Comment by zb3

Here's my diplomatic submission (bad english, but I post here because ultimately I'd want it to be read by someone and that form seems to be a black hole..):

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Let me start by saying that I don't even fully know in WHICH cases those requirements would apply.. would it only apply when "Play Protect" is on [understandable]? Would "adb install" be affected too [completely crazy]? How would that handle personal apps that are not distributed? Further, how would it even handle Android Studio, would we need to show a government ID to run the "hello world" app made in Android Studio, is that what you want Android to be?

Second, it's not fully clear WHAT those requirements are. How come you can cite security concerns yet claim that the contents of the APK are not verified.. then what if I create malware? It makes no sense.

As a "technical" person and a security researcher, I feel disproportionately affected. Not just by these requirements, because like I said above, I don't actually distribute any apps for others to use, I might just share the source code but that's it.

What worries me is that not only does Google not offer any usable system for developers/researchers directly (there are no official "userdebug" builds that we could use as a "daily driver"), but it seems Google is actually making it increasingly harder for others to make such systems..

As others have pointed out, AOSP seems to be getting killed piece-by-piece, more and more vendors are disabling the option to unlock the bootloader.. yet I NEED a version of Android that doesn't impose restrictions on me, I assumed the core feature of Android was that it was open and therefore suitable for technical people like me..

If Android becomes closed - even for expert users and developers - there will be no point in staying on Android, I might as well try iOS, because why would I choose a copycat when I could choose the original?

Sincerely, zb3