151–160 of 245 posts
Can we please just go back to having some sort of Debian-based GNU/Linux on a smartphone. Just create a really great mobile interface on top of that. The more I learn about Android, the more I think the whole thing is a waste of time.
Here you go: https://mobian-project.org/ postmarketOS is based on Alpine Linux: https://postmarketos.org/
This has really stood the test of time...
How naive we were. We never realized that "Don't be evil" was not a choice, it something that natural happens to a public company. Today it would feel so much of quixotism for a company were to to come out and say "Don't be evil".
Hmm while this could be sold as just to prevent leaks (which occasionally happen), I think this is more likely a first step to closing the source, in light of the EU messing up their open source monetisation strategy. Well, more like the 5th step really. They already moved a ton of functionality into Google Play Services, and discontinued a load of the open source stock apps like Calendar.
the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make” - Andy Rubin This has really stood the test of time...
This headline really is misleading. The source will still be released, it just means that the work leading up to a release will be in private. IMO, there's nothing wrong with that, since it's likely that a lot of the intermediate com mediates are likely just noise.
I think the determinant will be how transparently this process is maintained.
As others say, it breaks contributions and any chance that other forks will keep up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As much as I - a Pixel 7 (GrapheneOS) user - would hate that, doing so would essentially put Android on equal footing as iOS and would give me a serious reason to consider switching to an iPhone. Apple's hardware is just so much sleeker, faster, and better than Google's mediocre Pixel line.
Maybe I'm just a tech philistine but I find my Pixel 8a and my wife's iPhone to be basically indistinguishable in any meaningful way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can someone just fork it? Like MySQL was forked into MariaDB?
Yes: https://illumos.org/
I suppose lineageOS is the closest thing for Android tho from what I understand it is built upon AOSP
This whole situation also reminds me of the Manifest V3 drama with Chromium. They might be planning something similar and want to avoid the early headaches of public criticism.
Or maybe they're doing a bigger overhaul of Android's core, changing how apps can communicate and control each other (e.g., computer-user, Operator)!
Idk, I dnt want to be cynical fingers crossed.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Too bad. There should be a proper open Linux + Wayland for mobile, not Android Frankenstein anyway.
But the problem is there is yet to be a single device that has every hardware feature working %100...see https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices#Main