Comment on Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 3 days agoThey’re not so much working to kill custom roms as they are just not giving away their code anymore, going closed source for their own hardware.
rmrf@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Why do you think they’re making this arbitrary change?
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 days ago
Because Google have been wanting to be closed source for years, which is why nearly all their new features since they released the Pixel have been PixelOS exclusive and not in AOSP.
They don’t care about killing custom roms, that’s just a side effect of them going closed source for their Phone.
rmrf@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
What do you think the benefit of closing sourcing their software is if not to stifle competition?
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 days ago
It means they can do way more features without giving away precious IP, and it also just reduces their workload. They don’t need to keep giving out their code for free. It makes their job harder.
AOSP projects are not and never have been a threat to Google. They aren’t trying to stifle them - that’s just a byproduct of not giving away their code anymore. Giving it away gives literally zero benefits to them. It might only save them 0.01%, but that’s a lot money.