Remember that one time Google forced an "Anonymous Coward" to remove the ability to choose alternative search engines in Android?
I can't wait to see how they explain this in the DOJ antitrust lawsuit.
android.googlesource.com/platform/packa
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I expect some of the defense of Android to rest on AOSP and the capability to roll your own ROM, build your own marketplace, etc. Defaults like this will come up but could be explained away because "Android is not a monopoly" and certainly wasn't in 2009. 1/
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AOSP requires tons of dev get it to build/boot at all. Then you have to do tons of dev if you want to use boot security, or to remove even -some- of the proprietary bits.
Combine that with keeping up with updates and it is a full time job.
I tried.
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oh I know. I'm just saying that "we open-source it" will be a Google mantra throughout the lengthy proceedings.
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Probably. Hopefully the opposition points out the countless hours people like and others need to do to even partially de-google devices.
Back in the G1 days it was easy. Back then Google paid people full time to make sure AOSP was solid and easy to build/use.
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That's not an accurate or fair assessment of our work. It is not what we do and what the project provides. GrapheneOS builds privacy and security technologies. AOSP is a solid base for us and we've never had problems building it. You continue to misrepresent the actual issues.
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I was not referring to end products like GrapheneOS (which is why I didn't name it) but was specifically referring to all the work you and others do to get each AOSP to work reliably without Google bits so additive work like GrapheneOS is even possible.
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AOSP already works reliably without Play services. We currently don't bother bundling assorted apps rather than letting users choose apps of their choice from F-Droid, Aurora Store (Play Store) and elsewhere. We intend to fill in functionality provided by Play services but we
don't do much of that right now, other than including SeedVault, which was initially implemented based on the concept we laid out for it. We aren't interested in a reimplementation of clients for Google services like microG, so only implementing providers for AOSP APIs is wanted.
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I have had to admit I won't be able to have an OS on my phone I control unless I make it a full time job to do so :-P
Personally I can do everything on GrapheneOS today I used to on a stock device. If anything else is ever added it is just a bonus. Secure and bare bones is good.
AOSP works reliably without Play services only after you provide and continually fix lots of tooling to even get it to build and even then one has to extract factory image bits.
That, by itself, is a non trivial amount of work to maintain as I know all to well now.
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