• wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      14 hours ago

      The base OS of Android is, but the widely dispersed version maintained by Google with the hardware drivers required for it to work with the actual hardware is not.

      That’s why projects like Graphene can’t work on every phone. They have to rely on either reverse engineering hardware drivers or the manufacturers providing the drivers. For many years, Google openly released the drivers for all the hardware in their Pixel line of phones, which allowed Graphene and other customized versions of Android to easily work on Pixel phones.

      Manufacturers usually don’t release drivers separately and instead they’re only available built into the manufacturers customized Android version. Android Open Source Project is the open source base, then Google builds their proprietary stuff on top as “Android”, then the various phone manufacturers build their own versions on top of Google’s “Android” with: manufacturer specific crud added, phone specific crud added, and often phone carrier specific crud added.

    • Luminous5481 "Enemy of the State"@anarchist.nexus
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      14 hours ago

      the difference is that Google is actually doing bad things, and you’re just sharing conjecture about something you believe MIGHT POSSIBLY happen at some point in the indeterminate future.

      this is without even considering that the belief in question is supported by a new account, registered hours ago to post an accusation without any proof to back it up besides a random issue posted to a random Codeberg, that was created very recently by an account with no history, to share rumors about Tracfone.

      do you believe every single thing people tell you? because if so, I have some oceanfront property in Wyoming to sell you, and there’s a Nigerian prince who wants to finance it it, he just needs you to send me $10,000 so he can unlock his assets and send you $1,000,000.

        • Buffalobuffalo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          13 hours ago

          Maybe we find out the profit from including ads and spyware isn’t so much, and it all turns out great? Moto sees the chance to get on the right side of consumers and sells phones as a result.

        • OneMeaningManyNames@lemmy.ml
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          12 hours ago

          Is this …conjecture? I will make two points.

          1. They might want to market the phones to security-minded people, say the banking sector, governments, etc. They have the funds to spend and have high stakes.
          2. GrapheneOS as it is now already gets flack for supposed backdoors in Pixels. The common response to that is that independent audits have shown that GrapheneOS phones are resistant to common penetration and surveillance attacks. No matter the hardware, independent audits are what makes people trust GrapheneOS. If future audits revise that trust, the community will just move forward.
    • XLE@piefed.social
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      14 hours ago

      Very tangential, but Android source code is getting a heavily delayed release, and this is harming projects like Graphene