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
    38·
    1 day 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 ??

    • SilentKnight1369@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      11 hours ago

      Okay here what noone talks about android is linux at its core if android and linux were merged it wouldnt to hard of a parject but the issue is time and resources. If linux and android were merged as open source it screw up the entire system and google would be screwed and thwy realised that and thats why their quietly trying to do it first.

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      73·
      1 day 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.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        5·
        13 hours ago

        My last straw was when I had location services permission denied to chrome, and then one day discovered that it had turned them back on without notifying me…

        Also, every time my apps updated they gave themselves back permissions that I had disabled.

      • certified_expert@lemmy.worldEnglish
        24·
        1 day 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
          2·
          2 hours 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.

        • IratePirate@feddit.orgEnglish
          6·
          15 hours ago

          I assume device drivers, but probably it is much more complicated than that

          Yes, device drivers are an issue. Reverse engineering them is a bitch and slows you down, particularly if you want to support a wide range of models and those models keep getting hardware updates.

          But that’s not all, software ecosystem is another big one. Android and iOS have seen two decades of people developing software for them. In order for them to want to port their software over to your cleanSlateOS, it would have to have a significant user base. And in order for cleanSlateOS to draw that significant user base, it would have to have an attractive suite of apps to run on it. It’s a catch-22.

          You could, in theory, try to develop emulators or compatibility layers so that Android apps will also run on cleanSlateOS. But that, again, is time-consuming, will never be free of friction, and require you to make compromises with regard to security and privacy (many apps simply don’t run properly without Google’s main piece of spyware, the Play Services). It will also kind of tie you to Google again - and that was the thing you were trying to get away from in the first place…

          • certified_expert@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            13 hours ago

            I dream of a system with the same philosophy as unix: simple tools with one and only one job, that pipe with each other.

            perhaps, defining some “common ground formats” to smooth the in/out across apps.

            developers and apps will eventually come. but drivers, that depends on the manufacturers

        • Canuck@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          46·
          3 hours 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
          • I'm Hiding 🇦🇺@aussie.zoneEnglish
            2·
            8 hours ago

            I carry a Linux phone in my normal pocket, not my other one.

            The camera doesn’t work, I don’t have any problem with apps but I am probably not a typical user in that regard, but my 5000mAh battery lasts me a day and ends on 30-40%, which is reasonable but not nearly as good as Android. My family members complain I sound like I’m underwater when I call them and the phone crashes every morning when I take it off the charger.

            Linux phones are a wonderful promise but require a lot of comprimises. I hope they improve soon

          • -RJ-@lemmy.worldEnglish
            23·
            1 day ago

            Aren’t there also issues with Banking Apps and their requirements around security and signing?

              • IratePirate@feddit.orgEnglish
                2·
                15 hours ago

                The problem is: at least where I live, banks use mobile apps to generate second factor authentication. (No TOTP, all proprietary / homegrown mechanics.) No second factor - no login.

                • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zipEnglish
                  1·
                  14 hours ago

                  The proprietary second factor in bank apps tends to work fine, since it is displayed before any invasive authentication crap.

                  It feels stupid to have the whole app and that’s all it does. But it tends to work.

                  But then, I consider a proprietary second factor app to be a huge red flag for security, so I prefer ones services compatible with Aegis or other open second factor solutions.

              • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                2·
                16 hours ago

                Not all have websites sadly. Virgin for example got rid of their web app and now direct you to download them mobile app as the only way to manage your accounts outside of the brick and mortar branches. Obviously I now rarely use that credit card, if ever. But others may have their main bank accounts and mortgages etc with such a bank and that would suck.

              • Therefore@lemmy.worldEnglish
                10·
                1 day ago

                way ahead there, I use Android and my internet banking app is just a wrapper for their website.

            • Canuck@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              3·
              23 hours ago

              As some other people mentioned the Waydroid app or their website can work. If you do Waydroid, you can install Gapps, and other banking app isn’t happy with that, they typically offer decent mobile websites.

              GNOME Web and Mozilla Firefox via this PWA extension let you have a dedicated app icon for any web service you want into your app drawer. The Firefox one works best, and I believe does a better job isolating stuff from the main browser.

              What’s cool is you can run an entire Monero wallet (or other cryptocurrency) on device for full mobile financial experience, though don’t store more in it than you would a regular wallet.

    • AmbitiousProcess (they/them)@piefed.socialEnglish
      31·
      1 day ago

      GrapheneOS is currently unaffected, at least specifically regarding your freedom to install apps. They’ve stated this won’t affect GrapheneOS.

      The main problem as pointed out by floofloof is that a lot of Android development is no longer part of AOSP, but separate proprietary implementations. For example, if you install stock Android, Google has a feature to recognize music playing around you and provide a list to you later. GrapheneOS lacks this feature, because it relies on proprietary code. Same goes for the features to find your device if it’s lost, AI stuff, etc.

      • asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        15 hours ago

        Personally I’d be very heppy if Graphene OS continues long into the future without those features anyway.

        • AmbitiousProcess (they/them)@piefed.socialEnglish
          3·
          13 hours ago

          Most of them aren’t necessary to most people, but the main concern is features that should reasonably be part of the core Android experience being removed, or features that have no reason to be reliant on Google at all.

          For example, GrapheneOS can’t support the detection of your phone being quickly ripped away from you to auto-lock the device, even though that should only require onboard sensors and processing, and it can’t support the additional custom clocks for lock screen customization, because Google decided those would be built into the Google app then extended to Android after, rather than being built into AOSP.

          You can reasonably see a future where other functionality gets put into these proprietary blobs too. Maybe the launcher becomes proprietary and GrapheneOS has to use or develop a separate FOSS one that might not support all the same features. Maybe charging optimization gets locked behind proprietary code because Google claims it uses “special algorithms” to adjust how your phone charges. Maybe Private Space gets turned proprietary because Google claims it needs special security features.

          That’s why it’s particularly concerning, because in the future, Google could just decide that any number of features aren’t part of AOSP anymore, and now GrapheneOS either has to give them up entirely, or make/find an alternative.