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The key part of this announcement for me is the last sentence, where they announce a deal with Qualcomm for extended security update support. While having comp

by g_p 6y ago

The key part of this announcement for me is the last sentence, where they announce a deal with Qualcomm for extended security update support. While having compatible hardware APIs is clearly needed to get new Android versions out, we need devices to receive security updates promptly for their whole lifetime. That means for the claimed 4 years of support, you'll need monthly patches (since many of these vulnerabilities are critical and exploitable, and newer devices will get patches monthly). I didn't see any suggestion of security patches for SoC components for the full 4 years, just "longer". Another question this raises will be how many devices will launch a year or more into their supported lifespan - launching last year's SoC this year - and thus reducing their lifespan for the user. From an environmental and sustainability perspective, we need to lengthen support periods, but from a commercial perspective, chipset vendors want to sell the next shiny chipset. Getting Treble somewhere towards ACPI/UEFI (you can boot Windows 10 or Linux 5.10 on pretty much any x86_64 system, even if the motherboard maker has abandoned it) as a standard hardware layer is one small step towards that, but there's still a long road ahead I fear.

phh 6y ago
> The key part of this announcement for me is the last sentence, where they announce a deal with Qualcomm for extended security update support. ... in exchange for no longer having to upgrade their drivers. In my opinion they are the winner here, they have much less work than before. > From an environmental and sustainability perspective, we need to lengthen support periods, but from a commercial perspective, chipset vendors want to sell the next shiny chipset. Getting Treble somewhere towards ACPI/UEFI (you can boot Windows 10 or Linux 5.10 on pretty much any x86_64 system, even if the motherboard maker has abandoned it) as a standard hardware layer is one small step towards that, but there's still a long road ahead I fear. I agree, though it's hardly as simple. We've stuck to Gbps ethernet for a decade now so drivers have long been included mainline. But we're progressing on LTE capabitilies at every new SoC, so it requires new drivers. On "PC" (server, desktops), the only thing that evolves that need drivers is the graphic card, so keeping up with the driver is ok. My understanding is that Google (or rather Android) wants to fix this with Fuchsia: OEMs will provide "user-space"-only drivers and Fuschsia will guarantee ABI compatibility forever. That's really not the way ChromeOS people do things though, who prefer integrating drivers into mainline Linux, and so far ChromeOS people have a much better track record than Android at upgrading. (Though again it's easier on "PC")

by g_p 6y ago

phh 6y ago

> The key part of this announcement for me is the last sentence, where they announce a deal with Qualcomm for extended security update support. ... in exchange for no longer having to upgrade their drivers. In my opinion they are the winner here, they have much less work than before. > From an environmental and sustainability perspective, we need to lengthen support periods, but from a commercial perspective, chipset vendors want to sell the next shiny chipset. Getting Treble somewhere towards ACPI/UEFI (you can boot Windows 10 or Linux 5.10 on pretty much any x86_64 system, even if the motherboard maker has abandoned it) as a standard hardware layer is one small step towards that, but there's still a long road ahead I fear. I agree, though it's hardly as simple. We've stuck to Gbps ethernet for a decade now so drivers have long been included mainline. But we're progressing on LTE capabitilies at every new SoC, so it requires new drivers. On "PC" (server, desktops), the only thing that evolves that need drivers is the graphic card, so keeping up with the driver is ok. My understanding is that Google (or rather Android) wants to fix this with Fuchsia: OEMs will provide "user-space"-only drivers and Fuschsia will guarantee ABI compatibility forever. That's really not the way ChromeOS people do things though, who prefer integrating drivers into mainline Linux, and so far ChromeOS people have a much better track record than Android at upgrading. (Though again it's easier on "PC")