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. 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.

         1. 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.

            1. 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.

               1. AnthonyMouse · 1789790586 · focus · HN ↗

                  > The reason why no one runs AOSP is because the phone market rewards differentiation.

                  This is what empire-building middle managers say to rationalize their boondoggles, but in actual fact most customers can't even tell the difference between two different vendors' Android skins, definitely can't tell the difference before they buy one, and the way they actually differentiate phones is on real hardware differences that show up in the specs like the camera or performance.

                  The hardware company's idiosyncratic fork of the software is irrelevant at best and annoyingly irregular in the common case.

                  1. miki123211 · 1789814960 · focus · HN ↗

                     > the way they actually differentiate phones is on real hardware differences that show up in the specs

                     You forgot about one thing they care about above all others — cost.

                     And the easiest way to keep costs down is through "alternative revenue streams", which involve your own tracking, your own app bundling deals and your own App Store, which you're pushing on users constantly. And if you do that, you may as well get the branding win from doing the custom skin too.

                     1. AnthonyMouse · 1789967427 · focus · HN ↗

                        That's the middle manager's rationalization again, but meanwhile nobody actually uses their OEM-specific app store and the two dollars they made from the two percent of customers who accidentally bought an app using their store is less than the amount of money they lose to pissing people off.

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