| ▲ | pizzaiolo 3 hours ago |
| Graphene is clearly bullish on Android, but I have no idea why. The writing is on the wall, Google is slowly asphyxiating AOSP. |
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| ▲ | mitxela 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| Apps are written for android. Graphene can run all the apps because it's android. If it couldn't run apps, you wouldn't use it. Are you posting today from a pinephone? |
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| ▲ | Crestwave 5 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Their post history has several posts related to PostmarketOS on the Fairphone, so kind of, possibly? pmOS does have Waydroid to run Android apps, though, which also relies on AOSP. |
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| ▲ | kllrnohj an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| So what should they do instead? Just give up? Assume that it's simply inevitable that Google will cancel AOSP entirely and so Graphene should hurry up and die? |
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| ▲ | Cider9986 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Have you used GrapheneOS? It's fantastic UX[1] and while probably being one of if not the most secure and private OS available. [1] thanks to Android (once you replace some of the worse default apps, but they are doing that as we can see) |
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| ▲ | ConceitedCode 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What's the concern? They are working with Motorola as a manufacturer. It'll probably be a hard fork eventually but why not make it work in the meantime. |
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| ▲ | qurren 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If they hard fork, a lot of apps that are generally "necessary for the average person" (e.g. Uber, banking apps, Gmail, Whatsapp/Wechat/Line) might stop working. | | |
| ▲ | ConceitedCode 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but what could graphene do in the meantime? It's either make it work for the moment or stop those apps from working today. I'd like to see them lay more ground work for web apps but it's a tough spot and the easiest choice at the moment is to continue with AOSP. | | |
| ▲ | mitxela 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't want to see more groundwork for web apps. GrapheneOS is meant to be secure, which means running trusted apps on-device. My messages are less secure if they permanently are stored on a server. | |
| ▲ | qurren an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean we privacy nerds all love webapps but the reality is the people actually in charge of S&P500 companies hate them. They really, REALLY want to fingerprint your device and use it as a verification and tracking mechanism. Until that changes, webapps aren't going to sell. Even Google tried multiple things to "sell" the idea of webapps (e.g. Polymer project) in 2011-2015 and failed. Funny enough, Wechat kinda succeeded at webapps in China because there's a strong user preference to stay inside one monolithic "everything app". | | |
| ▲ | bentley 15 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I find, as a user primarily of free and open source software, it’s really the opposite: native FOSS apps have minimal tracking and analytics that defaults to off or is easily disabled, while most free and open source webapps are behind Cloudflare, blocking access to them until I turn off my VPN and disable the anti‐fingerprinting features in my browser. |
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| ▲ | wolvoleo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Seriously, I don't see a mediocre android provider like Motorola running and maintaining a hard fork. Forking is all easy, keeping it up to date year after year as codebases diverge is a whole different story. I could see Samsung doing it. But they won't, they're too good buddies with Google. But they have the resources. A Motorola no. The grapheneos team won't either, maintaining a disparate fork and introducing new features independently from aosp would just be beyond their scope. You're not just hardening at that point. You're basically doing everything. Don't forget when Huawei didn't fork. Well they started with that but then replaced every component with their own design. It's easier because if you fork you're still bound by decisions made by the original party. Better to greenfield the whole thing then. And look at how many people made a soft fork of chrome with some ui changes. There's tons of those. There's no hard fork that no longer follows Google. Even a large company like Microsoft didn't. | | |
| ▲ | ConceitedCode 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think graphene could maintain a hard fork with manufacturer support (Motorola). At least for a while. Long term viability is an open question. | | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo an hour ago | parent [-] | | They could for a while but what's the point if it's not sustainable? Google is not going to turn around and make it more open again. With every Android release you will build up more feature base to replicate. Unless you cut all ties and drive a separate ecosystem but good luck getting enough developers to buy into that. | | |
| ▲ | unrented7977 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | And the US might grow a government with a spine and take Android away from Google. It's all hypothetical. |
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| ▲ | matheusmoreira 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The concern is AOSP engineers see them as annoying complainers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49537268 There's clearly some kind of situation brewing here. Hopefully the GPL proves to be enough to keep code in the hands of GrapheneOS developers. | | |
| ▲ | Cider9986 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | [delayed] | |
| ▲ | wolvoleo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They basically have opposite goals to Google so I don't imagine there will every be good feelings there. There shouldn't be. Yes Google wants android to be secure, but the problem is that to be truly secure it should be secure from Google too. And they don't want that. They want it to be their personal datamine and walled garden. Just like Apple with ios. | |
| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | tgsovlerkhgsel an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There is no alternative. Apple isn't going to let them build on top of iOS, and anything except those two is dead in the water because it'll never have users because it is missing a bunch of critical apps, and will never have those apps because it doesn't have users. |
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| ▲ | wolvoleo an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Remember when we thought IE's monopoly could never be broken? Or windows? Anything can and will go down. Nothing is forever. | | |
| ▲ | ryan_lane 37 minutes ago | parent [-] | | IE's monopoly was replaced by Chrome and Safari's, and Safari only exists because Apple gives you no choice but to use it on iOS. Firefox had a brief spot on top, but it really didn't last that long. Windows still has the vast majority share of desktop. | | |
| ▲ | mitxela 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Chrome is the outlier there. It didn't come with any desktop OS and still got near 100% market share, even before Android contributed to that. How? It's worth studying. | | |
| ▲ | unrented7977 4 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The made the best browser on the planet in Google's Bell Labs era and then they used it as leverage during their "do evil" era. |
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| ▲ | wolvoleo 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes but that's my point. Monopolies don't last. We have other ones now yes. But that's because the earlier ones died. And yes we still have windows as the major desktop OS but don't forget, in the 90s/early 2000s windows was equivalent to computing. These days the desktop OS is much less relevant than it was and many people don't even own a laptop or desktop anymore. They just do everything on their phone. And Microsoft totally and completely lost that race. |
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| ▲ | GeekyBear an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > There is no alternative. There have been several projects like Ubuntu Touch to create an open Linux for smartphones. That would be an open alternative. Android is not open. | | | |
| ▲ | yndoendo an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | FuriLabs makes a Linux phone that is designed as a daily driver. Looking at it to replace Android. | | |
| ▲ | MrDrMcCoy 20 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I have it. It's far too slow to be useful, and it's not the hardware's fault. GTK and Libhybris are bad separately and hot garbage together. This problem won't be going away while the hardware is relevant. |
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| ▲ | NewJazz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes RCS is barely a standard worth implementing, let alone the best one. Make SMS/MMS and XMPP work together seamlessly in one app, forget RCS. |
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| ▲ | wolvoleo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes RCS is a pig with lipstick. Invented by the carriers to recoup some control over instant messaging, then abandoned and picked up by Google for the same reason. They're the ones that added encryption to it. It was always meant to be a walled garden. Exactly what an open system shouldn't be. | |
| ▲ | Geezus_42 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Remember Pidgin and Trillium? | | |
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| ▲ | palata 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They may as well get ready for an eventual hard fork, then? |
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| ▲ | DANmode an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Graphene is clearly bullish on Android, but I have no idea why. Their resources are historically better spent hardening vs literally reinventing the wheel. Multiple variables in that equation have changed - so it could be interesting where we end up. Someone (else!) may yet arise chasing their stated model without Android, as well. |
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| ▲ | dataflow 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Perhaps they're hoping to get significant market share before they lose the opportunity for good? |
