[bubblethink]

It'll probably violate the ToS of hitting Google's APIs. However, no OEM is shipping these. So there's no one to sue. The responsibility is on the user who flashes this. The code itself is free software. If Google sends a takedown to github or whatever, that would be a PR disaster. More practically though, if this becomes big, it would be trivial for Google to break the APIs.

[morganvachon]

> "it would be trivial for Google to break the APIs"

That's the most likely route they will take. It keeps their hands clean, as they can drum up a perfectly valid technical reason to break the API.

[larma]

Actually it's not trivial to change server APIs because they don't fully control all the clients (not even all officially supported ones). For example: push notifications are supposed to work without setting up a Google account (if you use a certain Android version). But if you don't log in to your Google account, you're not receiving updates through Play Store, and thus Google can't update the client. Google breaking their claim will upset some of their users (probably not the typical smartphone users, but think of entertainment systems based on Android for example).

Also note that most Google ToS don't specifically forbid third party usage (and some also specifically allow them), the only thing that's forbidden is to misuse APIs in a harmful way. Just another example would be the login/account management part of microG, that uses the publicly described OAuth APIs, obviously intended for third-party use.

[morganvachon]

Note I wasn't the one saying it would be trivial, just that it's the path Google can take if they want to keep their nose clean.