Shaming Google will only work for so long. Grapheme is is doomed to fail as long as it has a complete dependence on Google’s whims.
Have they announced the pivot to a non-android platform? Being security-mind it is frankly bizarre they have long ignored the Google dependency as a huge risk for the project.
they have long ignored the Google dependency
What a silly thing to say.
I’m absolutely certain that no contributors, and extraordinarily few users, are ignoring the risks implied by the google dependency.
A pixel with Graphene is the best option for a daily driver for as long as it’s viable. I expect that’s everyone’s understanding of the project.
I don’t really see how this project can “pivot to a non-android platform”, as I imagine none of their codebase can be transferred.
Sooner or later the project will become non-viable and we will all switch to whatever the best option is at that time.
Sooner or later the project will become non-viable and we will all switch to whatever the best option is at that time.
Or everybody who isn’t Google will have to collaborate on a hard fork of AOSP.
Or some governments will have to finally break out of their oligarchic regulatory capture and step in with antitrust law.
Or everybody who isn’t Google will have to collaborate on a hard fork of AOSP.
Along with the Google Play dependencies and Android SDK that everything is tied to. Or we could use an OS that already exists and doesn’t have any of that bullshit called “Linux”.
called postmarketOS
They don’t particularly like Linux as a platform from a security standpoint:
But somehow Android, which is based on Linux, somehow checks those points for them…
The hipocrisy is too big to ignore and it’s true, with that mindset of just wanting and waiting for someone else to do the hard work for them to just add patches here and there… they’re doomed to fail.
I don’t think you understand how different Android and Linux distributions truly are.
Linux alone refers to the kernel. There are custom AOSP kernels based on the Linux LTS versions with a few extra patches but that is basically all that connects Linux to Android.
But absolutely everything in userland is wholly diifferent in Android than with any Linux distribution out there.
And you can’t just replicate what Android did on top of the Linux kernel without Google amounts of resources. Which GrapheneOS does not have in the slightest.
Yeah but I think that’s just changed with ai.
WHAT???
Look I’m coding with ai every day.
Can we please stop pretending it don’t increase productivity 100x
Do the most evil or something like that
I don’t understand why the GrapheneOS Foundation can’t keep maintaining GOS on Pixel devices, while also collaborating with other manufacturers than just Motorola (which is a $77,000,000,000 multi-national corporation) towards more decentralized hardware that can serve their needs while also having the ability to be manufactured by multiple vendors in a white label way.
Relying on Google or Motorola for everything will eventually lead to the same issues, which is platform lock out. I have no confidence that the Motorola deal will fix everything forever.
I refuse to believe that the most secure OS can’t be installed on the most OSH.
It sounds like you don’t understand what the pixel phones are, what graphene is and what open source is.
The pixel phones used to be a reference implementation for an Android handset. A while ago Google decided to try to actually compete in the market and that meant designing hardware people would actually pick over a Samsung or whatever based on the numbers. So they put a chip in the new phone that doesn’t do emte because it makes everything slower.
Graphenes goal is to be the most secure phone os. That means they’re not competing against other Android based software packages, but against ios. It’s a tough row to hoe because whereas apple can develop hardware support for emte and software support across all first party apps and even offer it to developers in a very well documented framework then announce it in a big flashy press conference with the kicker that you can buy the system next month, graphene has to make it a granular switch system that will cause hangs, slowdown and crashes on even the aosp system apps.
Open source hardware doesn’t mean securable hardware. It’s easy to make open source platforms that are fundamentally insecure with no possible software path to remediation.
Now if you want to install some parts of graphene on unsupported devices there’s a fork out there, but it’s pretty stupid to do that since you’re giving up all the security of graphene and gaining all the roadblocks it puts in the way of doing insecure things with apps.
E: spelling
Can OSH be secured hardware? Is there a fundamental contradiction there?
I suppose if schematics for chips are available to the public, then it would be easy enough for a trained bad actor to follow those schematics and identify hardware vulnerabilities that they could attack.
Does this mean that the product GOS Foundation provides necessarily has to be closed source? Open source and privacy can never coexist?
It is possible for open source hardware to be securable hardware. Of course, someone has to design it, manufacture it and distribute it and eventually it will be unsecurable because new vulnerabilities and capabilities are developed every day, so that someone will have to design, manufacture and distribute a successor and the old hardware will have to be deprecated.
All that costs money and the people who care about security are a super small group so graphene chooses hardware that is “accidentally” securable. The reference implementation pixel phones are a great example. Google doesn’t care about security or graphene. But they built a phone intended to do the hard work of putting all the possible parts together so that other manufacturers could look and see how they could do an Android phone with some feature (or even some better feature) without having to spend a bunch of cash doing it from scratch. It just so happens that Google included relockable (this is different and more important for security than unlockable) bootloaders, a processor with memory tagging support and a big pile of documentation in case you want to use those features.
Then Google indicated that it was gonna stop doing everyone else’s work for them. There are a bunch of reasons for this and I’m not gonna go into them but I will summarize some analysis: you should make it a priority to move away from Android devices eventually depending on your citizenship and stop relying on the securability of a computer system of any type. Doing everyone’s work for them was why the pixel phones were such a good target for graphene, they had the features and the documentation. Now that Google isn’t making reference implementations anymore, they don’t intend to have every feature (notably security features) or give out docs.
So the graphene people switched to Motorola. The new Motorola phone that’s expected to run graphene wasn’t designed for it, it just so happens to have the features and the company agreed to give them the documentation required. It’s “accidentally” securable.
That’s how graphene works. There isn’t an alternative for them. They don’t have the money, capital or expertise to design and release a phone specifically for security and there isn’t a market for that product they could endeavor to sell to and get a loan against the promise of.
I want to make sure we’re on the same page: graphene is open source. There are open source projects that prioritize security. Security and privacy are different things.
can’t keep maintaining GOS on Pixel devices
Where did you get this? It was never said that they can’t maintain it. Google just isn’t releasing the firmware and reverse engeneering every piece of it is a nightmare and at that point you might as well make your own brand.
collaborating with other manufacturers than just Motorola
towards more decentralized hardware that can serve their needs while also having the ability to be manufactured by multiple vendors in a white label way.
Because graphene isn’t a project that developes phones? Also, Youre still relying on snapdragon and other manufacturers to make key components of your phones.
I refuse to believe that the most secure OS can’t be installed on the most OSH.
Time to change your mind I guess:
First of all, OSS dosent mean runs on everything.
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Even if someone tried to port graphene to other hardware, they would have to remove key software from the port, like memory tagging, hardened malloc, etc. Which defeats the purpose of using Graphene over any other OS.
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OS also dosent mean secure, or even good. Just look at the insane amount of open source software wrappers and snakes.
Where did you get this?
Did you read the rest of the sentence? I said I refuse to believe they can’t maintain Pixel GOS while also simultaneously doing research & development on finding a non-corporate, non-Google, non-Motorola hardware solution. Many people are saying that GOS can’t do both. I refuse to believe that. GOS Foundation could set aside resources internally to figure shit out, if they wanted to. I don’t see any reason they don’t have the ability to do that.
Because graphene isn’t a project that developes phones?
I understand that. But corporate lock out by Google and I predict also Motorola will mean that GOS will perpetually need to jump from sinking ship to sinking ship. Having control of the hardware that doesn’t come from a corporation means that they can develop their most secure OS without worrying about an expiration date on the hardware. I’m not saying I want GOS to make their own chips and phones. I’m saying I want GOS to partner with at least one OSH manufacturer like Pine64, Jolla, Purism, Fairphone, F(x)tec, SHIFT, Volla, Liberux, etc. so THEY can work on the hardware while aiming to meet GOS’ requirements.
Time to change your mind I guess
I’m sorry, but privacy isn’t freedom. GOS isn’t the most perfect solution for all of time. I’m advocating for GOS to think about their future given a world of capitalism which seeks to destroy all our freedoms in the name of profit.
Even if someone tried to port graphene to other hardware
Existing hardware isn’t sufficient. THAT IS WHY I’M ADVOCATING FOR GOS TO PARTNER WITH OTHERS SO THAT EVENTUALLY THEY CAN MAKE THE SWITCH AWAY FROM GOOGLE/MOTOROLA WHILE MAINTAINING ALL FUNCTIONALITY OF GOS.
You do known it’s not some big organization right? Have you donated millions to the project to help this along?
I’m not really a programmer so I couldn’t really help in that capacity. I could donate but I also should donate to all of the other FOSS software that I use. What would be the best use of my money?
Better to donate to none so you don’t hurt any feelings…
Thanks for being no help!
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I really like reading some stuff like that from a website that summarises a few mastodon posts and additionally adds 10 ads and trackers.
How about posting the original source next time?
Why? Are gonna write article?
Me no write article. Will read original post that has like 5 sentence.
But you see my friend - most these stupid communities don’t let you just post random URLs. If people don’t understand what they are seeing they accuse you if being a bot. Article is fine IMO, phoronix I thought exclusively cover Linux and shit
ive seen the same news on reddit and lemmy. reddit was like “omg gimme that feature, even i dont use it, it is my right”. lemmy is like “are you insane? just get a better platform, your dependency from google is going to kill you”
God I hate google so much
Grateful for this graphene os team.
They are doing a great job.Alienating google is not really a problem in my view, google is already alien and hostile to everyone so it changes nothing.
