E: apparently it needs to be said that I am not suggesting you switch to Linux on your phone today; just that development needs to accelerate. Please don’t be one of the 34 people that replied to tell me Linux is not ready.
Android has always been a fairly open platform, especially if you were deliberate about getting it that way, but we’ve seen in recent months an extremely rapid devolution of the Android ecosystem:
- The closing of development of an increasing number of components in AOSP.
- Samsung, Xiaomi and OnePlus have removed the option of bootloader unlocking on all of their devices. I suspect Google is not far behind.
- Google implementing Play Integrity API and encouraging developers to implement it. Notably the EU’s own identity verification wallet requires this, in stark contrast to their own laws and policies, despite the protest of hundreds on Github.
- And finally, the mandatory implementation of developer verification across Android systems. Yes, if you’re running a 3rd-party OS like GOS you won’t be directly affected by this, but it will impact 99.9% of devices, and I foresee many open source developers just opting out of developing apps for Android entirely as a result. We’ve already seen SyncThing simply discontinue development for this reason, citing issues with Google Play Store. They’ve also repeatedly denied updates for NextCloud with no explanation, only restoring it after mass outcry. And we’ve already seen Google targeting any software intended to circumvent ads, labeling them in the system as “dangerous” and “untrusted”. This will most certainly carry into their new “verification” system.
Google once competed with Apple for customers. But in a world where Google walks away from the biggest antitrust trial since 1998 with yet another slap on the wrist, competition is dead, and Google is taking notes from Apple about what they can legally get away with.
Android as we know it is dead. And/or will be dead very soon. We need an open replacement.
I imagine building on existing AOSP project like GrapheneOS or LineageOS would be the easiest path forward. There is already a decent ecosystem of open source apps available. You’d still need to figure out what to do with proprietary apps like Slack that regular people might need for day to day use.
Ultimately, the problem lies in lack of a hardware vendor willing to take make open phones that are geared towards running a custom OS on without having to jailbreak them. I really think the only way this can happen is if there was a vendor that focuses on providing a full stack open source system for mobile. Maybe a company like Liberux or even Framework will succeed at doing something like that at some point.
Liberux is using waydroid to add compatibility from what I’ve seen, so that may be the way forward where you have a base Linux system, and then a layer for running Android apps on top of it.
I agree. As it stands, there is no immediate problem with buying a vendor unlockable phone for LineageOS or GrapheneOS. It does seem like Google is slowly closing the doors to FOSS, so the future could require an AOSP fork. But it also might not. We don’t really know for sure. As long as LineageOS and GrapheneOS exist and have developers, we have nothing to sorry about.
If, in the future, all hardware manufacturers fail us, I have used Waydroid on an old Thinkpad, and it is fantastic. And, more in the Linux ecosystem is Android Translation Layer which translates Android syscalls into Linux syscalls. It is buggy, but I could see it getting better in the future.
Anyway, I’m not really worried. There are still a lot of paths forward, and FOSS advocates are persistent.
Yeah, the foundation exists and it’s just going to be a question of building out on top of it. It’s also worth noting that the app ecosystem outside google is starting to become fairly complete as well. I find that in practice I only use a handful of apps such as email client, messenger, music player, weather app, a browser, a maps app, and a calendar. That accounts for most of what I do on my phone day to day, and there are mature open source options for all of these apps.