Thread

Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP

1180 points · 723 comments · theanonymousone

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. godelski · 1789763541 · focus · HN ↗
  I hope people remember this when advocating for chromium. Just because it is open source doesn't mean they don't control it. We need to start the long process of hard forking now or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation.
  > Google simply regrets android being open source.
  Android wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't open source. With all the work from outside Google. The same is true chrome.
  But they won't learn that on their own. They are breaking the deals. So we move. We force their hand
  1. StilesCrisis · 1789766362 · focus · HN ↗
    Hard forking doesn't solve the problem of closed source.
    If the goal of a hard fork is "the community will invest equal resources that Google does today" then you wildly underestimate how many engineers work on Chrome.
    ocdtrekkie · 1789778454 · focus · HN ↗
    The bigger problem is wasting developer effort contributing to Google's platform. The real secret behind Android being "open" (sorta) is that while almost nobody runs AOSP, Google has tricked a bunch of fools into working on Android forks instead of building a real competitor.
    Playing at their table is a losing game, the house always wins.
    charcircuit · 1789780372 · focus · HN ↗
    The developer effort is not wasted because it's open source. Anyone can fork it at any time. None of it can be thrown away from humanity, wasting it.
    The reason why no one runs AOSP is because the phone market rewards differentiation. Each phone manufacture wants to build their own experience and building on top of AOSP is how they do so.
    Is it really a losing game? Building a new OS from scratch is not worth it. Why throw away an entire app catalog for your device? Consumers want access to existing app catalogs when buying a phone. If anything is a losing game it's building a new mobile operating system over forking Android as a base.
    fragmede · 1789781694 · focus · HN ↗
    It wasn't worth it, but it's 2026, not 1991, when Linus first released Linux. AI can shit out a new OS, given enough tokens, and a VM/compatibility layer would let you run Android apps until native ports became available. The question is why would you want to do that? Computers are vastly more capable than they were when the Linux kernel was originally designed, and the needs of programs and their permissions have changed as well. <a href="https://xkcd.com/1200/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/1200/ While throwing away all the learnings and starting from scratch are usually not justified, sometimes it is the right choice, if enough things have changed. Should GPS location, fine grained or coarse, and related permissions, be a part of the OS kernel or a user space daemon that other processes can query or some other thing? That wasn't a question when Linux was created but should be a core consideration for a replacement system that was created today, along with a myriad of other modern day questions that didn't exist back then. I don't think it's a loosing game, and I don't have the resources to make one myself, but I do think that the world's materially changed enough to justify building a new one from scratch.
    AI generating code changes the game significantly, though there are issues with that. A new OS would have taken several millions and multiple teams, but can now be done for far less. The problem is hardware to run it on. Who'd pay $2,000 for a shittier phone with less features when a $500 used one with GrapheneOS is right there? So the market, (in)efficiently, hasn't come up with a new phone OS. Not because it isn't warranted, but because the free market isn't a perfect system.
    pjmlp · 1789789361 · focus · HN ↗
    You mean proprietary AI can do that, running on big corp servers.
    thepasch · 1789811323 · focus · HN ↗
    What proprietary AI running on big corp servers was 6 months ago is now runnable on owned bare metal compute, and there's no reason to believe this trajectory won't continue for the foreseeable future.
    pjmlp · 1789829168 · focus · HN ↗
    With a proprietary local stack, provided one can actually afford the hardware.
    bigstrat2003 · 1789793468 · focus · HN ↗
    LLMs can't even get much simpler programs right without humans holding their hand, let alone an OS. The odds of an LLM just banging out an OS are nil.
    fragmede · 1789957820 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://github.com/Made-In-Basement/ember" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Made-In-Basement/ember would seem to raise the odds, slightly.
    charcircuit · 1789795024 · focus · HN ↗
    Why bother building a compatibility layer when you can just start with Android and start promoting your LLM from there?

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