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. swiftcoder · 1789817127 · focus · HN ↗

                  > The developer effort is not wasted because it's open source. Anyone can fork it at any time

                  Assuming you can get a hardware vendor to support your fork.

                  Android has always been a weird blend of proprietary BSPs wedged together with the core AOSP project - we used to have an entire team whose full-time job was merging the Qualcomm BSP into our AOSP fork. At the time you didn't even get access to that BSP without inking a deal with QCOM...

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