Google et al pour billions annually into making android a first-class and dominant mobile OS. I think the FOSS community should leverage that and focus on liberating Android instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
If banks and streaming vendors don't trust unmodified VMs, why would open-source Linux VMs trust closed apps with binary blobs?
One benefit of running open-source Linux VMs is access to the vast corpus of mature open-source software applications packaged by Debian, Fedora, etc.
That you wouldn't need the official attested VM anymore.
> why would open-source Linux VMs trust closed apps with binary blobs?
The point is that with an open-source Linux VM, the user could decide what to trust instead of some megacorp deciding for everyone.
> vast corpus of mature open-source software applications
The problem is that there's a lot of proprietary apps that are both (1) necessary for a lot of real-world things, e.g., the SeatGeek app for tickets to shows, and (2) not replaceable with FOSS because the company will ban you if you connect to their API with a third-party client.
As hardware, sensor and cellular radio standards continue to evolve, someone has to pay for timely development of bare-metal software to drive new hardware. Today, that is the vendor providing the "official attested VM" and drivers. If Arm can reach x86 levels of backward compatibility and stable interfaces, it may be possible to extend the lifetime of mobile devices with OSS bare-metal drivers. It has taken many years to achieve this on relatively open x86 PCs. Even Arm SBCs still struggle, see the efforts of Armbian. Mobile devices are less open and more complex.
> proprietary apps ... not replaceable with FOSS because the company will ban you if you connect to their API with a third-party client.
Regulations and technology are evolving in the direction of more control, not less. Customers will need to find forms of collective and competitive action to influence vendor policy in sensible directions, because it will be increasingly expensive to bypass. Try to support vendors who use technology responsibly in service of their customers. Encourage OSS competition where feasible.
But don't they disable some features if you don't use the app, e.g., mobile check deposit?
edit : Unless the goal is also to benefit the linux desktop ecosystem (the whole convergence meme)
That isn't sufficient. You'll also need to use an OS which provides "acceptable" hardware attestation capabilities (as defined by Google) required to verify that the copy of Chrome is legitimate (otherwise this could be spoofed). In practice that most likely means your options are limited to: Windows 11, macOS with System Integrity Protection enabled, Chrome OS, stock Android with Google services installed as system apps, iOS.
Google's first attempt at bringing attestation to the web, WEI, was shot down by hackers, but it won't be the last. Please continue to fight against this.
Why is that? I can use my bank through Linux via a web browser without issue. Logging in more frequently is a hassle but not a bad trade IMO.
That's what LineageOS (née CyanogenMod) tries to do, and what this leads to in practice is force them to depend on a heap of proprietary code (downstream kernels and userspace blobs). Outside of that, the work that's "done" on the AOSP/LineageOS UI layers and supporting software/"apps" is relatively easy to port over to Desktop Linux - the GNOME Mobile UX is actually making great progress from that POV. So I'm quite skeptical about your proposed approach.
I think the idea is that no amount of forking Android is going to produce something different enough to entice developers to port their apps to it, but maybe if an entirely new Linux-based mobile platform kicks off, there's a chance?
If you have to consult `developer.android.com` (a Google-owned domain) to develop for your "totally not Android" platform, it may be difficult to avoid the temptation to do as the documentation recommends and simply embrace proprietary Google services and hardware attestation and whatnot. After all, 99% of users have those things and it's just these several weird forks that don't?
Windows Phone failed because even paying devs for apps couldn't entice them to do so.
Windows Phone was around during the time that carrying a smartphone on your person at all times was optional, and we didn't have critical government and banking services being delivered exclusively through apps that only work on Google Android and Apple iOS. I suspect that if Windows Phone had survived, and managed to keep even a tiny fraction of the market share, these apps would nonetheless be forced to support it because they would have to account for at least some of their customers using it.