I was going for GrapheneOS, but tbh seeing that one main developer's personality issues turned me off big time. I don't care about technical advantages, if I have to trust in that guy's impulse control. Too small a project for that.
The general attitude towards GCam seems to be... Calyx isn't going to ship it but it's generally understood most people will be using it. The recommendation I got when I switched was to install the apk and disable all network access via Datura before I launched it for the first time. That works well, the pictures look great too. A recommendation I heard after I did that which I will be following next time is to extract the gcam apk from your new phone before you flash calyx and install that one (to avoid apkmirror or whatever).
Also, do note that it is indeed a dangerous business — false sense of security is the worst. And there are plenty of companies taking advantage of people wanting something “privacy-oriented”.
But copperhead os broke its promises and basically hijacked the project - but Micay being a professional, he invalidated the validation keys so that existing users would not get served code not associated with him.
Afterwards he continued working on the open source project without any partnership, while copperhead os continues to take the code, add some questionable modifications to it and sell it, while badmouthing GrapheneOS.
I wouldn’t go as far as to make psychological advice on someone based on a few interactions, but seeing how people in the industry can burn out from some rude comments, being totally backstabbed does explain his behavior. Also, do note that he is a professional security expert (the upstream android project routinely takes commits from his project) and unfortunately even with the best intentions, one can create absolutely shitty distros regarding security. Being critical of them may look “competitive”, but he only wants end users safe.