Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source capacity over the last decade.

Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source nature over the last decade.

Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.

  • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org
    1·
    1 day ago

    Some of the UI isn’t open, otherwise it is Qt / Wayland / pyside with stsndard pkcon / rpm package manager and I program mine in Guile.

    And the UI isn’t the serious issue. The serious issue is propietary firmware which prevents you from really running Android / whatever on a vendor phone and also that a phone does not have one but around five different processors and only the “OS” one can be controlled by your own software. An Intel Pocket PC is far better in that regard, except that it won’t work as a telephone.

    • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
      1·
      3 hours ago

      How much is some? Can a usable, fully-free version be made without those non-free components? Given that the UI is the thing that mediates user interaction with the OS, I would suggest that a proprietary UI is in fact an issue.