Why not open source all your pre-installed apps?

With the exception of the Maps app (Magic Earth), all our default system applications are open source. You can find the explanation behind choosing Magic Earth here. This is about to change, as Murena now also develops Murena Maps (beta), which you can install on your device during this beta phase.

Where can we see the code of the open source apps that you’re forking?

You can browse through the projects on our gitlab and check out the source code.

For example to find the code for the Mail app you can look here

For links to the source code location of each of our default system applications check the Product Description Document here

Why do you not contribute upstream?

We contribute upstream

  • when it’s possible
  • when the upstream project accepts it
  • when a contribution upstream makes sense.

However we have observed that unless the contributions are for trivial bugfixes, in 99% of the cases the merges are rejected. The reason behind the rejection is that upstream project maintainers have their own ideas about their project, its features ,UI, colors etc and are not ready to accept our suggestions or code changes.

This is the primary reason why forking is common in open source projects.

Are there still any efforts to get Magic Earth to open source their application?

No, Magic Earth has refused to open source their application. Since we couldn’t find open-source map applications that provide a smooth user experience without requiring constant map updates and excessive bandwidth usage, we decided to develop Murena Maps. Learn more below.

What about Murena Maps?

Murena is now developing Murena Maps, an open-source Android maps app. You can find the current installation guide and beta details here. We welcome your feedback—feel free to share it on our GitLab.