Sony is one of the few OEMs that remains a firm believer in AOSP. Most companies do not bother providing necessary firmware binaries to allow developers to port AOSP onto the device. But while some OEMs actually do provide binaries for developers to make AOSP builds, like we saw with the OnePlus 3, Sony takes it a step further and ensures that AOSP functions properly on all of their devices. Although Sony's Open Device program does not extend to every device it releases, the work that they put out makes the lives of custom ROM developers far, far easier and the community could not be more appreciative for it.

Right now, Sony has published binaries and resources for the Xperia X Compact, Xperia X, Xperia Z5 Premium, Xperia Z5, Xperia Z5 Compact, Xperia Z3+, Xperia Z4 Tablet, Xperia Z3, Xperia Z3 Compact, Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, Xperia Z2, Xperia Z2 Tablet, Xperia Z1, Xperia Z1 Compact, Xperia Z Ultra, Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia Tablet Z, Xperia E3, Xperia M2, Xperia T2 Ultra, Xperia T3, Xperia L and the Xperia S. Note that the Android version each device is supported for varies widely, as many devices on the list do not support Nougat.

Sony has also been the only OEM to participate extensively in the Android N Developer Preview program as well. They have previously published a guide on how to build Android 7.0 AOSP for some of their various supported Xperia devices and this weekend they did the same for the newly released Android 7.1 Nougat Developer Previews. Keep in mind though that only the devices that are already listed as supporting Android 7.0 on Sony's binary resource page will be eligible for the early release build of Android 7.1. Since this is an early build, do also keep in mind that it is currently marked as Experimental. The guide assumes you're running Ubuntu, as the guide was made using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but it will work in a similar way on other Linux distributions.

The guide starts by having you prepare your Java environment, then has you installing the necessary tools to make an Android build and then has you download the Repo tool and set a PATH. Then, the guide walks you through initializing the AOSP tree, adding the necessary patches from the AOSP upstream branch, and then instructions on how to build AOSP images for Android 7.1 Nougat so they can be flashed to the device.

Be sure to check out the Sony Xperia Developer GitHub page and contribute in any way that you can.

Source: Sony Mobile Developer World