant build for fdroid, that's
> just another build variant in the gradle config, it shouldn't be hard
> to setup.

Its not just a matter of the APK that is uploaded to FDroid.  The point is to
build up an ecosystem of sharing APKs, no matter where they got them from (as
long as they are not malware).  So if there is a wide variety of different
StoryMaker APKs out there, it'll only make it more confusing to users.  So
either all native bits are embedded into the one official APK, or users are
frequently not going to be able to share their APKs with other devices.

.hc

> -Josh
> 
>>
>> Fun fun fun...
>>
>> .hc
>>
>> Nathan of Guardian wrote:
>>>
>>> So the plan is:
>>>
>>> 1) Add the PIE flag to all of our native build scripts, with some
>>> optional argument that allows us to build with and without PIE
>>>
>>> 2) Migrate apps that depend on native binaries to use Gradle, and
>>> develop build logic that creates APKs for 4.0 and earlier and 4.1 and
>>> later bundling the appropriately compiled binaries.
>>>
>>> We'll start with StoryMaker and Orbot, and then apply what we've learned
>>> to other projects.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014, at 10:48 AM, Josh Steiner wrote:
>>>> Could you give me some info on how to deal with it if we set minsdk to
>>>> 4.1?  We are already in process of bumping up to 4.0+ and would
>>>> consider moving to 4.1 if it solves major problems for us.
>>>>
>>>> -j
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 10:32 AM, Hans-Christoph Steiner
>>>> <hans at guardianproject.info> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> SQLCipher, IOCipher, android-ffmpeg, Orbot, GnuPrivacyGuard, and Lil Debi are
>>>>> affected.  CacheWord, NetCipher, TrustedIntents, and F-Droid are not affected.
>>>>>
>>>>> If your minimum target SDK is android-16 (aka 4.1) then it will be easy to
>>>>> deal with.  Otherwise, it'll be a chunk of work that is annoying to do.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the meantime, we should set maxSdkVersion="20" in our apps so that people
>>>>> don't try to install it on Android L.
>>>>>
>>>>> .hc
>>>>>
>>>>> David Oliver wrote:
>>>>>> I understand from a prior post that Android L introduces new requirements
>>>>>> for native executables (and/or native libraries).  Can someone advise here
>>>>>> which of the GP libraries and apps are likely to be impacted in the near
>>>>>> term?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For my part, and to my limited understanding, the
>>>>>> Courier/Paik/Idaho/YakReader suite will not be impacted by these new
>>>>>> requirements directly (unless SQLCipher, IOCipher and/or CacheWord are
>>>>>> impacted).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Dave O
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David M. Oliver | david at olivercoady.com | http://olivercoady.com |
>>>>>> http://dmo.tel | Ostel: oliv | +1 970 368 2366
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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