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Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid
(www.neowin.net)
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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they can take down the code today and not much will happen, as the code is mirrored elsewhere.
I think the big problem with this, as far as I know, is that this code needs pretty rapid security updates that require a fairly huge and experienced team of people to both find, understand and implement the security changes. Otherwise it becomes very insecure very quickly. So yeah we can always use 2019 Android, etc. But it would just put you at a huge security risk.
doesn't the same apply to any operating system, including the linux phone distributions? android has security measures that may be breached, but mobile linux has much fewer security measures at all
Yes, it does apply to every operating system - hence, the differentiator becomes whether the operating system has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on dedicated security development. This is why a lot of companies now don't even let you use Android devices for BYOD aside from Google or Samsung, because they're the only companies with the resources to keep their security really up to date.
my point is that if the open source community cannot figure out just maintenance of an android system, there's no chance of creating a real mobile linux distribution, as it would need the aforementioned maintenance and the development of additional features
Obv, they can't take what we have, which is why for now we're OK. The winds are shifting, though. I expect at some point, I expect android will require a deal with the devil from manufacturers. Start actively combatting linux phones.
For now, it's a quick path to privacy, long term, we're going to need friendly hardware