F-Droid inclusion for the Android app

[UjuiUjuMandan]

Would you like to see the MNN Chat Android app included in https://f-droid.org? It builds the APK from source code and publish it like GNU/Linux software packages.

I can help the packaging if the developers don't oppose this.

[UjuiUjuMandan]

Currently the mismatch between build.gradle versionName (0.8.1.2) and Git tag (3.4.1) makes F-Droid impossible to check update automatically. See https://f-droid.org/docs/Build_Metadata_Reference/#UpdateCheckMode.

I recommend you to put Android project in a separate repository.

Suggested by @linsui: yes, additionally tagging for Android release also works, but mind to not necessarily trigger the current mnn_release and pymnn_release workflow.

name: mnn_release
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '*'

[Juude]

We don't plan to separate the repository, but we're happy to use specific Git tags for Android releases to support F-Droid(like tags/apps/android/mnn_chat ). PRs for this are welcome!

[UjuiUjuMandan]

Thanks for your feedback!

How about tagging Android-0.8.1.2 to 302ab1a as F-Droid supports regex to extract versionName from Git tag.

And before pushing that tag, exclude it from the current two release workflows.

name: mnn_release
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - '*'
      - '!Android*'

[UjuiUjuMandan]

Draft merge request opened: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/34600

[UjuiUjuMandan]

During my build attempt I found that you specified many different NDK versions for Android build.

1. r21e. README of the Android project. Encountering the clang compiler does not support '-march=armv8.2-a+i8mm+dotprod+sve+sve2+fp16' this: the clang compiler does not support '-march=armv8.2-a+i8mm' bazelbuild/bazel#19359.

2. 22.1.7171670 and 27.0.11718014 from sherpa-mnn
   /build-android-arm64-v8a.sh.

if [ -z $ANDROID_NDK ]; then
  ANDROID_NDK=/star-fj/fangjun/software/android-sdk/ndk/22.1.7171670
  if [ $BUILD_SHARED_LIBS == OFF ]; then
    ANDROID_NDK=/star-fj/fangjun/software/android-sdk/ndk/27.0.11718014
  fi
  # or use
  # ANDROID_NDK=/star-fj/fangjun/software/android-ndk
  #
  # Inside the $ANDROID_NDK directory, you can find a binary ndk-build
  # and some other files like the file "build/cmake/android.toolchain.cmake"

  if [ ! -d $ANDROID_NDK ]; then
    # For macOS, I have installed Android Studio, select the menu
    # Tools -> SDK manager -> Android SDK
    # and set "Android SDK location" to /Users/fangjun/software/my-android
    ANDROID_NDK=/Users/fangjun/software/my-android/ndk/22.1.7171670

    if [ $BUILD_SHARED_LIBS == OFF ]; then
      ANDROID_NDK=/Users/fangjun/software/my-android/ndk/27.0.11718014
    fi
  fi
fi

3. 27.2.12479018 from app/build.gradle.

    ndkVersion "27.2.12479018"

Use a unified NDK version instead. The native libs cannot be stripped if built with a different NDK with Gradle's using. Also fdroidserver can only specify one NDK version in build metadata.

[UjuiUjuMandan]

I have also found different instructions and scripts for the build of LibMNN.so.

1. https://github.com/alibaba/MNN/tree/master/apps/Android/MnnLlmChat#development
2. https://github.com/alibaba/MNN/blob/master/build_lib.sh
3. https://github.com/alibaba/MNN/blob/master/.github/workflows/android.yml

I want to know the exact build options and NDK version used for your release like https://meta.alicdn.com/data/mnn/apks/mnn_chat_0_8_1_2.apk. Because if we want Reproducible Builds, those settings shall be exactly the same.

[UjuiUjuMandan]

Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics are disabled by default but F-Droid scanner is unhappy about the keywords even exist in dependency list.

https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/34600#note_3152804339

I tried to delete them but they are refered in a way that is unable to clean up with a few sed commands.

https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aalibaba%2FMNN%20firebase&type=code

Can there be a fdroid flavor that does not use Firebase at all? Or move all those mentions to googleplay dir.

[UjuiUjuMandan]

in a way that is unable to clean up with a few sed commands

Managed to replace these with empty class.

    prebuild:
      - sed -i -e '/com.google.firebase/d' build.gradle ../build.gradle
      - sed -i -e '/FirebaseAnalytics/d' src/main/java/com/alibaba/mnnllm/android/utils/AnalyticsTracker.kt
      - sed -i -e '/rashlytics/d' src/main/java/com/alibaba/mnnllm/android/MnnLlmApplication.kt
      - echo 'package com.alibaba.mnnllm.android.utils object CrashReportContext {fun
        setCurrentActivity(activityName:String?) {} fun setAppInForeground(inForeground:Boolean)
        {} fun setCurrentModel(modelId:String?, sessionId:String?) {} fun setBenchmarkState(state:String?)
        {} fun setBenchmarkContext(modelId:String?,backend:String?,nPrompt:Int,nGenerate:Int,nRepeat:Int,kvCache:String?)
        {}}' > src/main/java/com/alibaba/mnnllm/android/utils/CrashReportContext.kt
      - echo 'package com.alibaba.mnnllm.android.debug import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
        class DebugActivity:AppCompatActivity() {}' > src/main/java/com/alibaba/mnnllm/android/debug/DebugActivity.kt

[UjuiUjuMandan]

APK built by fdroidserver (29.3 MB) is 30% smaller than yours (42.4 MB). I guess it's because I used the same NDK for natives libs and gradle task and firebase libs were removed.

[UjuiUjuMandan]

AuthorName: Jinde Song
AuthorEmail: juude.song@gmail.com

These are copied from Google Play, would you like to change, to like Alibaba?