1mo ago

Rumour: Google intends to discontinue the Android Open Source Project – OSnews

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1mo ago

Rumour: Google intends to discontinue the Android Open Source Project

www.osnews.com /story/142553/rumour-google-intends-to-discontinue-the-android-open-source-project/

24 comments

Full AOSP compatibility for Pixel devices is a huge reason to buy a Pixel instead of a 3rd party OEM. They're shooting themselves in the foot.
- That is probably a fraction of one percent of the pixel purchases.
  
  Maybe but those 1% of buyers are multiplicators incentivizing others to buy the same phone.
This is the reason why I'm not a fan of permissive licenses.
- This is the reason why I’m not a fan of permissive licenses.
  If Google is the sole copyright holder, a copyleft license would change nothing because they still have the option to change the license going forward.
  
  That is actually a fair point, but I assume out of the millions of lines of code, not all of them come from Google, right?
  That would requiere convincing the copyright holders of those lines, or at least rewrite them. The latter I don't see it impossible, but it would take time.
  Still, I will always rather a strong copyleft license...
They planned so from the start.
Of course they are. They always did. The entire ecosystem is so closely tied to google services that it's almost impossible to use the phone without them (if you want to use banking and security apps). For now the only alternative is iOS and I'm starting to doubt if mobile Linux will ever become usable.
- Lineage os and graphene os are both based on AOSP, no ? How to expect these projects to survive if AOSP becomes closed source ?
  What worries me the most is the support for our phone. Constructor provides bad to average support for new android versions. Meanwhile, these projects can last for a long time. I have a one plus 7 pro and it is running on YAAP, receives OTA security updates every month and all the major versions of Android. Killing AOSP will lead to killing long term support of our phone.
  
  I think iOS is better than stock Android because Apple is not in ad business so it has better privacy protections. Its locked ecosystem sucks but privacy wise it's better.
  I went with GrapheneOS because it's fairly large user base means that it will last longer than other, less used mods. But in the end it will only survive for as long as Google let's it.

24 comments