zlacker

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

>>monetu+(OP)
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.

>>microt+k2
They're under antitrust scrutiny. You have to boil the frog slowly.

>>monetu+(OP)
Isn't the plan to move Android to Fuchsia eventually (and seamlessly)?

>>microt+k2
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.

>>microt+k2
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.

>>npodbi+W6
No, most "geo" applications depend on Google services and will crash without them. Local authority transit apps, etc.

>>chasil+v7
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 Their fork is really out of date.

>>monetu+(OP)
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?)

>>chasil+v7
Also Meta Horizon OS is based on AOSP. This will probably also affect their development.

>>npodbi+W6
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)

>>onlyre+d6
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

>>la_fay+Db
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.

>>avgd+Je
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.

>>avgd+Je
FWIW, my banking app works very well on /e/OS, which is an AOSP derivative.

>>onlyre+d6
No

>>sphars+Qf
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.

>>maelit+C7
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.

>>avgd+Je
No Email or TOTP? (No, I am not suggesting sms)

In my country one bank had a 2fa app. Then they backtracked on security, but kept policy: they included the 2fa in the regular bank app. Now you don't have to use 2fa if you are using the bank app, because the bank app generates its own authorization, in the same device (app) without user interaction!

Fake admiration off. We also don't have to use any 2fa when we access banking through the website. (works on FF on Android)

>>onlyre+d6
As far as I can tell, Google has never stated that as a goal. It had always been a hypothesis.

>>nimbiu+4b
>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.

>>johnfe+cj
> 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.

>>catlik+Pk
> No Email or TOTP? (No, I am not suggesting sms)

Nope. And accessing the website/online banking portal is not allowed without going through the smartphone app 2fa too.

>>onlyre+d6
The plan was initially to merge Android & Chrome and create "Andromeda" - 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-allege...

Now the latest is that they're once again merging Android & Chrome - 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:wi...

>>overfe+Yp
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.

>>gman83+8s
As far as I remember, Fuchsia is used for all Googles smart devices now. So maybe just for them?

>>avgd+Je
I think banks requiring you to buy hardware you don't actually own (a blessed android phone) to run software you can't control (this banking app) so you can access money you worked to make is absolutely ridiculous and dystopian. Why do you allow a bank to do this to you?

I sincerely hope there is some alternative option in your country. In mine, I can still perform banking activity by going to a physical branch, by calling in, or by using the website with a physical 2FA token (i.e. not my phone). The bank keeps trying to get me to switch over to their app but I will continue to protest this until it's no longer possible to not use an app at which point I will likely switch banks.

>>overfe+Yp
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.

>>avgd+Je
That is sad. I do not have a problem with my 2 banking apps and Revolut. But I am running MicroG version of Lineage OS.

So no google, but still works. I think this is worth a try, considering how many adds you have to see on Android running full Google (which I have just one to be able to use Android Auto inside my car).

>>chasil+v7
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.

>>npodbi+Ll1
What fork is that? Also, how easy peasy will it be to run it on a Pixel 5?

>>mschil+yk
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?