Comment by sunshine-o

We have 2 ecosystems for mobile and the worst case scenario is starting to be clear for Android.

I love GrapheneOS but they can only thrive if Google tolerate them. So in its current form, this is not a medium or long term solution (anymore).

We really cannot afford to think in terms of "Android OS" or open source OS anymore the problem is getting much bigger.

My guess is soon in many "free" countries, ISP will mandate connecting with a "Certified" device (someone was saying that in Brazil only cell phones certified by the teleco government agency can be imported already). And on mobile it is easy to implement since you need a (e)SIM. The Internet is still hard to control at the protocol level, but the gates are easy to mostly control (your ISP).

In terms of mobile computing I mostly care about being able to access my home network from the places I am 80% of the time (and I can always bridge to the Internet from there). So the real battle is really at the mesh and multi-hop mobile ad hoc networks. This is the aspect we neglected for 25 years.

Regarding mobile, the battle for Android is lost, time to look into things like B.A.T.M.A.N [0] so we be able to keep another open source mobile platform useful.

For anything "money" related, your bank (which is inevitably regulated) will have to mandate a certified device too. It will work on (some) Linux too.

Ever wondered why for example the Fedora project [1] is proudly part of things like The Digital Public Goods Alliance [2] who works with many govs and if you really look into it they are all about digital ids and "restoring trust"?

- [0] https://www.open-mesh.org/projects/open-mesh/wiki

- [1] https://fedoraproject.org/

- [2] https://www.digitalpublicgoods.net/