Google began shipping Google builds of the APEX modules via the Play Store to work around non-Pixel devices not shipping the latest monthly, quarterly and yearly OS releases. For Google Mobile Services devices, many of the APEX modules are required to be the official Google builds from the Play Store. The changes to APEX modules are released as part of the quarterly and yearly AOSP releases.
I believe it's similar to kernel modules in that they can either be compiled into the kernel or distributed separately. Graphene probably just distributes it as part of the system images. This just means rollouts are coupled. Apex doesn't imply closed source, only that there is a stable surface that allows more modular updates.
No, all of the standard APEX modules are part of the Android Open Source Project. Only device-specific APEX modules used to distribute driver support aren't part of it.
APEX modules are open source components of AOSP. See https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/modules/. Those modules include a lot of other AOSP code beyond what's directly in packages/modules too.
Google began shipping Google builds of the APEX modules via the Play Store to work around non-Pixel devices not shipping the latest monthly, quarterly and yearly OS releases. For Google Mobile Services devices, many of the APEX modules are required to be the official Google builds from the Play Store. The changes to APEX modules are released as part of the quarterly and yearly AOSP releases.
https://grapheneos.org/features#anti-persistence
GrapheneOS has apex modules disabled and never had the need for that.
ART updates are distributed via APEX since Android 12.
So is it stuck in Java 12?
I believe it's similar to kernel modules in that they can either be compiled into the kernel or distributed separately. Graphene probably just distributes it as part of the system images. This just means rollouts are coupled. Apex doesn't imply closed source, only that there is a stable surface that allows more modular updates.
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No, all of the standard APEX modules are part of the Android Open Source Project. Only device-specific APEX modules used to distribute driver support aren't part of it.