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Keep Android Open
(keepandroidopen.org)
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this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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Android
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Dumb question: how is this affecting projects like Graphene OS?
Can android just be forked and detached from google?
I am guessing that despite being "open source", the project depends on many binary blobs to interface with the wireless devices ??
Google has been systematically moving stuff out of the open-source part of Android and into proprietary areas for some time now. They're making it harder and harder for anyone to make a working Android OS that isn't full of closed-source Google spyware. For now these projects survive, but Google is clearly hostile to them.
My last straw was when I had location services permission denied to chrome, and then one day discovered that it had turned them back on without notifying me...
Also, every time my apps updated they gave themselves back permissions that I had disabled.
What would it take to start from a clean slate? I mean, a mad lad said about 35 years ago "UNIX expensive. I'm gonna make my own OS"
What are the obstacles for something like this to happen for phones? I assume device drivers, but probably it is much more complicated than that
Yes, device drivers are an issue. Reverse engineering them is a bitch and slows you down, particularly if you want to support a wide range of models and those models keep getting hardware updates.
But that's not all, software ecosystem is another big one. Android and iOS have seen two decades of people developing software for them. In order for them to want to port their software over to your cleanSlateOS, it would have to have a significant user base. And in order for cleanSlateOS to draw that significant user base, it would have to have an attractive suite of apps to run on it. It's a catch-22.
You could, in theory, try to develop emulators or compatibility layers so that Android apps will also run on cleanSlateOS. But that, again, is time-consuming, will never be free of friction, and require you to make compromises with regard to security and privacy (many apps simply don't run properly without Google's main piece of spyware, the Play Services). It will also kind of tie you to Google again - and that was the thing you were trying to get away from in the first place...
I have a GNU/Linux phone I carry in my other pocket. Here are the biggest issues I can see:
Aren't there also issues with Banking Apps and their requirements around security and signing?
access the bank website in the browser?
I've been thinking of carrying two devices, one three devices and one corporate nonsense for unlimited few apps that require it. The corporate one can just be some cheap thing it doesn't matter. Honestly I'll probably use my current phone for that all as long as it still holds up battery charge through my day
FSF has a project called LibrePhone
Broken link?
librephone.fsf.org
GrapheneOS is currently unaffected, at least specifically regarding your freedom to install apps. They've stated this won't affect GrapheneOS.
The main problem as pointed out by floofloof is that a lot of Android development is no longer part of AOSP, but separate proprietary implementations. For example, if you install stock Android, Google has a feature to recognize music playing around you and provide a list to you later. GrapheneOS lacks this feature, because it relies on proprietary code. Same goes for the features to find your device if it's lost, AI stuff, etc.