There is an initiative by the European Commission on its strategy for open digital ecosystems in which it is asking for comments from citizens. We can take advantage of this to comment on the need to promote European and free mobile systems such as SailfishOS (Sailfish is partially free, but if Jolla continues with its code release strategy, it could become fully free).
The European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy will set out:
A strategic approach to the open source sector in the EU that addresses the importance of open source as a crucial contribution to EU technological sovereignty, security and competitiveness
A strategic and operational framework to strengthen the use, development and reuse of open digital assets within the Commission, building on the results achieved under the 2020-2023 Commission Open Source Software Strategy.
I do not find it too unreasonable that they would force some kind of an open platform (at least FOSS APKs / FDroid) for governmental apps and maybe (maybe) even some bank apps of big banks, so I am more sceptical on that one.
I know this is gonna be unpopular among the purists here, but just ensuring that the Android app works is fine.
Just make it into a law that bank and government apps cannot force a dependency on third party services and youāre done because they now have to ensure their apps work without GSF.
SteamOS went the smart way - just make sure you can run what the majority uses and develops, donāt try to force everyone to develop for your niche platform.
Interesting. Although skeptical about the outcome, Iāll try to contribute.
I think that:
any āsmartā device sold in EU (from vacuum cleaners to inverters and even cars) relying on remote services must open the API of those services and allow free of charge swapping of the service provider by the device owner (allow for 3rd pty or self hosted equivalents ).
any mandatory services in EU (online ID, banking, etc) should have open APIs. If specific client side security hardware is needed (ex TPUs and so), then that HW must have public, OS agnostic APIs
any āsmartā device sold in EU should allow free firmware replacement with 3rd pty equivalents . That pulls public, OS independent, APIs for interacting with the underlying HW. I think this should also go from vacuum cleaners to agriculture tractors. Besides opening for competition, this allows for prolonging devices lifespan beyond what its manufacturer planned. And I hope this stops the current trend of selling actual , physical hardware only usable with a fee (ie: seat heating or directional lights in cars ).
I think the reference is AOSP. If google hamstrings AOSP, as it appears to be moving to do, that would highlight the meaning of vendor lock in the android context. Itās already āde-factoā lock in where the Play store is concerned, or?
Just like you can run Windows binaries on Linux using WINE. Sure.
But that doesnāt mean they are trustworthy.
One reason, as poetaster alluded to, is the question of the (future) state of AOSP.
The other is the question of the application itself when there is no source code available.
The android build system I wouldnāt trust further than I can throw it.
Last but not least are the protocols.
When youāre so happy running Android applications, fine. Not everbody is, though - for various reasons, none of which has to do with being āa puristā.
Not a single thing you mention is an inherent property of the apk format. And yes, it has everything to do with being purists.
You can either yell at clouds that things should be better or you can be realistic. Thereās a reason Jolla is the only daily drivable alternative OS and that reason is AAS.
It would be equally daily drivable if all the banks, gov stuff and transport worked through he browser (assuming our browser wasnāt useless in the first place).
Thatās true, but weāre not there and thereās no will to make it different. Iām just being realistic - mandating no Google validation of official apps (which is pretty idiotic to begin with - having a commercial company from the US validating you can use your EU app) is what can be mandated easily(ish).
Thatās a single quarter work (two at most), switching to a whole new app with a different security model and a different language (which your team might not be familiar with and you might lose people who donāt want to develop in it) is a whole new beast.
Iāve worked with banks as a vendor and they donāt work like that and they would simply say no.
EU is the only institution that can push for policies like that. The people (most) donāt care -they use android and ios- and wont ask for anything like that. They donāt even understand the problems this duopoly causes. -and its not even a EU vs US problem.
Iām not sure I know what you mean. Before there was Android, before there was IOs, there was another ecosystem entirely. In 20 years, no signs of the old (well, excpet us but all sorts of reasons to believe the monopolies may be in for really stormy weather. If not outright war.
As for ādaily driverā that is not a one glove fits all hands metric. I donāt use android foo on my ādailyā at all. I have an android (volla) phone with google foo which I use once or twice a month.
True, I maybe under-explained a bit, I meant for a general tech-savvy-but-not-nerd person which IMO is currently the largest audience Jolla can hope to pull.
Those people are fine if some things break, but they need a way to fix it. Most people like having a banking app in their phone. They might be used to their favourite navigation app, or some other software (for example Immich in my case) and so on.
but all sorts of reasons to believe the monopolies may be in for really stormy weather. If not outright war.