

While degoogling is accessible right now, what worries me is that all of these projects are 100% dependent on Google’s whims because they use Android as the upstream. Same reason why I don’t use Chromium browsers: yes, they can patch over things, but they can’t fight the direction of the upstream project and they are powerless if the upstream stops publishing commits / source, like Google seems to be moving toward. Additionally, what “the big distros” aka stock ROMs do to prevent FOSS apps being installed means a much much smaller potential userbase for them. I develop an Android app, and (while I don’t have analytics) I don’t find it unlikely that at least half my users are on stock roms that would lose access to my app with this policy. It’s much less motivating to develop something when I know less people will benefit, and especially knowing I’m supporting only custom roms that are 100% beholden to Google. Degoogling is a good first step. I’ve been on Lineage for many years now. But I believe that the step that will truly make us independent is moving to Linux phones.
This title is gold.