This is them trying to strangle Graphene and LineageOs. We desperately need an ecosystem where manufacturers are legally compelled to publish the source code for their drivers and similar so as to make it easier for alternative Oses to exist.
Android will soon become fully closed source. The writing is on the wall.
Plenty of drivers are proprietary. There are many ways of doing so, like much of it can exist in userspace, or in firmware, or using a shim in the kernel.
Great. So now nobody gets bugfixes until after the main vendors get priority access to it. for six months.
There's no way this isn't intentional hostility towards forks.
> There's no way this isn't intentional hostility towards forks.
Of course it is. But it isn't new. This was declared in March last year. We discussed it a lot here. It's only now that it's going into effect.
You guys are getting bugfixes?
Ofc to the root kit installed by "them", better battery life and WiFi stability.
/s
The security fixes will be published normally.
Security fixes are hardly the only software problems Android has.
The writing was on the wall the day they shipped Doze with GPS as an OS feature.
All those years back I started calling it, since I built software for (long-lived) HMI devices that ran on Android
We were doomed when they stopped shipping a dialer or SMS app in AOSP.
“Phone by Google” is disgusting.
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At this rate, given a few more years Google will announce that they're moving to a "once a century" release model for AOSP.
They'll decrease the frequency by a year every year so they never actually release it again
Would it be so bad? The recent Androids have been going downhill. E.g. the mandatory edge-to-edge nonsense.
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This is them trying to strangle Graphene and LineageOs. We desperately need an ecosystem where manufacturers are legally compelled to publish the source code for their drivers and similar so as to make it easier for alternative Oses to exist.
Android will soon become fully closed source. The writing is on the wall.
The founder of GrapheneOS commented on this a few days ago here on HN, and basically said it doesn't impact GrapheneOS.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550366
No, neither of them register as a blip on the usage stats and both have, and will continue having, priority access through OEM partnerships.
The drivers are legally required to be, well not published, but the source sent to anyone who asks.
Plenty of drivers are proprietary. There are many ways of doing so, like much of it can exist in userspace, or in firmware, or using a shim in the kernel.
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