6 ms·

It's a bit disturbing that that might be the plan though.

microtonal 2y ago
But they can already do that, because most people and apps (outside China and maybe some other regions) expect Google Play/Play Services to be present.
- echelon 2y ago
  They're under antitrust scrutiny. You have to boil the frog slowly.
- npodbielski 2y ago
  What apps? I think only android auto requires it. All the rest works just fine with occasional glitches. Of course that most probably greatly depends of what kind of apps you are using but usually microG is just enough.
  - maelito 2y ago
    No, most "geo" applications depend on Google services and will crash without them. Local authority transit apps, etc.
    - mschild 2y ago
      I've been running GrapheneOS without any Google Services. Most things work without issue. In the past 2 years I've encountered a total of 3 apps that wouldn't run without Google.
      - crossroadsguy 2y ago
        How and why, any idea? Do they have some kind of backend check verified with Google that might return “naah, not a Googled device”? By the way which apps?
  - avgd 2y ago
    Many banking apps will outright refuse to run on rooted devices, much less google-free forks. There are ways around that but those ways are unreliable and could break at any given time -- I am not risking losing the ability to pay for things online just for the sake of running an android fork. (in my country, all the banks switched to requiring 2FA from their app if you make online purchases with your visa or mastercard)
    - johnfernow 2y ago
      Right, but if Google's Android becomes closed source and a well-funded FOSS fork becomes available, that changes the situation. If Samsung, Xiaomi, Motorola, HONOR, OPPO, etc. all agree to use a new FOSS fork as their base, well Google's new closed-source Android becomes irrelevant. Samsung alone is large enough to be able to maintain a fork of Android, and a large enough percentage of the smartphone market that whatever OS it's running will be supported by banking apps.
      - overfeed 2y ago
        > Samsung alone is large enough to be able to maintain a fork of Android Samsung would rather not - they threated this card once before, while negotiating for Google to get rid of Motorola, and their bluff got called. Samsung tried to prop up Tizen as an Android alternative. Samsung since closed a number of its US OS offices - why sacrifice profits when they have a cozy arrangement: Samsung & other Android partners will continue to get the Android previews before anyone else: open source or not.
        avgd 2y ago
        Samsung recently deprecated their built in SMS/texting app and put an advertisement to tell us to switch for Google Messages in their app. They threw in the towel and not only will not maintain an android fork, they don't even want to maintain their own apps anymore.
        johnfernow 2y ago
        I agree with you: they'd rather not. If Google's Android became closed source to the public, but Google gave Samsung and other OEMs the right to modify it (including a hard fork later on if they desired), then I agree with you that they'd almost certainly continue with Google's Android — they'd lose nothing and eliminate future competitors. My comment was in part addressing the higher up comments in the thread stating OEMs couldn't do a hard fork. My thoughts are that they have the marketshare that if Google's terms were bad enough, they could. They'd love to take some of the Play Store revenue, but currently dropping the Play Store would tank hardware sales as competitors would keep it. But if Google's terms were to get bad enough that multiple OEMs wanted to hard fork, that calculation could change. I don't foresee Google ever putting forth that bad of terms though, in part because of the option to hard fork.
- chasil 2y ago
  Amazon maintains their Fire devices with their Android fork. Huawei maintains their Android fork that runs without the Play store. Google will not be able to close Android/AOSP without triggering a well-funded fork.
  - cavisne 2y ago
    The Fire devices seem like they are on life support from a technical point of view (even if Amazon is making money from them). Their fork is really out of date.
  - la_fayette 2y ago
    Also Meta Horizon OS is based on AOSP. This will probably also affect their development.
    - theodric 2y ago
      Why would a second company freeloading kernel and services from Google change Google's OSdev roadmap? Google could just say to Meta 'fine, fork and maintain it yourself, you're a grown-up company' and continue on with whatever nefarious rug-pull closed source pivot to Fuschia gambit that they might be plotting.
  - crossroadsguy 2y ago
    I doubt at this point corps are not looking at that option. But then I don’t know what kind of contract these corps have with Google. I have worked at Samsung and they are such a large incompetent but aware software clusterfuck that they would rather want an almost readymade OS on which they will smear paint and sell. Can’t speak of other OEMs.
onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
Isn't the plan to move Android to Fuchsia eventually (and seamlessly)?
- sphars 2y ago
  Hasn't this been the plan for like a decade now? I know some of their products run Fuchsia, like the Nest displays, but no word on main Android devices
  - MishaalRahman 2y ago
    If they did ever have such a plan, they've clearly long since abandoned it. I bet they entertained the idea at one point but it was never seriously put into action.
- MishaalRahman 2y ago
  No
- ImJamal 2y ago
  As far as I can tell, Google has never stated that as a goal. It had always been a hypothesis.
- gman83 2y ago
  The plan was initially to merge Android & Chrome and create "Andromeda" - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/android-chrome-andromeda-merged-os-reportedly-coming-to-the-pixel-3/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/android-chrome-andro... Then they decided that Fuchsia was going to be the way forward - https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/android/117587/google-allegedly-killed-andromeda-project https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/android/117587/google-allege... Now the latest is that they're once again merging Android & Chrome - https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-3500661/ https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-... But Fuchsia is still being actively developed, not sure to what end - https://fuchsia-review.googlesource.com/q/status:open+-is:wip https://fuchsia-review.googlesource.com/q/status:open+-is:wi...
nimbius 2y ago
if it really is, they should take note of exactly what happened to Oracle when they acquired solaris and mysql and turned them into proprietary applications. Whatever investment they had made in them literally evaporated in a week as mariadb and galera showed up. OpenIndiana basically made continued solaris development at Oracle a moot point, not that it wasnt already with Linux on the scene. RedHat has tried something similar with CentOS, Encumbering it to try and drive sales, which backfired just as predictably. Rocky is a treat to run. Rolling up Android into a proprietary walled garden would be a disaster. This isnt apple. What you could expect is a massive developer exodus from the open community to other friendlier projects. If your interest is western security/hegemony in technology then it would be a shame to see all that intellectual capital suddenly captured by a FOSS project from a marxist leninist country thats all too happy to give it away for free (DeepSeek anyone?)
- JustExAWS 2y ago
  >What you could expect is a massive developer exodus from the open community to other friendlier projects You act as if anyone to a first approximation cares about indie developers. Most of the popular apps on Android and iOS are from the big corporations and pay to win games. They could care less about ideology.

But they can already do that, because most people and apps (outside China and maybe some other regions) expect Google Play/Play Services to be present.

echelon 2y ago
They're under antitrust scrutiny. You have to boil the frog slowly.
npodbielski 2y ago
What apps? I think only android auto requires it. All the rest works just fine with occasional glitches. Of course that most probably greatly depends of what kind of apps you are using but usually microG is just enough.
- maelito 2y ago
  No, most "geo" applications depend on Google services and will crash without them. Local authority transit apps, etc.
  - mschild 2y ago
    I've been running GrapheneOS without any Google Services. Most things work without issue. In the past 2 years I've encountered a total of 3 apps that wouldn't run without Google.
    - crossroadsguy 2y ago
      How and why, any idea? Do they have some kind of backend check verified with Google that might return “naah, not a Googled device”? By the way which apps?
- avgd 2y ago
  Many banking apps will outright refuse to run on rooted devices, much less google-free forks. There are ways around that but those ways are unreliable and could break at any given time -- I am not risking losing the ability to pay for things online just for the sake of running an android fork. (in my country, all the banks switched to requiring 2FA from their app if you make online purchases with your visa or mastercard)
  - johnfernow 2y ago
    Right, but if Google's Android becomes closed source and a well-funded FOSS fork becomes available, that changes the situation. If Samsung, Xiaomi, Motorola, HONOR, OPPO, etc. all agree to use a new FOSS fork as their base, well Google's new closed-source Android becomes irrelevant. Samsung alone is large enough to be able to maintain a fork of Android, and a large enough percentage of the smartphone market that whatever OS it's running will be supported by banking apps.
    - overfeed 2y ago
      > Samsung alone is large enough to be able to maintain a fork of Android Samsung would rather not - they threated this card once before, while negotiating for Google to get rid of Motorola, and their bluff got called. Samsung tried to prop up Tizen as an Android alternative. Samsung since closed a number of its US OS offices - why sacrifice profits when they have a cozy arrangement: Samsung & other Android partners will continue to get the Android previews before anyone else: open source or not.
      - avgd 2y ago
        Samsung recently deprecated their built in SMS/texting app and put an advertisement to tell us to switch for Google Messages in their app. They threw in the towel and not only will not maintain an android fork, they don't even want to maintain their own apps anymore.
      - johnfernow 2y ago
        I agree with you: they'd rather not. If Google's Android became closed source to the public, but Google gave Samsung and other OEMs the right to modify it (including a hard fork later on if they desired), then I agree with you that they'd almost certainly continue with Google's Android — they'd lose nothing and eliminate future competitors. My comment was in part addressing the higher up comments in the thread stating OEMs couldn't do a hard fork. My thoughts are that they have the marketshare that if Google's terms were bad enough, they could. They'd love to take some of the Play Store revenue, but currently dropping the Play Store would tank hardware sales as competitors would keep it. But if Google's terms were to get bad enough that multiple OEMs wanted to hard fork, that calculation could change. I don't foresee Google ever putting forth that bad of terms though, in part because of the option to hard fork.
chasil 2y ago
Amazon maintains their Fire devices with their Android fork. Huawei maintains their Android fork that runs without the Play store. Google will not be able to close Android/AOSP without triggering a well-funded fork.
- cavisne 2y ago
  The Fire devices seem like they are on life support from a technical point of view (even if Amazon is making money from them). Their fork is really out of date.
- la_fayette 2y ago
  Also Meta Horizon OS is based on AOSP. This will probably also affect their development.
  - theodric 2y ago
    Why would a second company freeloading kernel and services from Google change Google's OSdev roadmap? Google could just say to Meta 'fine, fork and maintain it yourself, you're a grown-up company' and continue on with whatever nefarious rug-pull closed source pivot to Fuschia gambit that they might be plotting.
- crossroadsguy 2y ago
  I doubt at this point corps are not looking at that option. But then I don’t know what kind of contract these corps have with Google. I have worked at Samsung and they are such a large incompetent but aware software clusterfuck that they would rather want an almost readymade OS on which they will smear paint and sell. Can’t speak of other OEMs.

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago

Isn't the plan to move Android to Fuchsia eventually (and seamlessly)?

sphars 2y ago
Hasn't this been the plan for like a decade now? I know some of their products run Fuchsia, like the Nest displays, but no word on main Android devices
- MishaalRahman 2y ago
  If they did ever have such a plan, they've clearly long since abandoned it. I bet they entertained the idea at one point but it was never seriously put into action.
MishaalRahman 2y ago
No
ImJamal 2y ago
As far as I can tell, Google has never stated that as a goal. It had always been a hypothesis.
gman83 2y ago
The plan was initially to merge Android & Chrome and create "Andromeda" - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/android-chrome-andromeda-merged-os-reportedly-coming-to-the-pixel-3/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/android-chrome-andro... Then they decided that Fuchsia was going to be the way forward - https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/android/117587/google-allegedly-killed-andromeda-project https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/android/117587/google-allege... Now the latest is that they're once again merging Android & Chrome - https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-3500661/ https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-... But Fuchsia is still being actively developed, not sure to what end - https://fuchsia-review.googlesource.com/q/status:open+-is:wip https://fuchsia-review.googlesource.com/q/status:open+-is:wi...

nimbius 2y ago

if it really is, they should take note of exactly what happened to Oracle when they acquired solaris and mysql and turned them into proprietary applications. Whatever investment they had made in them literally evaporated in a week as mariadb and galera showed up. OpenIndiana basically made continued solaris development at Oracle a moot point, not that it wasnt already with Linux on the scene. RedHat has tried something similar with CentOS, Encumbering it to try and drive sales, which backfired just as predictably. Rocky is a treat to run. Rolling up Android into a proprietary walled garden would be a disaster. This isnt apple. What you could expect is a massive developer exodus from the open community to other friendlier projects. If your interest is western security/hegemony in technology then it would be a shame to see all that intellectual capital suddenly captured by a FOSS project from a marxist leninist country thats all too happy to give it away for free (DeepSeek anyone?)

JustExAWS 2y ago
>What you could expect is a massive developer exodus from the open community to other friendlier projects You act as if anyone to a first approximation cares about indie developers. Most of the popular apps on Android and iOS are from the big corporations and pay to win games. They could care less about ideology.