With google following apple’s walled garden, and limiting third party app installations, can someone else big (nonprofit like GNU or Linux foundation) fork and maintain android? Reason for choosing someone big is for mass adoption and that google is slowly boiling the pot to see what enshittification it could get away with
I’d rather they supported a full linux phone instead of investing in something Goofle owns.
Lets ignore the “is it possible” and imagine what would happen if it was. Whatever entity forks AOSP would start off with (next to) no userbase. The platform “Android” will remain Google’s AOSP, including some proprietary components. Whenever Google decides, they can enforce apps on the Google Play Store to use a new version of the Android system API. This is often a breaking change; apps that update won’t work on older Android. There is nothing stopping Google from creating complex breaking changes that tie into their proprietary components, killing off any attempt at running Google Play Store apps on older or “fully FOSS” Android. Even if a hard fork of AOSP existed, it would not remain compatible with the vast majority of applications.
So even if this could happen, it won’t. Nobody is going to invest in hard forking a project that is going to be killed off by Google’s monopoly.
The much better (long term) option is to stay completely outside AOSP, like with mobile Linux distros such as postmarketOS. Right now, it is underdeveloped and not an option as a daily driver for most. But over time, this is the only feasible option that can give control back to the user.
there is postmarketOS, lineage OS, and graphene that creates a privacy layer of it. Lineage OS has a bunch of phones it works on, while graphene is exclusive to pixels, sideload lineage OS onto your phone system (DON’T FORGET TO BACKUP!) and install it. It’s as good as it gets.
Postmarketos works in a similar fashion you sideload the bootloader but you can install Linux distros exclusively for phones.
Could that happen? No. A massive amount of android development comes from employees paid by google to do it. What amount of resources should be siphoned away from linux/gnu stuff to support android developers? None.
Is it possible though? No. Android is a proprietary binary blob core (idr if kernel is the right term) with a bunch of open source stuff wrapped around it. For gnu, that part would have to be rewritten and that’s too big a job to take on.
Should it happen? Again, no. There are already plenty of alternatives to google branded android. Just use those.
Even if you were to wave a wand and make the android custodians according to your will, play services, the thing google is restricting, is still googles thing.
The second paragraph isn’t accurate - Android uses the Linux kernel. Hardware manufacturers typically ship their own proprietary modules, but in principle there’s nothing stopping you from running a mainline kernel image as long as support for the specific device or SoC is present. Granted, this isn’t the case for the majority of phones, but this isn’t a limitation of Android itself and you’d run into the same issue trying to run postmarketOS or really anything else on an unsupported device.
I also want to point out that there really aren’t any good alternatives to Android (and its derivatives) at the moment. Mobile Linux distributions are getting better, but at least in my personal experience and from what I’ve heard from others it’s still a pretty janky experience in comparison and arguably is only suitable for enthusiasts.
The MIT License And its Future
Thanks for the correction, it was early and I’m not very smart.
The same hardware support problems exist for many SBCs in addition to the majority of phones like you pointed out. It’s a big pain in the butt.
The linux phone alternatives aren’t very mature, you’re right. I’d argue that to the extent that working on a free/libre/whatever phone system is a smart thing to do it’s probably best to focus on those alternatives as opposed to trying to reform android.
Tbh it seems beyond saving.
On another note, do you think the EU would have interest in forking android considering its push towards digital sovereignty away from US big tech
No, states dance with free software to make the vendors they came to the ball with jealous, not because they intend to take homely ol’ free software home when the music stops.
It’s actively against their interests to adopt open source standards in a multipolar world where the literal easiest and most common supply chain attack is against open source repos.
You wouldn’t want the eu to be the new shepherds of android anyway, they’d just be another giant power trying to control how development goes. Those same giant powers are all busy putting different kinds of age verification in their systems.
E: also the eus digital sovereignty braying is an attempt to remain relevant to the us, not a serious policy direction. It’s much more “better treat us nicer or we’ll cut you out of our tech buying pipeline” as opposed to “we are creating a real fourth pole in cyber power”.
As long as Google is doing a better job maintaining AOSP than a nonprofit would, what’s the point?
If they ever stop doing so, then this might be an option.
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Keep telling yourself that when Google shuts down installation of 3rd party apps in AOSP.
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Sorry to pop your bubble but Google is Platinum tier member of Linux Foundation.
