[Mobile-sig] python on android

[Ethan Furman]

On 01/27/2015 08:26 AM, Fetchinson . wrote:

> First of all thanks a lot for creating this mailing list. I sent the
> original mail to python-ideas [1] referenced by Jeff on meta-sig [2].
> My perspective is that of a developer of python programs (mostly hobby
> projects) and not developer of python itself.
> 
> What I'd like to see is a python distribution for android (I'm aware
> of the fact that this is mobile-sig and not android-sig, but for me
> personally android matters a lot more than other mobile platforms)
> that is as reliable as the linux/macos/windows distributions released
> by the python core dev team. Ideally, each time a new python version
> is released not only linux/macos/windows installers should be
> available on python.org but also android probably in the form of an
> installable apk. And just as there are platform specific features for
> e.g. windows that are not available on linux, there of course would be
> android-only features in the android distribution like hardware
> related libraries like camera, gps, accelerator, etc. sensors and
> probably more.
> 
> Currently there is no single officially blessed (i.e. psf blessed)
> python distribution for android. There are various approaches, kivy
> [3], sl4a [4] and more [5]. But these are either dead projects or
> accomplish much more than a vanilla python distribution. What I'd like
> to see is an environment whose goal is to be "just" the python core
> plus about as much platform specific feature as there are for the
> others, linux/macos/windows.
> 
> Of course the whole enterprise depends on the willingness of core
> python dev folks to dedicate time and energy to maintaining a code
> base that one can compile for android also which is not a small feat.
> I'm not sure they have this time and energy and I of course wouldn't
> blame them, this is open source, people do it in their free time.
> 
> I merely would like to gauge the community's interest in something
> like this. Maybe if many users show interest then the core python dev
> folks can be convinced that this would be a worthy effort.

PEP 11 [1] has been updated to clarify what is need to officially support a platform:

   First, a core developer [2] needs to volunteer to maintain platform-specific code.

   Second, a stable buildbot must be provided.

I volunteer to maintain the android specific code (I have zero qualifications to help with any other mobile platform),
and I am working on providing a stable buildbot for the android platform.

Cyd has successfully built 3.4.2 in a KBOX environment on his android device, and is working on making the patches
accessible (thanks, Cyd!)

While Cyd's efforts are an important first step, I think many users are not going to want to install KBOX to get Python,
so what are the other options?

--
~Ethan~


[1] http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0011/
[2] if one just wants to contribute patches now and again, the CLA [3] will need to be signed
[3] https://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/

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