Comment by 1vuio0pswjnm7 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 1vuio0pswjnm7 | Hacker News Reader

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"But this is not all Google's doing there: all the Android manufacturers are actively preventing users from doing it."

Google is (a) restricting "Android" functionality through trademark and software licenses with manufacturers and (b) paying the manufacturers, e.g., through placement agreements and revenue sharing agreements

Given Google's actions in this regard, why would a manufacturer want to allow hardware purchasers to remove Android and install an OS of their own choosing, e.g., one that does not enable Google data collection, surveillance and ad services and generates no revenue for the manufacturer

The idea of regulating manufacturers that partner with Google seems far-fetched, not serious. For example, I don't see HN comments suggesting Apple should be prohibited from interfering with buyers who want to remove iOS and install another OS in its place

Meanwhile the control, privacy, etc. problems with these corporate OS are avoidable right now by choosing different hardware, specifically hardware that allows installation of open source OS that a concerned buyer can edit, compile and install themselves

I feel like you haven't read enough HN reply but I've said the exact thing about Apple OS they can have it and have HW but they should be seperate companies and the OS regulated like the monopoly service it is.

OSs are few in number and are special pieces of software supported by extreme network effects and locking in effects. Its virtually impossible to abandon mainstream OSs even in the desktop world which is much more permissive their are basically 2 OSs. You can count Linux as a third but its not a serious market share competitor yet! EU and France might change that.

But essentially total OS control allows a type of anti competitive behavior that is unavoidable. You either need 10s of options which are different in the services which isn't viable because modern OSs are some of the most complex pieces of software in existence. Your only other option is to regulate them like the power company because its not practical to build your own grid to have fair pricing and access

"I feel like you haven't read enough HN reply but I've said the exact thing about Apple OS they can have it and have HW but they should seperate[sic] companies and the OS regulated like the monopoly service it is."

Was this under a different HN account

I went through all replies by xphos and found nothing that discussed removing IOs and running some other OS on an iPhone

What I want is for Apple to sell hardware that has no OS installed. This is actually how I prefer to buy computers today, with no OS. I just want the Apple hardware, not the Apple software

The AirPort Extreme was the closest I have seen to this wish for Apple hardware without Apple software coming true. It included Apple software, but it could be operated using a NetBSD 6.x kernel

s/IOs/iOS/

Ironically, I think regulation is what keeps them in power. They are major companies that comply with government regulations. Why would the government regulate to allow people to have devices that forgo government regulations?

If you want a successful mainstream operating system. It needs to work within the rules of society. It needs to comply with regulations. It needs to cooperate with mobile device manufacturers and network operators.

These small grassroots operating systems fail because, to do all those things, you need to be pragmatic.

The next major operating system will be backed by a business or government.

> If you want a successful mainstream operating system. It needs to work within the rules of society. It needs to comply with regulations. It needs to cooperate with mobile device manufacturers and network operators.

Which can be done with a small team by building on top of AOSP, like GrapheneOS does. How is that not pragmatic?

I would group GrapheneOS with Android. If you handed a layperson a GrapheneOS phone and asked them what OS was on the phone, they would probably say Android.

But considering it as a separate OS, I wouldn’t consider it mainstream. It’s not on any device by default. And it has an estimated 250k users out of ~3.9 billion Android users, or 0.0064%. It might seem mainstream for the tech community, but it goes to show how small the tech community is.

It might be mainstream once Motorola, a corporation, starts releasing phones preinstalled with it.

> If you handed a layperson a GrapheneOS phone and asked them what OS was on the phone, they would probably say Android.

Agreed, that's exactly it! The pain points of GrapheneOS/LineageOS are due to the fact that device manufacturers don't allow proper support (typically the bootloader story) and that big companies like bank choose (more and more) to ban whatever is not signed by Google (through Play Integrity). I argue that those things should be regulated.

> And it has an estimated 250k users out of ~3.9 billion Android users

I think it's more than 250k, but let's go with that. There are Android manufacturers that are in the same order of magnitude. What would you say if your bank banned your Fairphone (that runs Stock Android signed by Google) just because it is a Fairphone, and "a few hundred thousands of users is marginal"? I think even the regulators would directly understand how that is a problem. Microsoft Office shouldn't be allowed to just ban Framework computers running Windows just because they don't think Framework is big enough, right?

It's not "Google vs alternative Androids": there are many Android flavours, from Samsung to Sony through Xiaomi and Fairphone. We don't tell Fairphone that they have to be mainstream before they get the right to sell Android phones.

The very reason alternative Androids are (slightly) harder to use is that they are not mainstream, so banks ban them for no reason because they can, and Google is happy to do nothing about it because those are competitors.

We need to regulate that.

> What would you say if your bank banned your Fairphone (that runs Stock Android signed by Google) just because it is a Fairphone, and "a few hundred thousands of users is marginal"? I think even the regulators would directly understand how that is a problem.

We're talking about different operating systems on devices, not the same operating system on different devices. Also, it's not the same as modifying the stock OS that does work with a non-stock OS that doesn't.

The hardware analogy would be closer to having a computer, replacing the GPU, then getting angry that there isn't a driver for the GPU that supports that operating system.

> Microsoft Office shouldn't be allowed to just ban Framework computers running Windows just because they don't think Framework is big enough, right?

Apple doesn't allow their operating systems to run on non-Apple devices. Likewise, Microsoft does have the right to restrict what systems Windows can run on. Any software provider has the right to limit their software's usage.

Conversely, device manufacturers have the right to restrict what operating systems can run on them. E.g. the majority of devices other than desktops and laptops.

Whether or not you should be able to run any software on any hardware is another debate. Even if you support that stance, there is a hard limit to user freedom via government regulations on hardware/software such as any RF transmitting device and cryptographic devices.

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Google Android and iOS are regulated by governments.

With the upcoming age verification requirements made by governments (let’s not debate that here), only the corporate entities that governments can regulate will be allowed.

We can regulate to allow alternative Android OSes, but the alternatives will be ones that follow government regulations.

> Also, it's not the same as modifying the stock OS that does work with a non-stock OS that doesn't.

Again, the non-stock OS works, except for the parts that cannot work because they are being actively blocked. It's not that they are not ready: they are ready, but the mainstream players are blocking them.

> The hardware analogy would be closer to having a computer, replacing the GPU, then getting angry that there isn't a driver for the GPU that supports that operating system.

I disagree. It would be like having a computer, replacing the GPU with another GPU that is 100% compatible, but that doesn't run because the OS checks it and says "it would work, but it is not a GPU I like, so I will block it".

> Conversely, device manufacturers have the right to restrict what operating systems can run on them. E.g. the majority of devices other than desktops and laptops.

My point is that they shouldn't. I am saying that it would be better for society if we regulated that.

> We can regulate to allow alternative Android OSes, but the alternatives will be ones that follow government regulations.

Sure, I agree with that.

> My point is that they shouldn't. I am saying that it would be better for society if we regulated that.

Playing devil's advocate here. Why should software developers be allowed to restrict where/how their software is used, while hardware developers can't restrict where/how their hardware is used?

Yeah it's a good question, and in the end it's arbitrary. I would say:

1. Because e-waste.

2. Because if I buy shoes, I own the shoes. If I buy an electronic device, I own the electronic device. It should not be legal to add a mechanism in my shoes that allows the manufacturer to make them stop working as shoes whenever they want.

Hardware manufacturers don't open source their firmwares because they see it as a competitive advantage (why not, sometimes). But they should allow someone else to write their own firmware. That is, they should provide minimum support for that. Right now it's not that they don't provide minimum support: they actively work on making it technically impossible to do. And the law, through the DMCA and the likes, makes it illegal to reverse engineer.

Not sure what you are trying to say. My point is that technically, we have good alternatives. I am not talking Mobile Linux: we have Android alternatives that are indistinguishable from Stock Android to normal people... except for a few pain points.

We need to fight to address those pain points, in order to have good alternatives. What this article is trying to do is not trying to address those pain points at all, it's trying to change something in the Google flavour of Android. At the end of the day, it will still be the Google flavour of Android.

> why would a manufacturer

That's why I say we need to fight for regulating it. Technically, nothing prevents it. It's just that the manufacturers don't want or don't care. And it's not just manufacturers: banks that ban your OS if it's not "the Android signed by Google" are part of the problem as well, and we need to regulate that.

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