Yep i think they are looking to reduce down stream of releasing features before they do. It’s shitty but it’s not going closed source. They would have to rewrite the whole thing to go close source. They could do that but the version we have is ours they can’t take it away.
Pretty much nothing, because 99% of what everybody uses is proprietary blobs on top of Android anyway. The Andriod open source is absolute minimum barebones, with MS Paint like UI and basically no UX.
And they aren’t (for now) changing the license of future work either - just not releasing source until the same time they release binaries, which is totally allowed in the open source licenses.
They could close everything except the kernel and maybe a few libraries here and there. The Linux kernel alone does not exactly get you close to having an Android distribution.
https://source.android.com/docs/setup/contribute/licenses says most of the Android userspace is Apache 2 licensed. While they can’t close source the Android branch of the kernel, they could close-source new userspace code and it would probably diverge from the last open source release quite quickly.
Realistically, that would probably be sufficent to make Android functionally closed-source, even if the GPL bits were still available.
What happens? (If, because again, that’s not what has happened, so far.)
GrapheneOS would continue, but probably not manage compatibility with the next Pixel phone.
Various forks of Android Open Source get created, with mixed success. Existing phones will keep working, new phones with proprietary servers drivers are much less likely to work.
We create something like ndiswrapper to help us extract weird new phone hardware drivers and make them work with open operating systems.
The fully open phone hardware projects suddenly get a bunch of new customers.
The last point is the only thing I’m confident is preventing Google from taking their fork of AOSP fully closed. (Yes, I know it wouldn’t be legal. But I’m not sure their lawyers think they would be held accountable. Most people don’t understand the existing laws Google already breaks daily since purchasing YouTube.)
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Also it’s not going closed source it just doing closed development with pushing the code over the wall at release time.
No more input until it’s already released?
Yep i think they are looking to reduce down stream of releasing features before they do. It’s shitty but it’s not going closed source. They would have to rewrite the whole thing to go close source. They could do that but the version we have is ours they can’t take it away.
“if”
Pretty much nothing, because 99% of what everybody uses is proprietary blobs on top of Android anyway. The Andriod open source is absolute minimum barebones, with MS Paint like UI and basically no UX.
They cannot take back the open license code. Only the future work is closed.
And they aren’t (for now) changing the license of future work either - just not releasing source until the same time they release binaries, which is totally allowed in the open source licenses.
I.E. they would have to change the license of Android. Not sure how they are going to do that when the Linux kernel is GPL
They could close everything except the kernel and maybe a few libraries here and there. The Linux kernel alone does not exactly get you close to having an Android distribution.
I think it would still be a good question to ponder, even though that isn’t what has happened yet.
What IF Google decided future versions were closed source? How would that not affect our open source alternatives?
Google can decide all they want, but they can’t close source Android due to the GPL.
https://source.android.com/docs/setup/contribute/licenses says most of the Android userspace is Apache 2 licensed. While they can’t close source the Android branch of the kernel, they could close-source new userspace code and it would probably diverge from the last open source release quite quickly.
Realistically, that would probably be sufficent to make Android functionally closed-source, even if the GPL bits were still available.
Google Play Services is GPL? I see…
Google Play Services is not Android.
Well, you get an iOS. So, Google shooting themselves in the foot.
What happens? (If, because again, that’s not what has happened, so far.)
ndiswrapperto help us extract weird new phone hardware drivers and make them work with open operating systems.The last point is the only thing I’m confident is preventing Google from taking their fork of AOSP fully closed. (Yes, I know it wouldn’t be legal. But I’m not sure their lawyers think they would be held accountable. Most people don’t understand the existing laws Google already breaks daily since purchasing YouTube.)
Nothing