Compiling AOSP for Galaxy S3

Question

I am trying to compile the AOSP source code for a Verizon Galaxy S3 (d2vzw). What I am trying to achieve is a ROM that has the latest android (4.4.2 at this moment) with some of Samsung's apps lie the calender and contacts. I was able to successfully download and build the AOSP based on the instruction that is found here. and I have downloaded the Samsung code from Samsung's open source web site. But I am not sure how I can combine the two together. I am not looking for a pre-build ROM because I want to learn more about ROM's and customizing them. Any pointer about what to do would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you Sam

Answer 1

What I am trying to achieve is a ROM that has the latest android (4.4.2 at this moment) with some of Samsung's apps lie the calender and contacts

A noble goal, and one I'd like to see happen, but what Samsung provides looks to be incomplete to accomplish that.

First, they have only published platform code up to Android 4.3, which probably won't integrate well into the 4.4.2 AOSP sources, to get anything to build you'll likely have to use AOSP 4.3 as well. Second, the apps you are interested in are not part of the delivered package; either in source form or in binary (APK) form. From the README_Platform.txt included, only the following packages are in the Platform archive:

e2fsck \
libexifa \
libjpega \
libkeyutils \
libasound \
libasound_module_pcm_bcmfilter

That's not much, anything else you would have to rip from a device and manually add it to the system image.

The files included also overwrite the build files for the "generic" build target, which is essentially the emulator, rather than creating their own build for the hardware device. Building this way will not produce a proper boot and system image that could be flashed onto real hardware, but rather is just enough to get an emulator going.

From the looks of it, Samsung is providing the code they must to comply with various open source licenses of their components, rather than giving developers the tools to create ROMs that can be flashed onto their devices.

As far as getting the supplied components from Samsung integrated into the AOSP tree and successfully building what you can, you will probably have better luck on a forum like XDA Developers.

Answer 2

Which version of GPL is this? I am pretty sure one can't link proprietary binary blobs to GPL libs etc without the source. I do not think that android is set up in such a way that the samsung apps all function independently on top of the gpl base?

This goes obviously not only for Samsung.. but if that is verifiable then ok.. else, I can see a can of worms opening up against all such companies which do such.

I know in the router world there is much such too.