[andrepd]

> And I heard that Google stopped pushing Pixel source?

> Yes, Google has pulled back here too. Pixel kernels are now only offered as history-stripped tarballs, available privately on request, with no device trees, HALs, or configs. Thanks to projects like CalyxOS, Pixels will likely remain well supported, but they’re no longer guaranteed “day one” devices for LineageOS. Pixel devices are now effectively no easier to support than any other OEM’s devices. In short, this just makes things harder, not impossible.

These fucking bastards. How far we have fallen in ~10 years of smartphone ubiquity. I have zero hopes that this monopolising trend will ever be reversed without top-down regulation from a big bloc like the EU.

[pndy]

If you look at EU and its inaction over Microsoft privacy shenanigans with Win10 and 11. How it spins around Apple and cannot enforce them to fully open their mobile operating system then I sadly have little hopes they can do anything regarding Google and their recent decisions around Play store and 3rd party apps.

I wish something could be done but sadly feels like regular people have to climb mountains to protect themselves while corporations just come in by front door with lucrative deals in order to protect their status-quo

[jMyles]

At the risk of sounding knee-jerk libertarian (though there are worse ways to sound), it seems to me that top-down, big bloc regulation is a non-trivial piece of what has gotten into this mess.

The entrenchment via regulatory capture at the baseband level, with enormous state interplay with TSMC and Qualcomm (both economic and regulatory, both publicly known and classified), makes it impossible for a seriously independent actor to enter the market, exception _maybe_ an ubercapitalist like Musk or something.

I'm much more interested to see what happens when we achieve sufficient peace that industrial complexes are no longer the primary pillar of support for chip engineering and fabrication. I suspect that this will unlock the open development, up to the kernel and beyond, that we all hope for.

[zbentley]

What would baseband usage look like in a deregulated world?

I’m skeptical, but the question is honest. Without the (quite corrupt) allotment of frequencies and broadcast radio tech by the FCC and government, I’m having trouble envisioning a future that doesn’t end up back at the bcm/qcm/etc. near-monopoly … just via market collusion rather than state orchestration. Is there a better future there that I’m missing?

[jMyles]

Yeah I'm honestly not sure. Systems of regulation (ie, achieving regularity) need to be developed that don't depend on the state.

[janice1999]

You can't blame the EU for Google pulling developer support for devices or holding back security patches.

There are pros and cons to "big bloc regulation". You can go and start a phone company since so many things are standarised but the main constraint will be who you source a modem from and the lack of choice will be because of patents (see Apple vs Qualcomm).

[Incipient]

Aren't there are a few modem vendors? MediaTek, Intel, and a bunch of Chinese players?

[whatevaa]

No? Especially since you mentioned Intel, who sold their modem business to Apple.

[microtonal]

Care to elaborate? Intel might have been sold, but there is still Mediatek, Samsung, and the aforementioned Chinese vendors?