4 ms·

Would moving to RISC-V have any effect on Android's fragmentation and update problem (due to Qualcomm's stranglehold on the android ARM market)?

bayindirh 4y ago
I don't think so. Moving to Fuchsia and producing SoCs with some closed parts will allow any vendor to obsolete any part without any problems. Stopping to provide drivers will make any IC as dead as a well cooked brick. I think Fuchsia's main aim is to provide Google more control on the Android stack. "We will be able to do things more securely than Linux" reads like "We'll be able to close down devices even more while giving you a sense of openness" to me. So, Google might be using RISC-V as another way to distance the platform from contemporary hardware/software ecosystem and make it practically harder to tinker/root/exploit beyond their (financial) comfort zone.
- snvzz 4y ago
  >Stopping to provide drivers will make any IC as dead as a well cooked brick. AIUI Fuchsia got stable driver APIs/ABIs, so the Linux rules do not apply.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    You can always forget a version check in your production code which fails to load your driver if the kernel version is beyond a certain point. A stable API/ABI cannot stop a determined company from deprecating your hardware.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
The Android software update problem is a tragedy that will not end with the introduction of RISC-V. Hell, it could get worse.
- kernal 4y ago
  The top Android OEM's now offer 3/4 OS updates and 5 years of security updates. It's time to let go of the "Android software update problem is a tragedy" criticism. And if you still want to use your Android phone after 5 years there's a good chance that there will be a LineageOS build for it.
  - tga_d 4y ago
    >And if you still want to use your Android phone after 5 years there's a good chance that there will be a LineageOS build for it. There's a chance, but unless you checked for support in advance, a "good chance" seems like a bit of a stretch. Unless you mean unofficial builds, which are either too much work for most users, or not especially trustworthy.
    - kernal 4y ago
      I have a Nexus 5, released in 2013, running Android 13 surprisingly well. >Unless you mean unofficial builds, which are either too much work for most users, or not especially trustworthy. The process to install an unofficial build is the exact same as an official build. New updates can even be downloaded and installed in settings with a tap of a button.
      - tga_d 4y ago
        Nexus and Pixel devices are top of the line phones that are famously well supported by ROMs, the sort of "check for support in advance" I mentioned. Unofficial builds are not the "exact same", else they would be official builds. Unofficial builds are usually distributed without source (let alone working build instructions) as opaque blobs that you have to trust some random XDA user, with no verifiable background, didn't do anything too horrible to. At best, you're pretty much guaranteed to be getting a build without selinux enabled; at worst, you're getting straight up malware. quick edit to clarify: the "too much work" I mentioned before was the rare instance where there is source, and you have to build yourself to get anything trustworthy

bayindirh 4y ago

I don't think so. Moving to Fuchsia and producing SoCs with some closed parts will allow any vendor to obsolete any part without any problems. Stopping to provide drivers will make any IC as dead as a well cooked brick. I think Fuchsia's main aim is to provide Google more control on the Android stack. "We will be able to do things more securely than Linux" reads like "We'll be able to close down devices even more while giving you a sense of openness" to me. So, Google might be using RISC-V as another way to distance the platform from contemporary hardware/software ecosystem and make it practically harder to tinker/root/exploit beyond their (financial) comfort zone.

snvzz 4y ago
>Stopping to provide drivers will make any IC as dead as a well cooked brick. AIUI Fuchsia got stable driver APIs/ABIs, so the Linux rules do not apply.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  You can always forget a version check in your production code which fails to load your driver if the kernel version is beyond a certain point. A stable API/ABI cannot stop a determined company from deprecating your hardware.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

The Android software update problem is a tragedy that will not end with the introduction of RISC-V. Hell, it could get worse.

kernal 4y ago
The top Android OEM's now offer 3/4 OS updates and 5 years of security updates. It's time to let go of the "Android software update problem is a tragedy" criticism. And if you still want to use your Android phone after 5 years there's a good chance that there will be a LineageOS build for it.
- tga_d 4y ago
  >And if you still want to use your Android phone after 5 years there's a good chance that there will be a LineageOS build for it. There's a chance, but unless you checked for support in advance, a "good chance" seems like a bit of a stretch. Unless you mean unofficial builds, which are either too much work for most users, or not especially trustworthy.
  - kernal 4y ago
    I have a Nexus 5, released in 2013, running Android 13 surprisingly well. >Unless you mean unofficial builds, which are either too much work for most users, or not especially trustworthy. The process to install an unofficial build is the exact same as an official build. New updates can even be downloaded and installed in settings with a tap of a button.
    - tga_d 4y ago
      Nexus and Pixel devices are top of the line phones that are famously well supported by ROMs, the sort of "check for support in advance" I mentioned. Unofficial builds are not the "exact same", else they would be official builds. Unofficial builds are usually distributed without source (let alone working build instructions) as opaque blobs that you have to trust some random XDA user, with no verifiable background, didn't do anything too horrible to. At best, you're pretty much guaranteed to be getting a build without selinux enabled; at worst, you're getting straight up malware. quick edit to clarify: the "too much work" I mentioned before was the rare instance where there is source, and you have to build yourself to get anything trustworthy