Hello. Im not by any means a newbie to Android. I have been in it since the beginning, got the G1 on release day, I was there when Cyanogen released his first Donut builds, and was the founder/admin of the Cyanogenmod IRC channel for the first couple years. However, I am not a developer. Im a tester and an admin and all around gadget enthusiast.
Ive been watching this forum since it started and waiting for the magical moment when we get to realize the potential of this device. I have kept in the back as I am not a dev and don't have a whole lot to contribute to the project. Today however I happened to come across something that may actually be of some help, and the dev behind the project might actually be interested in helping us as it could also benefit his work as well.
For the technical folks, have a look at this github. The guy is working out an open source tool set for qcom msm devices to replace the proprietary kits like qfil and the like.
https://github.com/openpst
When you look at the tools like Uni and z3x and MiracleBox and blah blah blah the hundered other box based phone flasher kits (yes I know Uni is boxless), all they are is a GUI frontend that pulls together a bunch of tools that are readily available in individual form somewhere on the web. For Uni they have the ADB section, theres the Qualcomm section, the MTK section and so on, which all just call to the various tools inside the program directory,.. its all there, SP Flashtool, x10Flasher, etc, EXCEPT.. no QPST stuff anywhere.. Weird. Im pretty sure these opportunistic fellows aren't so smart that they wrote their own loaders and whatnot for the qcom platform. If they were, they would have much more value to say a company like qcom themselves, than selling another in a long line of phone unlocking kits that capitalize on other people's tools and work. I think these groups spend more time and money in r&d on how to make their "software" uncrackable than they do on the actual product itself...
Anyway, somehow they have managed to wrap the qcom loader bits and the signature bits we need inside that blasted exe file, and Im thinking the guy at that github may have some ideas on how they did that...
I have not contacted him and prefer a more technically inclined person do so, as I may just be waaaayyyy of base here, but it might be worth the 5-10 minutes it would take one of you dev types to start up a conversation with the fellow. And by "one of you dev types" i obviously mean
@Astr4y4L
One little observation that I want to make regarding this Uni tool method... You guys realize that It's not actually Uni that is doing the rooting of the device. Its Magisk that places the necessary binaries and patches the system. All we need uni for is to get TWRP onto the device. That's it. Its still not rooted until you flash Magisk. SO, my point is, no one is charging ANYTHING for rooting here. The cost is for a software product that among it's 1000 other features, will allow flashing firmware, and thus recovery images to the z981. The Uni folks make no claims whatsoever that they can ROOT the device and for that matter, that is not even their goal. They are focused on SIM unlocking and FRP bypassing on as many different devices as they can.