Is Android x86 dead?

[muhamma...@gmail.com]

Since latest update in 15/4/2022 and there's no at least Android 11, is Android x86 dead and no longer maintained?

[Matevz Leskovsek]

A11 introduced a lot of apple-like restrictions, like the apps not
being able to access the files outside their folder (scope access) and
such.. so personally I am trying to have android 9 or 10 anywhere and
I pay premium for that sadly, A-x86 allows me to run A on old laptops
with root so thats sweet.... I'd personally never go into A11 (Android
API 29+) because it seems useless, but maybe I am wrong... I'd hardly
call that dead though, my many laptops havent rebooted in 5+ years
here, so...

On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 12:57 AM muhamma...@gmail.com
<muhamma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Since latest update in 15/4/2022 and there's no at least Android 11, is Android x86 dead and no longer maintained?
>

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[Matevz Leskovsek]

Btw, I am just a fan and a user here.. I doubt anyone will port A11+
to x86 though lol

[Quack Doc]

BlissOS is already A11+

[Huy Minh Bùi (HMTheBoy154)]

what if I told you that we even got 13 running

Vào lúc 07:31:11 UTC+7 ngày Chủ Nhật, 28 tháng 5, 2023, matevz.l...@gmail.com đã viết:

[Povilas Staniulis]

It seems most development nowadays is done in spin-off projects like Bliss OS.

Wish there was more contribution back to the main project.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/9316ee01-334f-40ff-a5fc-03e85c157d4fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Huy Minh Bùi (HMTheBoy154)]

Contribution are already there, it just being done privately

Vào lúc 04:35:18 UTC+7 ngày Thứ Bảy, 3 tháng 6, 2023, wdmo...@gmail.com đã viết:

[Povilas Staniulis]

I don't think anyone cares what's being done behind closed doors.
There's no contribution until the code it is published.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/bd14795c-0c38-4d6d-9e23-8c120300e135n%40googlegroups.com.

[Huy Minh Bùi (HMTheBoy154)]

of course no one will care because there's no announcement yet. But sure, once the code pushed you can contribute as usual. 

Meanwhile, you can wait until BlissOS release version 16, which based on Android 13. Contribute there, maybe it can be contributed back to Android-x86 if possible

Vào lúc 04:48:32 UTC+7 ngày Thứ Bảy, 3 tháng 6, 2023, wdmo...@gmail.com đã viết:

[Povilas Staniulis]

If there's work being done, it should be done publicly. This way others can contribute. That's the whole point of this project being open source.

No announcement should be necessary except to let others know that work has been started.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/8e726fde-90bf-465b-a69b-94990c1502d8n%40googlegroups.com.

[crw]

That has been quite the nature of Android x86 forks. Most of them are closed source, untrusted systems that don't contribute back to upstream. For those who want pure AOSP, stuck for now. 

Those spin-offs often produce half baked Android builds that are unstable and broken. Android x86 builds have been relatively more stable. 

Regarding Bliss OS, they have superuser integrated into the kernel so the security is at risk. 

[Huy Minh Bùi (HMTheBoy154)]

> No announcement should be necessary except to let others know that work has been started.

Isn't that.......... the whole point of an announcement ? At least in this context ? 

Vào lúc 06:16:50 UTC+7 ngày Thứ Bảy, 3 tháng 6, 2023, wdmo...@gmail.com đã viết:

[Huy Minh Bùi (HMTheBoy154)]

> Regarding Bliss OS, they have superuser integrated into the kernel so the security is at risk.

So using an old Superuser implementation on Android-x86 is better ?

Vào lúc 13:59:43 UTC+7 ngày Chủ Nhật, 4 tháng 6, 2023, crw đã viết:

[searinminecraft]

no. its still possible that the old superuser implementation is vulnerable to exploits. (e.g. gain root access without user's knowledge)

[Povilas Staniulis]

An announcement for developers, not users. That a new branch has been created and contributions are welcome. And all work should be done in that branch, not privately. That's how open source works.

Anyway, my main point here is that there's no point in mentioning what's being done in private as no-one can download, use or contribute to such work. There's no proof of any kind that such work even exists.

My  wild guess is that the main reason why private work remains unpublished (assuming such work even exists as there's no proof) is the desire to commercialize (monetize) it.

If that's true, in my opinion such projects should refrain associating themselves with open source projects like Android x86.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/fd3549ad-db1e-4151-a4e5-d8a35290e428n%40googlegroups.com.

[Quack Doc]

Bliss has been an active member of the android x86 community and the majority work being done into Bliss OS nd android generic is open source. no announcement for developers is necessary since again, bliss has been an active member of the community, and is a popular android x86 fork.

also no. open source depending on the licence, under which a lot of androidx86 is licenced explicitly allows people to have private forks and distributions this explictiyly includes  monetization, and work on their own and contribute back what they feel like.

Don't come here and try to lecture the actual developers who are helping androidx86 progress. if you want to get involved then go to a place where work is being done in the public like Bliss, and contribute there.

[Povilas Staniulis]

I said nothing about Bliss and I'm not trying to lecture anyone.

I've mentioned previously that "most of the development is done in forks like Bliss OS". I'm fully aware that it's open source and happy about that, because AFAIK it's pretty much the only truly open source Android x86 version still in active development.

What hurts me is that while there's a lot of work being done, pretty much nothing is contributed to the main project. And the claim that "contributions are there, they are just done privately" doesn't change anything because, unless they contributions are published, they may as well not exist.

Also, I've got nothing against monetization or paid distributions, it's just that such projects shouldn't associate themselves with open source projects.

BTW, I've contributed to this project in the past and have plans to do so in the future.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/c63fd5f0-d0a4-499a-8ca2-198c5b6072e5n%40googlegroups.com.

[crw]

If the developers of the main project are not active, then there is the possibility that there can't be contributions. 

There is this controversial comment from an Android-x86 developer/contributor in some other GitHub issue where it states that the developer has been inactive. source: https://github.com/GloDroid/glodroid_manifest/issues/152#issuecomment-1397014270  

I don't recall the main Android-x86 project having done work privately instead of open source. Development might have been done privately somewhere else earlier as well, but they can't be considered as part of the Android-x86 project itself. And not sure if there is such a thing that other projects shouldn't associate; we all know that back in the day the Remix OS (commercial) project was associated in some way with the Android-x86 project. 

[Huy Minh Bùi (HMTheBoy154)]

> And the claim that "contributions are there, they are just done privately" doesn't change anything because, unless they contributions are published, they may as well not exist.

When you check BlissOS 15 (based on Android 12L) source, you don't just see commits from BlissLabs team, you also see the one that was a part of Android-x86 before, and some new one. Those upstream patches are not from Bliss, those are from Micheal Goffioul & Mauro Rossi. That is the sign to prove that Android-x86 itself is active because the patches are there.

also, If you notice places like Mesa3d's Gitlab, you can see that Mauro is filing a lot of issues here, some of them are critical to Android-x86

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/7974

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/9067

So please stop with the speculation,  private work will be published soon, no one is selling anything here.

Vào lúc 15:29:34 UTC+7 ngày Thứ Ba, 6 tháng 6, 2023, wdmo...@gmail.com đã viết:

[Povilas Staniulis]

I'm fully aware (and really glad) that Bliss is in active development and work is being done on improving it. But all this work is published in Bliss, which is a separate project. Not here.

Most of the work done for Bliss is not contributed back to the main Android x86 project. New Android versions being perhaps the best example.

So my point still stands. Until something is published here, this project will look dead to the public.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/bb1c25d4-d219-4370-bdef-f146746a6690n%40googlegroups.com.

[crw]

New Android versions are there in Android x86 development branches. Many of them will care for binary releases of ISO files. Some stats are showing that Android x86 downloads are reducing.

[Povilas Staniulis]

Ok, I stand corrected then.

Out of interest, what stats are you referring to ?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/2e518913-3486-4a64-801a-3ef7bedbbb87n%40googlegroups.com.

[Jon West]

The stats are likely referring to the download statistics from the three places where Android-x86 can be downloaded from: 
https://osdn.net/projects/android-x86/releases
https://sourceforge.net/projects/android-x86/files/
https://www.fosshub.com/Android-x86.html

For those wanting to test the development going into Android-x86, we include all the patchsets in Android-Generic Project for that reason, so developers can easily apply all the needed changes on top of AOSP, and get to development. We occasionally do run off .iso builds of those and post them on Sourceforge though, the most recent being A13 test builds. You can find those here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/blissos-dev/files/Android-Generic/PC/aosp/

The largest hurdles we have to contributing directly to Android-x86 is access related. It can take up to a month or more to get a reply from OSDN, and others, which is the reason we have continued at our own pace using AG, Bliss, Waydroid, and others. 

[Povilas Staniulis]

Thanks for your effort maintaining the Bliss OS and Waydroid (BTW, I did not know that was also a project of yours, a pleasant surprise).

You mean you have to manually contact someone every time to get builds or changes posted ?

I though that major developers like you do have access to git repositories. That's unpleasant to hear.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/android-x86/11b47ecc-5f15-4661-8366-ff33f29e4226n%40googlegroups.com.

[Jon West]

We (BlissLabs) don't want this project to die, as it is the project that inspired us to do all the FOSS work we have done for the community, this is the reason we are doing everything in our power to ensure Android-x86 projects survival, whether it be through the development channel we supply on our orgs Slack, or the Reddit, Discord, Telegram, Matrix communities we help to maintain, or the build servers we provide access to for direct development of Android-x86 project. We are doing what is within our power to help make sure this project has everything it needs to continue. 

[Jon West]

Only a few of us have direct access, and there is a process involved for getting patchsets approved and ready to be pushed. With those hurdles in place, plus the limited time the 3-5 of us have to sync our individual work up and push something out to the public, it's easy to understand why progress can take up to six months to show a few steps of progress in public. 

When I started Android-Generic Project, I was hoping it would make things easier for developers to use and apply their changes on-top of (in hopes they would then take those changes, and submit them as PR's back to AG), but here we are, 2 years later, and the main contributors to that project are still only us... I think that this can be taken a few ways, but I'm going to focus on the positive ways that it could be taken, and make AG even easier to use this next release. Narrow down the focus, lock things into a process, and maybe then we will start to get some feedback ;)

[Hugh Schift]

This mailing list remains somewhat active and we all still have our boot media.  It will always have its uses.

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