5 ms·

GrapheneOS made an unforced error by exaggerating the situation. ("Boy who cried wolf"). When you're generic and obviously false in your criticism, it makes it

GrapheneOS made an unforced error by exaggerating the situation. ("Boy who cried wolf"). When you're generic and obviously false in your criticism, it makes it easy for the company to counter it. "Google is killing AOSP" catches eye, but it is sooo easy for the company to counter. What is going on is frustration. GrapheneOS has been relying on Google's good faith effort on providing binary blobs to Pixel in addition to AOSP to make their OS. Google was under no obligation to give that, and they stopped doing it for whatever reason. To make things worse, GrapheneOS mentions legal/anti-trust blah blah blah, which means no engineer will touch / comment / help in the matter, and it gets routed to legal blackhole.

oharapj 1y ago
How is he exaggerating the situation? What is false about the criticism? Are you referring to a previous time where they cried wolf? I read through the Twitter thread and GrapheneOS seemed pretty even keeled and above board about it to me (even if that is uncharacteristic)
- bitpush 1y ago
  Graphene's claim of "AOSP is dead" is easily verifiable. > This also marks the availability of the source code at the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). You can examine the source code for a deeper understanding of how Android works, and our focus on compatibility means that you can leverage your app development skills in Android Studio with Jetpack Compose to create applications that thrive across the entire ecosystem. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/android-16-is-here.html#:~:text=availability%20of%20the%20source%20code https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/android-16... This was posted 2 days back.
  - jauntywundrkind 1y ago
    But you don't have any ability to run AOSP on any devices? Free as in literally unrunnable? AOSP feels incomplete without there being some flagship way to use it.
    - bitpush 1y ago
      It is the literal source code. You can read it, study it, distribute it, modify it. And I'm pretty sure the license allows you to sell it. That's really really permissive.
      - exceptione 1y ago
        They are talking about the device tree which has not been released with Android 16. So no way to run a custom kernel on actual hardware, unless that hardware is open. AOSP is a car without an engine now.
      - xg15 1y ago
        I guess I can also paper my walls with it...
    - jauntywundrkind 1y ago
      Having stewed on this for a week, I'm even more morose over this. I'm getting particularly salty that this is happening exactly as Android hurdles two huge integration challenges, as it goes from a standalone not-Linux-desktop single-screen computing device to something vastly more: a multi-screen capable, virtualized Linux desktop running device. Two huge leaps of integration. This is just a maddening maddeningly crucial leap forward that Android is making right now, and it's woeful beyond words to see it making such a bold leap but leaving open-source totally behind at this exact junction, where the OS actually integrates with the hardware reasonably well/with more than the most trivial complexity for the first time ever. This is just such a shitty shitty shitty turn of events.
  - margalabargala 1y ago
    If you want to define "AOSP is not dead" as "there exists a source-available AOSP repo that is not ground-up buildable for any real world device without losing major features like SecureBoot", that's fine, but that's not the definition being discussed. Absent device trees, AOSP as of the Android 16 release is a subset of the utility of Android 15. If one sees the use of AOSP as mainly relying on the now absent functionality, then declaring "AOSP is dead" is not unreasonable. If the Linux Foundation sold itself to Microsoft, ceased publishing kernel sources or binaries, and declared henceforth Linux would exist as WSL and nowhere else, it would be reasonable to say "Linux is dead" even if something with a subset of that functionality, named "Linux", still existed.
    - tgma 1y ago
      > Absent device trees, AOSP as of the Android 16 release is a subset of the utility of Android 15. If one sees the use of AOSP as mainly relying on the now absent functionality, then declaring "AOSP is dead" is not unreasonable. There are a million devices out there that build on AOSP that are not Google Pixel. This is a Pixel news, not AOSP news.
      - margalabargala 1y ago
        And every single one of those devices is missing features of AOSP, notably secure boot. Google pixels were until recently the only phones able to run AOSP with 1:1 feature parity. And now there are none.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    That's "source available" not actual open source. If you can't build it and run it, you can't verify that it builds correctly.
- paxys 1y ago
  He is not exaggerating the situation he is lying. There is no basis for his very clear and serious claim that AOSP is dead.
  - 112233 1y ago
    How would you more accurately characterize current situation with Android 16?
rgreek42 1y ago
Google is one of two monopolists. Weird to defend them here.
- bitpush 1y ago
  I'm not defending them here? I'm saying we need to be specific in our criticism, which Graphene didnt do in their claim.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    What would be unspecific about slagging another project claiming to be open source where their build target is trust me, bro.
- ChadNauseam 1y ago
  https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/if-its-worth-your-time-to-lie-its?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6pt4n https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/if-its-worth-...
  - bitpush 1y ago
    > If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time To Correct It Amazing. Thanks for sharing.
  - Spivak 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - J_McQuade 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > If this was on my 2025 bingo card I think we could have crossed it off a few times with ICE detention facilities and the prison in El Salvador. Isn't this the motte and bailey thing though? "Putting minorities in camps" has the implication that they're being put into camps because they're minorities. It's meant to invoke the thing the 20th century fascists did where if you're a member of the group you go to the camps, and moreover if you go to the camps you never come back. Meanwhile ICE is detaining people because they're suspected of being in the country illegally, and then deporting them. They suck at it, as usual, so some of the people aren't actually in the country illegally, but most of them are, and then when the government screws up the courts slowly get around to sorting it out. Which is a process that has maybe been in need of reform for quite a while now -- in particular it would be nice to see the government paying for its mistakes more often, and for the "unscrew this up" process to take less time -- but those aren't novelties only now being introduced, they're longstanding problems.
JCattheATM 1y ago
Now maybe GrapheneOS will expand to support more than just pixel devices, which, IMO, it already should be doing. The hardware support is nice, but even without it it's still vastly more secure than stock android.
- rfoo 1y ago
  IIUC, GrapheneOS cares about being forensics-proof very much. And for Android phone forensics without consent, almost 0% of work are done after the boot chain ends. So it's all about firmware. Non-Pixel devices usually require you to just give up secure boot, in this case a GrapheneOS install could be even worse than stock Android.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- throawayonthe 1y ago
  [dead]

oharapj 1y ago

How is he exaggerating the situation? What is false about the criticism? Are you referring to a previous time where they cried wolf? I read through the Twitter thread and GrapheneOS seemed pretty even keeled and above board about it to me (even if that is uncharacteristic)

bitpush 1y ago
Graphene's claim of "AOSP is dead" is easily verifiable. > This also marks the availability of the source code at the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). You can examine the source code for a deeper understanding of how Android works, and our focus on compatibility means that you can leverage your app development skills in Android Studio with Jetpack Compose to create applications that thrive across the entire ecosystem. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/android-16-is-here.html#:~:text=availability%20of%20the%20source%20code https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/android-16... This was posted 2 days back.
- jauntywundrkind 1y ago
  But you don't have any ability to run AOSP on any devices? Free as in literally unrunnable? AOSP feels incomplete without there being some flagship way to use it.
  - bitpush 1y ago
    It is the literal source code. You can read it, study it, distribute it, modify it. And I'm pretty sure the license allows you to sell it. That's really really permissive.
    - exceptione 1y ago
      They are talking about the device tree which has not been released with Android 16. So no way to run a custom kernel on actual hardware, unless that hardware is open. AOSP is a car without an engine now.
    - xg15 1y ago
      I guess I can also paper my walls with it...
  - jauntywundrkind 1y ago
    Having stewed on this for a week, I'm even more morose over this. I'm getting particularly salty that this is happening exactly as Android hurdles two huge integration challenges, as it goes from a standalone not-Linux-desktop single-screen computing device to something vastly more: a multi-screen capable, virtualized Linux desktop running device. Two huge leaps of integration. This is just a maddening maddeningly crucial leap forward that Android is making right now, and it's woeful beyond words to see it making such a bold leap but leaving open-source totally behind at this exact junction, where the OS actually integrates with the hardware reasonably well/with more than the most trivial complexity for the first time ever. This is just such a shitty shitty shitty turn of events.
- margalabargala 1y ago
  If you want to define "AOSP is not dead" as "there exists a source-available AOSP repo that is not ground-up buildable for any real world device without losing major features like SecureBoot", that's fine, but that's not the definition being discussed. Absent device trees, AOSP as of the Android 16 release is a subset of the utility of Android 15. If one sees the use of AOSP as mainly relying on the now absent functionality, then declaring "AOSP is dead" is not unreasonable. If the Linux Foundation sold itself to Microsoft, ceased publishing kernel sources or binaries, and declared henceforth Linux would exist as WSL and nowhere else, it would be reasonable to say "Linux is dead" even if something with a subset of that functionality, named "Linux", still existed.
  - tgma 1y ago
    > Absent device trees, AOSP as of the Android 16 release is a subset of the utility of Android 15. If one sees the use of AOSP as mainly relying on the now absent functionality, then declaring "AOSP is dead" is not unreasonable. There are a million devices out there that build on AOSP that are not Google Pixel. This is a Pixel news, not AOSP news.
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      And every single one of those devices is missing features of AOSP, notably secure boot. Google pixels were until recently the only phones able to run AOSP with 1:1 feature parity. And now there are none.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  That's "source available" not actual open source. If you can't build it and run it, you can't verify that it builds correctly.
paxys 1y ago
He is not exaggerating the situation he is lying. There is no basis for his very clear and serious claim that AOSP is dead.
- 112233 1y ago
  How would you more accurately characterize current situation with Android 16?

rgreek42 1y ago

Google is one of two monopolists. Weird to defend them here.

bitpush 1y ago
I'm not defending them here? I'm saying we need to be specific in our criticism, which Graphene didnt do in their claim.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  What would be unspecific about slagging another project claiming to be open source where their build target is trust me, bro.
ChadNauseam 1y ago
https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/if-its-worth-your-time-to-lie-its?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6pt4n https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/if-its-worth-...
- bitpush 1y ago
  > If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time To Correct It Amazing. Thanks for sharing.
- Spivak 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - J_McQuade 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > If this was on my 2025 bingo card I think we could have crossed it off a few times with ICE detention facilities and the prison in El Salvador. Isn't this the motte and bailey thing though? "Putting minorities in camps" has the implication that they're being put into camps because they're minorities. It's meant to invoke the thing the 20th century fascists did where if you're a member of the group you go to the camps, and moreover if you go to the camps you never come back. Meanwhile ICE is detaining people because they're suspected of being in the country illegally, and then deporting them. They suck at it, as usual, so some of the people aren't actually in the country illegally, but most of them are, and then when the government screws up the courts slowly get around to sorting it out. Which is a process that has maybe been in need of reform for quite a while now -- in particular it would be nice to see the government paying for its mistakes more often, and for the "unscrew this up" process to take less time -- but those aren't novelties only now being introduced, they're longstanding problems.

JCattheATM 1y ago

Now maybe GrapheneOS will expand to support more than just pixel devices, which, IMO, it already should be doing. The hardware support is nice, but even without it it's still vastly more secure than stock android.

rfoo 1y ago
IIUC, GrapheneOS cares about being forensics-proof very much. And for Android phone forensics without consent, almost 0% of work are done after the boot chain ends. So it's all about firmware. Non-Pixel devices usually require you to just give up secure boot, in this case a GrapheneOS install could be even worse than stock Android.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
throawayonthe 1y ago
[dead]