This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Long time coming, Play Integrity (or whatever's called nowadays) restrictions have effectively killed any alternative distributions.
This fucking sucks. Cyberpunk dystopia
Damn, I've just switched to Pixel 3a XL I got for $100 and then installed Evolution OS.
That was bound to happen at some point. Buying a Google device to then "degoogle" it never sit quite right with me.
Amen but here we are
I bought mine secondhand because I had a bad feeling about giving google money just to degoogle as well but still really wanted to use GrapheneOS
So I installed LineageOS recently. Now that I've transferred my passwords and account info I'm quite happy. What will happen from here? Will some apps stop working? If not, is there a problem with just continuing to use the phone as is until I need a new phone (security, eg)?
No.
I am running GOS on a Pixel 7, which means I've had this device for ~2.5 years at this point, and back when I transitioned to this setup I was aware they were talking about being beholden to Pixels due to the hardware security module not being available on other devices.
It has been a known issue. I understand it is a very difficult and costly undertaking to develop new hardware and new entrants would be competing against the big guys for fab space, manufacturing and assembly etc.
We need some kind of nonprofit or independently financed group to advance this cause. Could it be FUTO, Framework, or some other company/organization like this?
There would be market incentive to solve these problems - There has got to be a lot of demand for a neutral hardware platform that meets the hardware security module and other requirements for bootloader security, custom ROMs, etc.
Now more than ever we need more work on PostmarketOS, Mobian, Gnome Mobile etc...
Bummer that it's still so hard to find a somewhat modern, affordable phone that is Linux compatible
Yeah, I'd totally buy a phone running one of those provided it does all the phone things properly: SMS/MMS, reliable calls, all day battery, etc. I don't need fancy apps, I just need a working phone.
If I can get that, I could probably donate some time porting apps.
I really want to give furios phone a shot. It's apparently close to supporting my carrier.
That and a sailfish phone. The community one though didn't support my carrier (think it's mainly EU specced only.)
What I find missing most of the time though is any esim support. Makes me wonder if the hardware one that you can program an esim on works.
I plan on buying one when my current phone is no longer usable.
I want a phone with only cellular data, no calling, no sms, just an open source browser capable of webasm and webrtc
We had those, they were called Pocket PCs. I too want them back. I loved the Dell Axim x51v. A tablet does the job, but it's the same shitty OS.
Sounds like a tablet, and that very well could be easier for someone to build than a phone.
Can we have one of those that fit in my pocket, like 6.5" max ?
If Pine64 can spec out a reasonably decent prototype of a phone and Purism can sell theirs for 2 grand (not worth it), then somebody else can legit come out with something just the same. Pine64 project and Purism cannot be the only communities that can somehow come out with these kinds of tech. Better yet, more people should be jumping to help out these guys to be free from Google and Apple dominance.
More like A-no-SP
It's Nopen Source
ACSP
This is not good, this is why I don't like permissive licenses.
one less reason to buy a Pixel, well done Google!
How badly would this affect graphine os?
I don't have any actual research, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Pixel itself doesn't really make money at all. One of those "get people hardcore into the Google ecosystem to get their money/data" things.
The absolutely criminal dark patterns that they pull on people via Google photos auto backup is insane.
Just in my own orbit 2 of my friends wives, my parents, and my in-laws all wound up paying Google because they thought they had to or lose all their photos. We helped most of them disconnect the autobackup (that they didn't even know was activated) and move it to offline safely. But that was the most downright evil shit Google has ever done and literally a fire in me for manipulating the elderly and less tech savvy so blatantly.
devil's avocado: this move has saved many people's cherished photos from disappearing by having them auto save. before Google photos I'd run into cases (I used to do home IT support) where people had years of family photos disappear because they didn't back them up properly. Having to communicate what happened was never fun.
is Google photos perfect? No, but it's a great solution for people who don't want to manage their data.
Yes, but that shouldn't explicitly opt in, and they shouldn't marry that product to Gmail and Google Drive if they are going to push it to enable by default.
Again, it's really insidious. They push it so aggressively I had to disable it on my personal device twice, and I can't just not use Google Photos app because it's tied to the camera itself on pixel phones.
I agree with you, it's insidious.
Given you've got a Pixel phone, you can save at least yourself from this problem by running Graphene or Calyx on it.
The company says this is because it’s shifting its AOSP reference target from Pixel hardware to a virtual device called “Cuttlefish” to be more neutral.
This actually probably make sense, but they could still be cool and have pixel drivers be open source in a different repo if that was the only reason.
Yeah, just that this has shit to do with the stated reasons. Google hasn't been an open source ally for quite some time now
Do you think it may be related to the monopoly issues they are currently facing?
Yup, the entire culture of Google has nearly changed. It used to be coder- and innovation-driven, and open-source was a natural thing to support. Make more money by growing the pie, creating markets with new tech.
Now it seems it's middle managers and MBAs calling the shots, and their strategy is generic business zero-sum mindset - lock down, restrict, extract. They still see the PR value in open-source, but that's it.
Just becoming 1990s Microsoft or 1980s IBM.
Just another example of enshittification from a publicly traded company. Nothing really new here.
AOSP can be fully abandoned and privately forked by Google without it technically being "dead," but that abandonment would effectively kill the project.
Does this mean Graphene is dead? Probably the real reason they would do this is to kill Graphene.
The GrapheneOS team is very aware of their dependence on google. They are planning to either find an OEM for their own line of hardware or a brand whose phones support their requirements other than google. That being said, it will complicate work a lot, but for now it would be to early to jump to that conclusion.
Also, Google couldn't care less if <1% of buyers flash a custom ROM / OS on their phone, this is about tying the android ecosystem closer to google in general. Most other big phone manufacturers know this and are trying to come up with their own solution, like Huawei had to because of the ban when the orange man has been president the first time.
