alt Hacker NewsGrapheneOS is currently the blessed child. Like CyanogenMod previously. They are "permitted" to access to Google Play Services because their work hardening Android currently benefits Google.
Once Google feels like there is sufficient stability and compatibility with hardened memory allocator and tagged memory (and when they can get Qualcomm to support it across their range), they will make harder, until impossible, for Graphene.
An old article [1] but:
> Google’s Android—and [Open Handset Alliance] members are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices
So to compete you'd have to create a compatible Google Play Services as well as find a supporting manufacturer. Samsung managed their own competing apps and store [2] for a while along with Tizen, likely for leverage or theoretical pivot. But has since dropped that effort.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/google-bought-of...
Replies
>> Google’s Android—and [Open Handset Alliance] members are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices
>So to compete you'd have to create a compatible Google Play Services as well as find a supporting manufacturer. Samsung managed their own competing apps and store [2] for a while along with Tizen, likely for leverage or theoretical pivot. But has since dropped that effort.
What's wrong with the upcoming partnership with Motorola where they work with grapheneos to get it suppported, but it's not preloaded?
> They are "permitted" to access to Google Play Services because their work hardening Android currently benefits Google.
Very little in GrapheneOS has gone back upstream post-Copperhead.
> Once Google feels like there is sufficient stability and compatibility with hardened memory allocator and tagged memory (and when they can get Qualcomm to support it across their range), they will make harder, until impossible, for Graphene.
What are you talking about? Google doesn't use hardened_malloc, and they literally invented MTE.
Your claims about this don't make sense. Google does not provide compatibility with GrapheneOS for Google Play services. They do not provide support for using it or fix the issues introduced in new releases.
GrapheneOS doesn't license Google Mobile Services (GMS), doesn't include it in the OS and doesn't have Google certification. It isn't permitted by the Google Play Integrity API device and strong integrity levels because it doesn't have a GMS license. Google doesn't offer any way for GrapheneOS to license it.
We're legally allowed to provide compatibility with Google Play via our sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer. Similar to APK mirror sites, we're also allowed to mirror the freely available APKs.
We've put enormous time into developing sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer and there's ongoing work to continue resolving edge cases we haven't covered. If Google wanted Google Play to be used outside of stock operating systems licensing it, they could make it work as a set of regular sandboxed apps without us needing a compatibility layer. Our baseline compatibility layer isn't doing anything they couldn't do themselves by making them apps handle being portable to operating systems not deeply integrating it into the OS with highly privileged access.