Re: Android port of Emacs

[Po Lu]

Thomas Fitzsimmons <fitzsim@fitzsim.org> writes:

> My main worry about the port, from a maintainability standpoint, is how
> to cross-compile Emacs for Android using entirely free software.  (For
> an extra challenge, my workstation is PPC64, so I can't use pre-built
> x86-64 binaries.)  Po, are there steps I can take using a free toolchain
> to generate an APK that I can try on my device?
>

Emacs doesn't require any proprietary software to be built on Android.
Providing a suitable Java compiler and pointing GCC or Clang to the
Android headers is sufficient.

The tools and headers are all free software and run on the RS/6000.

> I have seen other Android projects that claim to be buildable only with
> Gradle which AFAIK is free software, but they are Java-only, but I
> haven't tried myself.  Can Emacs be built using gradlew?  Is the NDK
> required to build Emacs for Android?

The build system used is based on Make, not Gradle.  Gradle has the
nasty habit of automatically downloading software you did not ask for.