Mastodawn

Google announced that as of September 2026, it will no longer be possible to develop apps for the Android platform without first registering centrally with Google. This registration will involve:

- Paying a fee to Google
- Agreeing to Google’s Terms and Conditions
- Providing government identification
- Uploading evidence of the developer’s private signing key
- Listing all current and future application identifiers

https://keepandroidopen.org/

#android #opensource #keepandroidopen

Keep Android Open

Advocating for Android as a free, open platform for everyone to build apps on.

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Michel Patrice Feb 22

@jbz

Getting a monopoly to be less shitty is nice, but wouldn't building an alternative be much better?

There is already the french /e/ OS that exists. I wish european countries would start building on it and improving it. Thereby breaking the shitty monopoly.

Europe seems to have suddenly awaken and started actively looking for alternatives to american big tech.

And a Google free phone would be a thing.

@gael #monopoly #GAFAM #Google #Android

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Antti Feb 23

@MichelPatrice @jbz @gael There is already true European alternative, #SailfishOS. Unfortunately /e/OS isn't true alternative as it is just android fork. It can mitigate the Google data mining and offer short term user privacy but won't bring European tech independence. Supporting #Jolla can lead to much brighter future IMO as phones with Sailfish are already google free phones.

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Michel Patrice Feb 23

@Antti98 @jbz @gael

Android is based on Linux and was a free and open source software. It has been highjacked.

Being free open source, it belongs to humanity. It can be european if europeans work on it. It can be japanese if Japan works on it.

Is /e/ completely freed from Google dependency? Probably not, but it is definetely something to work on.

(This is a non-tech person’s somment.)

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Gaël Duval - /e/OS & Murena Feb 23

@MichelPatrice @Antti98 @jbz that is exactly how a strategy can work and end up into a hard and fully independent fork. If you look at it closely you will notice that it is on its way.

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Antti

@gael @MichelPatrice @jbz If Murena is able to make e/OS completely independent from android, I salute you! Then you would be truly own operating system, which would be great :) But if it requires native apps outside of "standard" android I think there could be challenges in the ecosystem. On other hand if there isn't native app builds, then reliance with Google stays on. But time will tell, I definitely will keep my eyes open with /e/OS development