this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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Wouldn't funding MicroG be the better call to action?
AFAIK this restriction will be part of Google Play certification and not AOSP itself.
That means we'd need the ability to unlock bootloaders to be maintained, and a good comparable open source abtraction to Google Play Services so users have a soft off-ramp from the Google Play ecosystem
Believe it or not but the Pixel phones are some of the easiest to unlock and flash. You install graphene OS just through a web browser it's that easy. It is somewhat ironic given this move.
There was a reason for this. Google always branded pixel and nexus devices as a dev kit for Android OS. So all different brands of Android phones started their OS development with pixel. But last year Google announced they are no longer recommending pixel devices as the backbone of Android OS development and that companies and users should target cuttlefish their emulator for AOSP. With that they also stopped sharing device trees and vendor blobs. That is nothing new for custom ROM community but Google always provided that and that made custom ROM development really easy with very fast update cycles. I'm just hoping they don't lock down Bootloader like others
Aren't they also trying to break AOSP? I thought GrapheneOS said something about how Google has been trying to work against them.
Technically the correct first thing to do is to make the manufacturers release the relock keys for relocking the bootloaders of extant hardware (say, the Moto G6 for an example). Having MicroG or whatever is not much useful if there's not going to be a feasible phone on which to install, so getting extant phones to become relockable with AOSP distros would be priority. And the way the economy si going and the RAM chips are not, forcing everyone interested to have to buy a whole new phone is not a smart choice.
Once the relock keys are out, fund All the Things. Lineage, Calyx, MicroG, what have you.
Yeah, but that's not profitable, so they won't.
Doesn't have to be profitable. Can also be punishable, either via adequate state violence, or via People violence. Could be interesting to see something like what the EU has made as a threat of removing all copyright safeguards for the US in case the US presents more as a threat, so I guess the equivalent would be removing all patent safeguards for tinkering with phone manufacturer firmwares if the manufacturers won't provide a solution for the People themselves.
Don't let OP and sympathizers know this!!