So google now requires Id verification for submitting apps to android, what does it mean for Foss apps, for Foss stores like fdroid and for future development?
So google now requires Id verification for submitting apps to android, what does it mean for Foss apps, for Foss stores like fdroid and for future development?
Android is open source. There’s nothing saying that we, as the community, couldn’t fork it away and use it as our own base, at least in the meantime.
That’s why Lineage is called Lineage, and Graphene is called Graphene, because Android is a trademark, but nothing stops you from just forking off, say Android 16, and not relying on Google at all anymore. Make your own security patches and everything else.
Instead of Android apps, we’d have lineage apps. And lineage apps would work on lineage devices and graphene devices only.
Instead of .apk it would be say .lpk and the conversion between the two would be seamless.
so that anybody who built an Android app could with just one single command also build the app for lineage or something like that.
The problem is no banking institution, etc. Would do that. They could simply ignore play integrity already but they don’t do that.
And with that, how long until there are no unlockable bootloaders? Then a fork wouldn’t matter at all and using a Linux phone with lineage likely wouldn’t even work due to lack of device drivers for android.