Advocating for Android as a free, open platform for everyone to build apps on.

People should be able to write software for Android, and distribute it outside Google’s Play store, without having to:

  • pay Google
  • give government ID to Google
  • agree to Google terms and conditions

People should be able to install the software they want on their phone, from sources other than Google’s Play store, without having to jump through Google-imposed hoops.

e.g. via F-Droid.

We’ve got until September this year to stop Google squeezing the open Android ecosystem.

https://keepandroidopen.org/

https://mastodon.neilzone.co.uk/@neil/116087210269757672

  • certified_expert@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    17 days ago

    Dumb question: how is this affecting projects like Graphene OS?

    Can android just be forked and detached from google?

    I am guessing that despite being “open source”, the project depends on many binary blobs to interface with the wireless devices ??

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      17 days ago

      Google has been systematically moving stuff out of the open-source part of Android and into proprietary areas for some time now. They’re making it harder and harder for anyone to make a working Android OS that isn’t full of closed-source Google spyware. For now these projects survive, but Google is clearly hostile to them.

      • certified_expert@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        17 days ago

        What would it take to start from a clean slate? I mean, a mad lad said about 35 years ago “UNIX expensive. I’m gonna make my own OS”

        What are the obstacles for something like this to happen for phones? I assume device drivers, but probably it is much more complicated than that

        • Fmstrat@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          16 days ago

          I see a lot of people responded with a true clean slate, but really, a fork is a clean slate.

          It’s not like Graphene, or Lineage, or any others would stop working. More maintainers would be needed for security issues, but way less than to get (non-Android) Linux phones up to speed.

          Many graphene users, myself included, use all FOSS software from outside Google’s store.

        • Canuck@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          16 days ago

          I have a GNU/Linux phone I carry in my other pocket. Here are the biggest issues I can see:

          1. Driver support for components in the mainline kernel (lets you install any distro and things like camera, Bluetooth just work)
          2. Power management; turns out it is a hard technical problem to have your phone suspend to save energy, while being awake enough to know what and when to turn back on to receive chats/calls, playback music, etc
          3. Cameras have a lot of stuff beyond drivers happening behind the scenes these days in software that would need to be developed, especially given it is a big reason people choose their phones for
          4. Phone certification is tough, this has stopped even companies like Fairphone from shipping their devices worldwide, I imagine even harder for a device like the Purism Librem 5 where you can literally upgrade Wi-Fi, BT, and cellular generations like a gameboy cartridge
          5. App ecosystems take a while to build up, it is a chicken/egg scenario. I think things are in a useable state for all the default apps an iPhone has, but if you want Uber, Uber Eats, you either have to draw even more power essentially running Android via Waydroid, or use a typically more janky web app that may be missing some features