Maybe I am a bit naive but if you already released the code to compile
AOSP Android, I suppose you already built such an image. Wouldn’t it be
possible to provide this img-file to buyers of the FP2, so that non-dev
people who would just like to get rid of GMS etc could do so until the
GMS-free FP version is available?
you can see that I have compiled the system. As it seems it is Gapps free. If there is anyone hosting an ftp or sftp server / cloud service etc… I could upload the img files (about 450MB). I am just not quite sure if I should recommend this. The compiler said “Complilation successfull”, but if anything went wrong unseen… So, a prior backup is mandatory!
Is a nandroid backup possible with stock recovery?
The TWRP guys seem to be happy to adapt their recovery if one would send them a FP2. I’d be happy to participate in donating a phone to facilitate development…
At least this is what I understood when I read their FAQ: “We can’t afford to buy every device made and many times certain devices are only available in other countries.”
On the other hand - TWRP is open source. So maybe some brilliant FP2 user could compile TWRP for FP2?
I’m happy to compile stuff for myself - unless the system asks weird questions and throws errors. And I don’t want to brick that FP2 (don’t even have one yet… ).
While it probably technically isn’t to hard using dropbox/googledirve/onedrive/icloud (or your own owncloud) to distribute such build, I’m not sure if you’re legally allowed to distribute the *.img if you have included the binary blobs from wget http://code.fairphone.com/downloads/FP2/blobs/fp2-sibon-2.0.0-blobs.tgz as their special license agreements – to which you in that case have agreed! – states:
\2. Fairphone grants you a free of charge, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferable, limited copyright license to download, install and use the
Software for non commercial purposes only on a Fairphone 2 device in
machine-readable (i.e., object code) environment. You are not allowed to use
the Software in any other way. You are also not allowed to remove portions of
the Software, alter or otherwise modify it, or translate, reproduce, copy,
reverse engineer, reverse compile, disassemble or transfer the Software.
(emphasises by me)
Especially as any person downloading it would not have to agree to the terms themselves.
Note: I’m not a lawyer, so this is only a naive, personal opinion of me.
Thanks for the proposition. I downloaded the sources yesterday and tried to compile them today according to the build instructions provided by fairphone but as for some others this resulted in a failed build after not even 3 min and unfortunately I am far from experienced in compiling source code and don’t really know which kind of errors to blame and how to amend those.
Regarding your proposition of sharing the img, my server is just overflowing at the moment, I’d have to make some space first, but could PM you later with a link. However, my main problem is that I don’t know if I am courageous enough to flash it right now since @lklausalso compiled succesfully without being able to boot succesfully after flashing…
Plus, perhaps @sjjh is right about the legal stuff. I’ll probably wait for the team’s answer on Monday on when they think to provide the official img or guide etc.
In the meantime, I sadly can’t do much with my new phone and test its different features since I don’t want to connect it to the internet or put any SIM in and personal data on it while GSM is still installed… I’ll continue playing some frozen bubble instead
Note: I’m new to Android, so take my words with a grain of salt!
As the Play store access is a Google app you cannot have it at the same time as not wanting to use Google Apps. If the reason you don’t want Google Apps is privacy, you should resign Google Services as well. Push messaging is a Google Service, so here again you cannot use Push messaging at the same time as not wanting to use Google Service.
If you want to use apps that depend on certain Google services (e.g. an app that needs your location and demands to use the Google location service for that) there is a project providing alternative apps (as it obviously doesn’t matter from where you phone gets its location as long as it gets one): microG Project · GitHub (that’s the successor of the “nogapps project”).
If you just need Google for free (of charge) Apps, you can download most of them without the Play Store.
And as for Notifications: on the Google-Free FP1 it was possible to receive push notifications. It might not work with all Apps and with others - like Telegram - it only works well as long as you use the App regularly (every other day or so).
It’s mostly the annoying Google integration in standard apps (like music player or photo gallery) that I want to get rid of. I have no problem with installing (and more importantly updating) stuff like Firefox and Signal from the Play store.
I’m using the Blankstore on my FP1 (why shouldn’t it work on FP2?) and it works quite well. I don’t get automatic updates, but have to do them manually.
I think most apps don’t push because they’d need a push server, like Google provides it. Instead they do polling, meaning that they check for new messages in a certain time interval.
That is understandable. However, as far as i know, Google Apps are provided to manufacturers like Fairphone in a package that contains mandatory apps. One such app is Gmail, for example. It means that if Fairphone want’s to provide the Play Store to it’s users (and i think it should continue to do so!) it sadly also has to install some of these Google Apps. There are some lists in the web which apps are actually mandatory, but i do not have a FP2 or a list of installed Google Apps, so i cannot tell if Fairphone actually already opted for the “minimun” amount of Google Apps allowed.
After everything i heard, Fairphone is extra-ordinary “clean” of excess apps almost everybody else cramps on their phones for you without asking or allowing to remove.
I’m not entirely sure what blankstor does, but it seems to be part of the nogapps-Project, which is, as written earlier, replaced by the µG-project. Part of the µG-project is the FakeStore. My – unconfirmed! – guess would be that FakeStore is the replacement for Blankstore.
An empty package that mocks the existence of the Google Play Store to the Play Services client. Requires the FAKE_PACKAGE_SIGNATURE patch to be functional.[/quote]
I assume that it doesn’t provide any functionality at all.
Blankstore, in contrast, is an almost fully functional app store (let alone paid apps and automatic updates).
We seem to be talking about different things. My impression was that this thread is mostly about AOSP images, which would come without Google Apps, AFAIK. This in combination with an Open GApps package containing only the Play store and services framework would be my ideal setup.
Thanks for the clarification/explanation. Some apps, like the by @7adietri above mentioned Firefox can be downloaded (and updated!) by F-Droid, others, like Signal need the underlying Google Service infrastructure (e.g. Push server by Google) thus neither blankstore nor fakestore on their own would be enough for it.
Sadly, Firefox is going to disappear from F-Droid. (And just personally, until we have reproducable builds, I’m more inclined to trust the Mozilla build infrastructure.)
).
