What does android:required="false" mean WRT to uses-permission?

Question

I'm integrating an SDK and it requires I put this:

<uses-permission
    android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"
    android:required="false" />

I understand android:required="false" on a uses-feature, but I can't understand the meaning on a permission. It's not listed in the docs as a attribute.

Is it similar to requires on a uses-feature? Where permissions imply features as listed here, then those features are not required?

Answer 1

As you say, according to the documentation, it isn't a valid attribute in a <uses-permission> tag. It goes on to say (emphasis mine):

To control filtering, always explicitly declare hardware features in elements, rather than relying on Google Play to "discover" the requirements in elements. Then, if you want to disable filtering for a particular feature, you can add a android:required="false" attribute to the declaration.

I would suggest your SDK documentation might be wrong, and you should include a <uses-feature> tag for any implied features.