I received several dozen comments to my previous article, "Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50051530), asking why bother developing mobile Linux when we already have a mobile Linux operating system available with the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). They argued that there is no reason to develop another mobile Linux OS, when we already can use the most popular one available, and it gives us access to millions of apps.
In this blog article, I go through the reasons why the community would struggle to fork AOSP or even add changes to each new AOSP release from Google that empowers users and maintains their freedom like mobile Linux. Here is the central argument:
> Given how Maemo Leste and UBports have struggled to maintain the large codebases developed by Nokia and Canonical, respectively, it is not realistic to expect that the community can fork an enormous project like AOSP with 309 million lines of code. Even if the AOSP fork can be rebased every year on each new AOSP release by Google, it will still be a huge amount of work to keep refactoring the code each year so the AOSP fork respects and empowers the user like mobile Linux does. If Google ever stops releasing AOSP, there is virtually no way that the community will be able to replicate all the code changes that Google is making with each new version of Android, so the community fork will diverge over time from Google’s version. As more and more Android apps become incompatible with the community’s AOSP fork, fewer people will be willing to use it.
Not only do I appreciate Purism's upstream-first policy when developing its software, I also appreciate the fact that its developers take the time to answer people's questions. Purism charges high prices, but I think the company is worth supporting.
Purism's public reputation was blackened by its decision to stop repaying the refunds to people who canceled their Librem 5 pre-orders after Feb. 2020. I think that decision allowed the company to finish developing the Librem 5 phone and start shipping it in Nov. 2020, but you will find a lot of negative comments online about the company (see Reddit's r/Purism). I often point out the positive aspects about the company, because the company gave a lot to the community by developing libadwaita and Phosh, but some people don't see it that way.
In this blog article, I go through the reasons why the community would struggle to fork AOSP or even add changes to each new AOSP release from Google that empowers users and maintains their freedom like mobile Linux. Here is the central argument:
> Given how Maemo Leste and UBports have struggled to maintain the large codebases developed by Nokia and Canonical, respectively, it is not realistic to expect that the community can fork an enormous project like AOSP with 309 million lines of code. Even if the AOSP fork can be rebased every year on each new AOSP release by Google, it will still be a huge amount of work to keep refactoring the code each year so the AOSP fork respects and empowers the user like mobile Linux does. If Google ever stops releasing AOSP, there is virtually no way that the community will be able to replicate all the code changes that Google is making with each new version of Android, so the community fork will diverge over time from Google’s version. As more and more Android apps become incompatible with the community’s AOSP fork, fewer people will be willing to use it.
Purism's public reputation was blackened by its decision to stop repaying the refunds to people who canceled their Librem 5 pre-orders after Feb. 2020. I think that decision allowed the company to finish developing the Librem 5 phone and start shipping it in Nov. 2020, but you will find a lot of negative comments online about the company (see Reddit's r/Purism). I often point out the positive aspects about the company, because the company gave a lot to the community by developing libadwaita and Phosh, but some people don't see it that way.