[nehalem]

Seeing news like this, I wonder whether there is a market for an OSS Android and/or Linux distribution that provides the management comfort of Chromebooks without being tied to Google, Apple or Microsoft. A little like Keycloak but one layer higher.

[calgoo]

With all the US/EU issues currently, you might even be able to spin up a company to support European services that need management based on OSS management software.

[roryirvine]

Ubuntu is pretty strong already in that niche - either using Landscape as a first party management solution, but it also tends to be the distro most-commonly recommended by the big third-party MDM vendors like Scalefusion and Jumpcloud. Not sure what their mobile story is like, but they certainly cover laptop / desktops.

[mariusor]

If Android is not a blocker, maybe even then, Jolla, a Finnish company, has been offering a Linux based mobile OS for quite some time. I frankly don't get why other EU companies building the hardware, like Fairphone and Volta, don't partner up with them.

[fsflover]

> Android

> without being tied to Google

That's a contradiction.

[rcMgD2BwE72F]

No. I'm on GrapheneOS and not tied to Google.

You must be thinking of the Google Play Services but these aren't required by GrapheneOS.

[izacus]

No, we're thinking about the fact that Android is Google owned and developed and no removal of Play Services changes that.

Every Android ROM is critically dependant on Googles work to actually develop and secure the OS.

[catlikesshrimp]

It is tied to google inasmuch all target phones are google branded. https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices

Hopefully that can change, in the future

[fsflover]

It's tied to Google's development strategy, such as removal of Manifest-V2, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41905368

[JCattheATM]

It could change now, it could have changed years ago, they just have no interest in trying. It's pretty annoying honestly.

[pjmlp]

As long as it depends on Google paying upstream development that GrapheneOS updates from, it is tied to Google.

Now if GrapheneOS was its own thing without additional AOSP code updates.

[philipallstar]

This becomes sophistry, though. "tied to" in a way that doesn't matter, doesn't matter.

[pjmlp]

Ah but it does, as Google can decide to close down AOSP shop at any moment.

[microtonal]

If that happens, the world can always try to fork. Until then it seems kind of pointless to do so?

[realusername]

The day they do that, Android will just be a Chinese product and Google will lose control over it.

[brnt]

Anyone on Graphene is tied tot Google, for it requires Google hardware.