> It is no different than the requirements to provide newer builds updated to specific Android target versions, or being 64 bit only that Google keeps forcing devs to move forward.

That is basically saying that this is a big work for everyone involved (developers, Google, OEMs). This is exactly my point.

> Any application that depends on syscalls isn't portable across Android devices anyway.

The application does not necessary call a syscall directly, the problem is that the NDK calls a syscall as an implementation detail (for example, for lock primitives eventually the NDK must call the Linux lock primitives too, there is no way out).

So if Google needs to change Android kernel, they need to implement the same quirks of the current syscalls, or the slightly change in behavior will break random applications.

My point was never calling syscall directly, however for sure some applications call syscall directly too.