[Toybox] Getting Toybox into Android before the NetBSD userland wins out

[Jason Spiro]

Rob Landley <rob at ...> wrote:

> Where is the android mailing list?

See <http://source.android.com/community/>.

The main Android mailing list is called "android-platform".

If you want to submit patches to Android, then you must either:
*  Own an Android device, or
*  Run Android on your PC.  (Android-x86 runs fine in a VM).

If you are willing to test Toybox to make sure it works on Android, and to 
submit a patch to the Android code-review system which will add Toybox to 
Android, then you should write to "android-contrib" instead.

Tip:  If you buy an Android device, may I suggest you choose one which is 
both possible and easy to "root".  (But note that "rooting" a device may 
void your warranty.)

> I've been under the impression that
> android development was internal to Google?

Android is not a fully-open-source product.  And Android as distributed on 
most smartphones and tablets definitely includes lots of closed-source 
drivers, plus other closed-source software such as Google Maps.  (There 
exists an "Replicant OS" project which I believe tries to write open-source 
drivers, but this is difficult work.)

Also, the latest betas of Android are often mostly-closed-source until they 
leave the beta phase.  This is to prevent device manufacturers from shipping 
beta OSes.

But much of Android _is_ open-source software.  And, fortunately, 
<http://android.googlesource.com/platform/system/core/+/master>
>, which holds the basic command-line tools, appears to be 100% open-source 
software.

> If anybody wants to do this, I'm all for it...

Splendid!  Today, I've filed a feature request in the Android public issue 
tracker.  I estimate that it could take a couple of days until it finally 
gets assigned to Elliott Hughes, and then a couple more days until he 
replies.


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