[biggestdecision]

I mean it's sad that this change will affect Termux, but at the same time I can see why Google wants to enforce W^X on apps home dirs.

This is currently a big backdoor for apps to sneak unvetted code in at runtime, bypasses Google's review policy. Sure Termux was using this for good, but I guarantee that Google has examples of apps doing this to sneak hostile code onto user devices.

Development tools often need higher security permissions on Desktop, maybe Android just needs a "development" class of app that is more privileged? They'd just need to enforce the limitation to development focused apps really strongly in the review process.

[dTal]

If they were actually vetting the code, they could tell that an application contained a suspicious "download and execute".

In actual fact the Play Store is full of perfectly "vetted" malware, as it stands. What this actually does is prevent the user from coding on the device.