alt Hacker Newsyou are being downvoted because the article considers de-googled versions of android acceptable. and neither are dependent on google in the sense that even if google stopped publishing android source altogether they could continue to develop the versions they already have. that's the whole point of Free Software and Open Source.
Yeah, and that's utter nonsense. Noone is really stepping up to develop Android beyond repackaging it.
If Google decides to remove a feature, GrapheneOS and other forks will end up without it too. If they stop publishing security patches, the forks end up insecure too.
It's just like all the Chrome "forks" when ManifestV2 died. None of them survived for more than a few versions until maintainers lost interest.
Calling any of these Google free is downright lying.