2mo ago

If I wanted to donate a few dollars a month to the future development of a phone OS that will allow users to continue "sideloading". What is your recommendation, and why?

Will LineageOS, Graphene and /e/OS be affected by Google's changes to prevent sideloading? Is UbuntuTouch or Sailfish OS promising in the long term?

I understand that right now we are in a bad place, but in your opinion, what OS do you think people who care about freedom should rally around?

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Although this is the Android community I would support Postmarket OS. They (along with projects like Mobian or Plasma Mobile) are the closest we have to running completely open source mainline Linux on mobile devices.
Ubuntu Touch is doing its own thing. And Sailfish's UI and infrastructure although nice isn't open source. In that regard Nemo Mobile is leading the effort of open source Sailfish. Plus you can easily support Sailfish by buying one of their devices or the OS for an Xperia.
But really, the biggest hurdle towards true freedom (appart from locked bootloaders) are device drivers. No idea who you can support in that regard. I think Postmarket is the best contender to have people working on that area, but that's just a hunch going off of vibes. I doubt any project is employing a full time kernel developer.
- I have a Pixel 9 running GrapheneOS, so I've been interested in something non-Android. Postmarket seemed like the obvious choice, but it doesn't officially support any Google phone since the Pixel 3.
  I don't much of anything about these things, but it's kinda weird that GrapheneOS can leverage Pixel drivers and such, but no non-Android OSs can.
  
  That's because the Linux kernel in Android is very different from the normal Linux kernel. And device manufacturers often only make drivere available for specific Android kernels that are incompatible with normal Linux.
  Hallium (I think it's called) makes it possible to use an Android kernel and drivers with normal Linux but that probably comes with its own set of problems. One being that you miss out on newer security patches and features of normal Linux.
  It's a mess.
- And Sailfish’s UI and infrastructure although nice isn’t open source.
  Maybe Jolla's phone could be an avenue to get unlocked phones, though.

This question shows you do not seem to understand what is actually going on.
It's not the OS that need to be supported it's the phone who's manufecturer isn't contractually bound by Google to implement developer verification for blocking installation, otherwise they lose access to Google's proprietary suite including Play Store.
There are already a LOT of existing, established and technological mature OSes that are open source and don't need to block anyone for installation applications, including Android AOSP itself.
But the problem is you canNOT use a smartphone OS without a smartphone which allows you to run it on, with unlockable bootloader so you can install the desired OS, or is designed to run the desired OS instead of Google's garbage out of the box.
- Thanks for explaining, I didn't realize it was so device specific. I just assumed if you had an ARM computer you could install an OS the same way if you have a larger computer like a laptop you can.
  So adjusting the question- where in your opinion should I put money? Fairphone? I notice Graphene doesn't have a release for their devices.
  
  Yeah a really big and fundamental difference between an Android phone and an ARM laptop is that a phone has to have a low level radio stuff that have to be close sourced and fully locked down for regulatory compliance in most countries, so that they transmit radio stuff within legal bands and within legal transmission power and all that, you simply cannot open source those or even keep them user-accesable and mod-able without your device being illegal to be commercially sold as a mobile phone, because then anyone could mod them to operate as radio equipment outside the legal range. And that requires the firmware of those radio stuff to be provided by the manufecturers of those radio chips and devices (not the OEM of the phone).
  In fact the inherent complexity and overhead from this was one of the biggest hurdle for early smartphone manufecturers and smartphone OS developers like Nokia and their Symbian OS to become successful. And figuring out how to deal with this efficiently between all of the radio stuff suppliers and smartphone OEMs, was one of the major reasons iPhone and Google's Android were able to succeed commercially in the last decade. In Android this is one of the things that necessitated the HAL or hardware abstraction layer, so that the standardized Android system components and especially Android kernel don't have to directly deal with more than thousands of different models of radio hardware from all kinds of different manufecturers that all require different drivers and such because of how they are close sourced and locked down, whereas on a regular Linux distro running on a normal ARM laptop, the drivers of all those devices can be included into the kernel and redistributed because they are open source.

Something like postmarketOS sounds appealing

Alternative ROMs have multiple software sources, so this will encourage use of degooglified devices. While a niche, it is a net good thing.
- Which alternative ROMs will work with F-Droid after the changes to Android go through?
  
  Any ROM with ships a degoogled version as an option as the changes are in Google Play. So e.g. LineageOS and GrapheneOS are not affected.
  
  I assume any that don't have Google Play Services, which would be those you have mentioned already plus any forks (iodéOS, for example). They would all die if they were made subject to these changes, so the fact that they aren't panicking about it suggests they are safe for now.

App and OS developers need to go hand in hand here, i believe. So, also support app(store) developers, because without them, any good deGoogled OS / Linux will still be worthless.
I think the best way to invest for the long run is to start using any OS without any Google API on it (so, completely Google free, not even use spoofservices such as MicroG) and use alternatives for the stuff you use now. Then, when you find software you like, simply start donating / supporting them.

AOSP allows sideloading.
It's only* phones with Google Services that will have the signing issue.
Even if Google decides to include the functionality in AOSP, anyone who compiles it themselves can leave it out (Graphene, Lineage).
- I understand. Graphene seems like the best place to invest. It's a shame they are available on so few devices.

Anything android based will be affected. Any hardware targeted to run Android is going to become increasingly locked down and non-viable for people that want to customize.
The best option is to invest in libre hardware and open source software. If someone could come up with two or three-year-old flagship hardware that was unlocked. Which I could run, plasma touch, or some other similar Linux touch-based environment. I would be set.
I have an old 10 inch chrome tablet that I put post-market OS on. If all the hardware on it worked and it had more than four gigabytes of memory, the thing would be perfect.But even with all the flaws it currently has, it's still excellent.
- Is it safe to say that Google gets away with that sideloading restrictions? Will the EU have a word here or can they just decide it like that?
  
  I think it will take some adapting of the legislation. IIRC it was a very apple specific decision. Though I don't really know as I'm not European. So take this all with a grain of salt. The fact google is thinking about doing this means they think they will get away with it. They have plenty of lawyers to suss it out for them. Likely they will try to use the fact that they aren't the only manufacturer of android phones etc. Unlike apple and iPhone. Also there technically are alternatives so again not technically a monopoly. All bulshit. But possibly legal bullshit.
  The main takeaway is that these companies don't want customers. So we shouldn't give them our business.
  
  Google won't be violating the law, because they are just doing the same thing that Apple does. They do technically allow third party stores, but the devs have to get Google/Apple to sign their keys.
  Epic games will be allowed, because they have money to sue. Your average volunteer dev isn't gonna have the money, nor time, to sue.
  I think most devs are just gonna publish in F-Droid and let F-droid handle it. F-droid will sign all the apps under their banner, but if Google sees a Youtube alternatibe client in there, I'm guessing they're gonna revoke the signature. And I don't think F-Droid has the money to file a lawsuit. (Do they?)

Just send me the money I will get on that shit.

There are a few options that I've read about, but I'll let others reply so I can also take notes.

26 comments