“This is a project to research proprietary files in Android to work towards a long-term goal of free replacements.” Meaning; to develop FOSS alternatives for the Google parts in the Android system.
I think (hope) that we will have a number of phone OS options in the near future. Android with Google elements replaced and more developed Linux phones. The Android option appears easier and so may take the lead.
How would this be better than Linux mobile?
Access to Android app library might be considered a plus?
A lot of the ux and higher level HAL work is done, and the obstacles on android remain in the drivers and signed blobs.
Linux is great, but phosh, plasma and gnome mobile are pretty poor interface experiences at the moment.
I wonder if you can run Waydroid on mobile linux, it’d feel like an Android phone, but you’ll have more control over it because it’s actually just a container inside your OS, easily root etc…
Reverse engineering certain android software components might enable more phones to work under linux as well as lineage or similar. For instance if a modem requires a certain kernel module under android, that might be usable in linux as well.
And potentially make them better too. Maybe a generic wireless driver that works on almost all phones (even if slow), or it’s not uncommon for the industry to gatekeep features to newer models. OSS would likely get those features running on old hardware anyway.
That’s not even mentioning the spyware and AI garbage baked into everything. Or nerfing cpu/battery performance on devices for planned obsolescence.
That sounds useful but I thought the biggest issue was services require google certified software and hardware or something to that effect
I think that is the big upcoming issue, yes. I don’t quite understand the nuances but the gist seems to be they are locking it down so F-Droid can’t work anymore. Still, blobs could help linux.
