[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?

[pjmlp]

Try is the keyword here.

Hence why these efforts should not rely on US institutions good will in first place.

[metalman]

Can try to fork?, china , russia, and lots of smaller countrys are steadily moving away and as basic introperability standards for phone and internet will remain, they can do this, and pressure is also mounting to get a linux phone fully functional, that will alao happen. And in a world where Guggappl is providing genocide and abduction services, Billions would happily choose other alternatives.

[kombine]

China and Russia are likewise involved in their own genocides (Uyghurs and Ukraine respectively), and they are just as interested in developing centralised systems of control. They will not give the world truly free and open platform.

[metalman]

"They will not give the world truly free and open platform", uhuhu!, but we are giving them the pivot point to claim the flag of freedom , rather than just doing that ourselves. also, one more move from you know who, and a whole lot of countrys will have to very seriously start looking for stable deals that last longer than it takes the ink to dry. China just ghosted nvidia, on the "something 200" ai chip to start shipping in march, tsmc and all there suppliers have stood down on that, and will of course, instantly re focus on the next job, which might be a batch of chips for fairphones....

[realusername]

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

[pjmlp]

Huawei took control of its own destiny instead of relying on Google forks.

https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/design/

https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/harmonyos/develop/

[palata]

And I am still sad that they didn't go for an open source hard fork of AOSP. Would have been fun.

[realusername]

Indeed and if Google would pull the plug on AOSP, some initiative like this would become the de facto Android standard.

[izacus]

I love your optimism. What you'll see is return to 2000s where you may have had "Symbian" as the operating system, but the phones weren't compatible between themselves and apps broke and didn't work across manufacturers (or even product lines) because there was noone enforcing compatibility.

I wonder if you forgot that or you're too young to remember what kind of bizarre hell mobile development was at that time.

Heck, even early Android was really hard to develop for because CTS suite didn't cover enough and all of us spent hours upon hours (and many dollars) trying to reproduce and fix Samsung, Huawei, HTC and other bugs.

[pjmlp]

I doubt that people advocating for GrapheneOS would pivot to a Chinese powered platform.