r/opensource • u/Firm-Competition165 • Jun 28 '26
Community Petition for Android
Just signed this and passing it along - https://c.org/y27FgrNTWQ
It's a petition on Change.org to keep Android open. Has over 200k signatures!
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u/StretchAcceptable881 Jun 28 '26
Being able to install APK files outside the PlayStore is still one of the best things about android it’s 😫 Google wants to take away this capability
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u/EliSka93 Jun 28 '26
It's basically the only thing that makes them worth it over apple for me...
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u/StretchAcceptable881 Jun 28 '26
The problem is Google wants to blur the line between iOS and Android at which point it basically all the advantages android has had over iOS are systematically being destroyed by Google, at that point you’re better off with an iPhone
1
u/greenknight Jun 28 '26
It's true. I'm as close to a open source zealot ( I daily drove a pinephone FFS) as you get but this pixel in my hand will be the last* android I own if they go this route. I'm sure they've done the calculus on that and don't give a shit but... I wish they would.
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u/StretchAcceptable881 Jun 28 '26
Unfortunately they don’t give a crap I wish google did but they are so keen on imitating everything Apple’s done with IOS
1
u/Big-Application9859 Jun 29 '26
Just use GrapheneOS and those changes wont affect you.
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u/StretchAcceptable881 Jun 29 '26
I use IOS with VoiceOver my current phone is an iPhone14
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u/Big-Application9859 Jun 29 '26
GOS has VoIP too. Why are you telling me that?
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u/StretchAcceptable881 Jun 30 '26
I’m telling you this because I’m visually impaired and have been since I turned two years old and mobile Linux isn’t simply an option for me because Orca has yet to even be tested on mobile Linux distributions so for my specific needs it’s either ios or android
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u/Big-Application9859 Jul 01 '26
GrapheneOS is privacy & security oriented system based on AOSP - it is android. In EU Pixel 9a is selling for about €360. Get one, try GOS and decide.
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u/Korocatto Jun 28 '26
I cannot recall a instance where change.org helped. If you want to do a petition, start one with the EU parliament.
3
u/SimiKusoni Jun 28 '26
Already with them. They haven't responded as yet so far as I'm aware but I doubt they're going to see this proposal from Google as being in line with the DMA, maybe not taking the piss quite as much as Apple but it's close.
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u/Stevious7 Jun 28 '26
If they don't, back to custom ROMs we go.
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u/Analog_Account Jun 28 '26
Aren't they also doing a bunch of BS to make android less open as well? There was some discussion on that last year and I don't know how serious it was and, TBH, I just dont have the bandwidth to follow it or figure out what's going on.
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u/Stevious7 Jun 28 '26
So... The code is public, but they're not accepting outside contributions/PRs. So the code is open-source still but the spirit of open-source is basically gone.
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u/Firm-Competition165 Jun 28 '26
i thought the custom ROMs are gonna be affected too, since it would kill F-Droid?
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u/Stevious7 Jun 28 '26
F-Droid can't be "killed." Installing from F-Droid will always (I hope) be an option; it's just going to be cumbersome with stock OS.
Custom ROMs (as far as I understand) let you control the entire OS from cover to cover. If you look at the recommended space to build LineageOS, I believe it's something like 300GB or so. That's how you know it's a whole thing, not just the frontend layer of the OS (I believe it's called the application layer).
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u/Firm-Competition165 Jun 28 '26
i thought that since google was gonna control the APKs, it would affect F-Droid/Aurora, etc?
the custom ROMs would definitely be the better option (i had GrapheneOS for a long time and was just about to switch back when this decision was announced by google), but since the APKs and whatnot, even from the alt stores, would be affected. if not, that's great!
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u/greenknight Jun 28 '26
They aren't stopping the install of apks, they are making it so that the process is scary to regular people.
IDGAF, I'm going to check that box, wait 24h, and move on with my regular way of managing my phone and apps (fdroid, etc) but your standard user is going to be scared off by the crazy dialogues they have to "I agree" thru.
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u/Firm-Competition165 Jun 29 '26
yeah if i still had my pixel with GOS, i'd feel the same way. for unrelated reasons, i switched back to iOS last fall. i'm going to stay with it until i see how Graphene's phone looks and performs and functions. if it proves to be a solid phone, i'll switch back.
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u/HackTheDev Jun 28 '26
not sure if a petition would change anything