Not to beat a tired horse here, but I thought it might make sense to explain the genesis of this post.
When we released the License Validator Library, we added the strong suggestion that developers apply Proguard or some other obfuscator to their builds when they make use of it. However, we didn't provide any tools or samples to help the application developers solve this problem. Several applications were released to Market that make use of the LVL without applying an obfuscator or adding any additional form of protection. One of the developers that I was working with couldn't figure out how to get Proguard working with the LVL because of two reasons: The first reason is that the LVL makes use of enums, which can cause problems when obfuscated in ways that aren't entirely obvious. The second reason is that binder interfaces will get obfuscated away by default, and LVL makes use of them as well. I developed a script that would work reliably with the two existing sets of Ant rules that were available, but had to replicate some code from them because there were no hooks to implement this sort of functionality "correctly" within our old ant rules files. Also, there were slight changes between what had to be done for rules and rules_v2. Rather than release this hack into the ecosystem, we decided to use it as a good teaching example for the new empty Ant tasks that we were already planning to add to the SDK tools, which would also unify the rules for building against all platform revisions. In the long run, we know we can do better and will make better tools that automate this and other tasks, but felt that there was enough value to release this into the ecosystem and help developers now rather than months from now. Not every app will reap significant benefits through obfuscation; This is not an attempt by Google to suggest that all developers begin adding Proguard to their builds. We just want to provide help and support so that other developers don't have to spend long nights figuring these sorts of problems out as I did. Dan - Dan Galpin Developer Advocate Google, Inc. - If you actually want answers to your questions, it's far better to post them here, because the collective brain of this forum far exceeds my own. - On Sep 25, 9:45 am, JP <joachim.pfeif...@gmail.com> wrote: > Integration in Eclipse - a step in the right direction if serious > about promotingProguard. > It's wait and see for me now. I am too busy with other things to > wanting to figure this one out. > > Xavier and crew, two aspects that I'll ask you to keep in mind: > 1. There's plenty of developers who need to keep their apps flying > through the release cycles. No need for curveballs flying in from > leftfield. > 2. Not to drag that tired iOs vs. Android bickering out, but you guys > know that devs use platform multipliers when estimating efforts to > develop an app against a spec. Regrettably, Android multiplier is > considerably greater than iOS's, due the various complications we > "enjoy" that carriers and manufacturers keep bringing into play. At > least for what you can control, keep stuff simple so devs can focus on > what their clients are willing to pay for. > > On Sep 23, 7:00 pm, Justin Giles <jtgi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Xavier stated in another thread that in the next release there will be > > built-in support forproguardin Eclipse. I can't find a link right now, > > but the last discussion on it was earlier today or yesterday. > > > Justin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
