[kuhsaft]

I would group GrapheneOS with Android. If you handed a layperson a GrapheneOS phone and asked them what OS was on the phone, they would probably say Android.

But considering it as a separate OS, I wouldn’t consider it mainstream. It’s not on any device by default. And it has an estimated 250k users out of ~3.9 billion Android users, or 0.0064%. It might seem mainstream for the tech community, but it goes to show how small the tech community is.

It might be mainstream once Motorola, a corporation, starts releasing phones preinstalled with it.

[palata]

> If you handed a layperson a GrapheneOS phone and asked them what OS was on the phone, they would probably say Android.

Agreed, that's exactly it! The pain points of GrapheneOS/LineageOS are due to the fact that device manufacturers don't allow proper support (typically the bootloader story) and that big companies like bank choose (more and more) to ban whatever is not signed by Google (through Play Integrity). I argue that those things should be regulated.

> And it has an estimated 250k users out of ~3.9 billion Android users

I think it's more than 250k, but let's go with that. There are Android manufacturers that are in the same order of magnitude. What would you say if your bank banned your Fairphone (that runs Stock Android signed by Google) just because it is a Fairphone, and "a few hundred thousands of users is marginal"? I think even the regulators would directly understand how that is a problem. Microsoft Office shouldn't be allowed to just ban Framework computers running Windows just because they don't think Framework is big enough, right?

It's not "Google vs alternative Androids": there are many Android flavours, from Samsung to Sony through Xiaomi and Fairphone. We don't tell Fairphone that they have to be mainstream before they get the right to sell Android phones.

The very reason alternative Androids are (slightly) harder to use is that they are not mainstream, so banks ban them for no reason because they can, and Google is happy to do nothing about it because those are competitors.

We need to regulate that.

[kuhsaft]

> What would you say if your bank banned your Fairphone (that runs Stock Android signed by Google) just because it is a Fairphone, and "a few hundred thousands of users is marginal"? I think even the regulators would directly understand how that is a problem.

We're talking about different operating systems on devices, not the same operating system on different devices. Also, it's not the same as modifying the stock OS that does work with a non-stock OS that doesn't.

The hardware analogy would be closer to having a computer, replacing the GPU, then getting angry that there isn't a driver for the GPU that supports that operating system.

> Microsoft Office shouldn't be allowed to just ban Framework computers running Windows just because they don't think Framework is big enough, right?

Apple doesn't allow their operating systems to run on non-Apple devices. Likewise, Microsoft does have the right to restrict what systems Windows can run on. Any software provider has the right to limit their software's usage.

Conversely, device manufacturers have the right to restrict what operating systems can run on them. E.g. the majority of devices other than desktops and laptops.

Whether or not you should be able to run any software on any hardware is another debate. Even if you support that stance, there is a hard limit to user freedom via government regulations on hardware/software such as any RF transmitting device and cryptographic devices.

---

Google Android and iOS are regulated by governments.

With the upcoming age verification requirements made by governments (let’s not debate that here), only the corporate entities that governments can regulate will be allowed.

We can regulate to allow alternative Android OSes, but the alternatives will be ones that follow government regulations.

[palata]

> Also, it's not the same as modifying the stock OS that does work with a non-stock OS that doesn't.

Again, the non-stock OS works, except for the parts that cannot work because they are being actively blocked. It's not that they are not ready: they are ready, but the mainstream players are blocking them.

> The hardware analogy would be closer to having a computer, replacing the GPU, then getting angry that there isn't a driver for the GPU that supports that operating system.

I disagree. It would be like having a computer, replacing the GPU with another GPU that is 100% compatible, but that doesn't run because the OS checks it and says "it would work, but it is not a GPU I like, so I will block it".

> Conversely, device manufacturers have the right to restrict what operating systems can run on them. E.g. the majority of devices other than desktops and laptops.

My point is that they shouldn't. I am saying that it would be better for society if we regulated that.

> We can regulate to allow alternative Android OSes, but the alternatives will be ones that follow government regulations.

Sure, I agree with that.

[kuhsaft]

> My point is that they shouldn't. I am saying that it would be better for society if we regulated that.

Playing devil's advocate here. Why should software developers be allowed to restrict where/how their software is used, while hardware developers can't restrict where/how their hardware is used?

[palata]

Yeah it's a good question, and in the end it's arbitrary. I would say:

1. Because e-waste.

2. Because if I buy shoes, I own the shoes. If I buy an electronic device, I own the electronic device. It should not be legal to add a mechanism in my shoes that allows the manufacturer to make them stop working as shoes whenever they want.

Hardware manufacturers don't open source their firmwares because they see it as a competitive advantage (why not, sometimes). But they should allow someone else to write their own firmware. That is, they should provide minimum support for that. Right now it's not that they don't provide minimum support: they actively work on making it technically impossible to do. And the law, through the DMCA and the likes, makes it illegal to reverse engineer.