[Development] Android port - Why do we need Ministro?

[Laszlo Papp]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 6:52 PM, BogDan <bog_dan_ro at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'll do a summary of them:
>  - the most important is that qt libs are very big (Qt4 libs are +40Mb for
> one
> platform and most probably Qt5 will be more than that), if you want to
> target
> two platforms (armv5 and armv7) you need to bundle +80Mb of qt libs.
> Even more, if you want to use NEON for armv7 and VFP for armv5 you need
> to double that size. Ministro downloads the right libs for your platform
> only once.
>

QtCore 4.8.4 is 2.9 MB for me. It does not look that bad if you need some
core feature only. Besides, there is another point (perhaps mentioned in
this thread already), you can make sure your application remains working
against unexpected behavior and so forth changes we had unfortunate
examples in the past.

So, it is also a matter of ensuring the functionality of your application.
In my opinion, this can be a valid concern for certain application
developers. The convenient way for the end user would just be a plus in
such a scenario.


>  - android offers no way to install shared libs into its system libs
> folder, and there
> is no read/write location that application can use to store shared libs
> (obviously,
> for security reasons). Ministro solves this problem by using its own home
> folder
> as a central location for qt libs, where only Ministro has read/write
> permissions
> to these libs, the other app have only read-only permission, just like
> your linux
> desktop.
>


>  - statically linking or bundling LGPL libs into your package comes with
> even more
> challenges than the package size, developers *MUST* provide a way to their
> users
> to repack the application with other Qt libs (please check LGPL license on
> this matter).
>

I do not see the problem in there yet. It is replacable after repackaging
or by direct overwrite if the platform security allows that with Harmattan
for instance.

That being said, I also agree about that Ministro can be a useful tool.

Laszlo
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/attachments/20130111/a8aa019f/attachment.html>