Thread

1. wps · 1789760710 · focus · HN ↗

   The amount of roadblocks Google is putting up for GrapheneOS is just ridiculous. None of their decisions make any sense, from the delayed source patches upstream, to the embargos, attestation issues, etc. Google simply regrets android being open source.

   1. 7734128 · 1789761296 · focus · HN ↗

      It's not a regret. Android would never have been popular in the first place if it had not been open source. If phone makers had been able to anticipate how much the demons at Google would be able to lock down the Android then they would never had used the OS back in ~2009.

      1. thevillagechief · 1789761797 · focus · HN ↗

         I don't think this is actually true. Phone makers seem happy to have the platform locked down even further. They're putting even more roadblocks, as evidenced by most of them making bootloaders unlockable.

         1. lenerdenator · 1789762918 · focus · HN ↗

            This is what lots of people forget.

            Android is not a Linux desktop or server distro. It is not about you getting to put what you want on the hardware you bought for free.

            Operating systems are hellaciously expensive to maintain and that only gets worse in markets with rapid hardware improvements, as the smartphone market was up until maybe the late 2010s. Google is not a charity. SV did not come into national prominence for making investors $0. There is no money in giving maybe one in one-hundred smartphone users (and that's being generous) a bunch of code, for free, so that they can put it on their gizmo and talk to their nerd friends at their hacker meetup.

            When they pitched Android as "open", they meant that carriers and device makers could load it up with all of the revenue-enhancing bloat that they wanted. In return, Google got a device that would let them hoover up all of the data they could ever want in order to build better ad service profiles for those using the devices. That is, after all, their business.

            For a while, this could coexist with us screwing around with a real-life tricorder. At some point, though, the free stuff turned into a revenue opportunity that had to be exploited. And so, it will be.

            1. mitxela · 1789779481 · focus · HN ↗

               Especially Android, which is an ever-growing pile of spaghetti almost as bad as Windows.

               1. sirjaz · 1789786268 · focus · HN ↗

                  I'd say Android is already worse. It uses more ram and resources to run smoothly than Windows does. Especially now that Microsoft is actively trying to speed up Windows 11 and make it use less resources.

                  1. mitxela · 1789788151 · focus · HN ↗

                     That's a different axis from spaghetti Ness.
                  2. free652 · 1789791842 · focus · HN ↗

                     Haha and not true. You would need to provide objectively more than your experience. And for an example clicking on Android Contacts would be instant vs load time in Windows 11 (the one i have).

                     1. TeMPOraL · 1789810022 · focus · HN ↗

                        Did you try to scroll the list tho?

                        (Did they fix that whole "store contacts in a linked list" problem in Android already?)

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.