First ROM Since Cyanogen to Truly Embrace Open-Source

[c_mack9]

Hey cvpcs, now you can get to work on a Froyo build.

is the source out from google now?

 

[pdroid]

Hey cvpcs, now you can get to work on a Froyo build.

is the source out from google now?

It is indeed. dancedroid

 

[c_mack9]

Yeeeeeeee!

 

[MAzing87]

No don't get me wrong, I did. I went and read both sites. I don't really see anything unique about it yet

Ok... As the title suggest, it is the first truely built from source ROM since Cyanogen. They didn't use koush's vender setup, etc. They did it all on their own. A lot of other built from source ROMs used koush's vendor setup. This was all down ON THEIR OWN, built all on their own, using their own vendor setup they made. Maybe sniff or cvps can explain it better.

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.

This is a very helpful post. I haven't been on these droid boards in a while. I had a darkedge set up for a little while but then things started acting quirky. I ended up going back to my current set up, BB. I purposely haven't been around only to come back and be surprised with updates or something new. And it looks like it has paid off. I will try this Sapphire and hope it's a great experience for me. Your work is much appreciated.

 

[MAzing87]

I'm reading the site now. I am reading the feature set and animated GIFs is what I have always wanted! That's a plus.

 

[MAzing87]

Working with this ROM with the recommended 7x1000 kernel, and so far extremely stable and responsive. Entered the zip align command and it looks good so far. :icon_ banana: