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First ROM Since Cyanogen to Truly Embrace Open-Source
- Thread starter sniffle
- Start date
There were 2 screen shots in one of the links.
Thanks for explaining it better cvpcs. I see where this can be a huge success and can't wait for it to take off!
That is essentially the largest bonus. The most unique thing about this ROM isn't currently the feature set, but more the way in which it is built.
Now don't get me wrong, Cyanogen and Koush do fantastic work and while the vendor setups for my ROM were complete rewrites, I did spend a lot of time looking into their setups to determine how they set them up and why, and then redo them from scratch.
The thing about pulling from cyanogen's repos is this: He has been working on this since the early days of Android 1.5/1.6, and therefore as he made mods, it becomes harder and harder to merge in the 2.0.1 and 2.1 and so on updates, as the source has changed so much. Sapphire takes a more hands-off approach to mods. If I can add a feature without modifying the original source, I do it that way, even if it is a bit round-about (so long as it's stable). In this way, when a new version of Android comes out (can someone say 2.2?), then theoretically I should be able to simply drop in the new source (since the original hasn't been changed), apply any minor updates I need to, and be ready to go. This means faster source releases, less re-coding of the same features, and generally better all-around stability.
Also, another big reason for this ROM was simply to have another one out there that DOESN'T depend on cyanogen and koush's repositories, because it is my opinion that choice is an important thing, and open source is all about doing things your own way with what is given to you, and not about being locked in to using one defined source.
Those are a few of the ideas behind sapphire. I tried to best explain them on the site, but perhaps I will overlook the text again and see if it can be explained better.
Also, there's the many things that I have floating around that i'd like to implement, some of which have been done before (like using spare-parts to pick your default text color for notifications and whatnot), and some which have not (like ripping out the core OTA functionality and replacing it with my own).
I hope that helped to answer the question of what is different about this ROM.
Yeah, I get that I looove open source. I understand (and greatly approve of) the methodology for your modifications, I'm more curious as to what was modified; in essence, what separates this from stock? (and its cool to have minimal modifications/features, but I'd still like to know what they are.)
Id install it and find out but I finally got a stable rom tweaked specifically to how I like it and am not ready to destabilize that quite yet, at least not without very good reason.
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True, but I still like to look before I leap.
wow, this is very interesting. I like the logic of being able to just drop in new source code cleanly. And look at sniffle, finally pulled it off. I was watching your progress on alldroid for a while until they changed formats... congrats to you guys and I look forward to giving your ROM a run once 2.2 source code drops
I would love to develop for other devices, but sadly I only have a droid at the moment, and don't feel I would produce a good product if I were to code "blindly" and use testers. For that reason I won't be developing for any platforms that I don't have physical access to.
That being said, I am always open to donations (a button is available on the release pages), and also have been polling some of my local friends who own various other phones to see if they will let me play with their hardware, though that never seems too promising. haha.
My dream would be to one day release various roms all built around the same concept as sapphire, each under their own moniker. i.e.:
Ruby (for incredible)
Emerald (for droid 2)
Onyx (for evo)
etc, etc.
The beauty in it is, that since it's all compiled from source, all that SHOULD need to be set up to get the various other hardwares working is the device setup for each.
But that is something far off from now
sapphire is actually my birthstone + blue is my fav color, so the name was a no-brainer for me
I've added a screenshots section to the release page.
There isn't a whole lot to look at since it's just the stock theme, but I tried to get some pictures of a few of the niceties.already have been in contact with koush, he's ready to put it on ROM Manager. just waiting to get the permanent links online so that it will all work (i already have the manifest files written and ready to go
Will this be a ROM Manager only rom?
I know that, But he's talking of making it available via rom manager.
If that happens, I hope it's still available on his wiki as not everyone cares for rom manager.