I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
I feel embarassed to say this as someone who is fairly techy, but I’m a little confused by the whole brouhaha.
Is Google making changes to Android, or to AOSP?
If Google is making changes to the Android fork they put on their own phones, then fuck 'em. Use Graphene. Use e/OS/, use Lineage…use something that forks their own branch of AOSP and Google can pound sand because those forks are in no way obligated to make the same changes as Google. AOSP is open source for that very reason.
If Google is making those changes to AOSP itself, which means that anyone who uses AOSP as a base have those changes by default, then isn’t Google obligated to keep those changes as Open Source, in which case anyone else who uses AOSP can just remove them from their own fork?
Someone explain like I’m a particularly dim five-year-old, please.
iirc they are enforcing this on the play services level, using the play protect system. so if you use a custom rom, with google play, you are likely cooked too.
that is if the roms don’t implement a system to circumvent it.
I’ve also been confused about this, but this is my take on it.
You’re correct that they are making these changes to Android and not AOSP. This means that an OS like Graphene or e/OS/ will still be able to use sideloaded apps and other appstores like F-Droid.
I think the reason everyone is freaking out about this, is that it hurts appstores like F-Droid. It has a chilling effect on apps that are released to alternative app stores and may cause those stores to fail over time, thus killing FOSS apps at the point of distribution.
That said, this is also over my head technically, so I would love if someone more knowledgable could weigh in.