Nice! And they will probably differentiate from the competition by allowing GPL applications and sideloading, and having a total control for your privacy and no tracking, right?
Right?
Best we can do is exclusive Amazon deals related to what you just talked about with your spouse.
In the beginning? Sure. Later? Well, you know, security and all, think of the kids!
And the grannies!
Yeah and maybe Bezos will finally allow his workers to have bathroom breaks
Delivery drivers are free to sideload a fully open bucket and take bathroom breaks in the privacy of their vans.
Check out these great special offers in GPL applications and sideloading!
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Lol
I know there’s sarcasm here, but the article did state an sdk will be available so apps need ported.
Cool. Another OS to avoid.
This is the best description for everyone
Agreed. If it was any company at all except Amazon there would be hope but come on. We’ve all seen what they did to the fire sticks
If it was any company at all except Amazon there would be hope
You won’t be saying that in a couple months when Facebook makes their own announcement.
Yeah fair, not ANY company
They want to harvest the data, without Google’s control, and give none to Google.
That can be easily done with AOSP, to my knowledge there’s no Google stuff in there. Which is exactly what they’re using right now
There still is some google stuff in there, like for example phoning google servers to check internet connectivity among other stuff.
Yes, but those minor traces are easy enough to remove, especially if you don’t care about being “ceritified” by Google (i.e. are not planning to run the Google services).
Exactly.
If my device is compatible, does it automatically have access to Google Play and branding?
No. Access isn’t automatic. Google Play is a service operated by Google. Achieving compatibility is a prerequisite for obtaining access to the Google Play software and branding. After a device is qualified as an Android-compatible device, the device manufacturer should complete the contact form included in licensing Google Mobile Services to seek access to Google Play. We’ll be in contact if we can help you.
https://source.android.com/docs/setup/about/faqs
Google services are entirely missing from Android open source. The Google Play package is what contains the entirety of Google’s services.
Not sure if anyone remembers but back when cyanogenMod was the go-to, early versions had Google services included. Google sent a cease and desist notice and said it was a license violation. You cannot distribute it as part of the OS by default. The next release of cyanogenMod had it removed. Users had to flash the package if they wanted it.
Right but the topic was about google’s data harvesting and what I meant was that you can’t just grab any AOSP distribution if you want to minimize that, you need to pick one that replaces the parts that send data to google. LineageOS for example still phones google for quite a number of services.
As far as “easy to remove” goes, I think that’s kind of debatable if you want to do it in a way that’s sustainable long term considering the effort that goes into e.g. GrapheneOS or DivestOS.
Edit: here is a list of the kind of stuff you need to watch out for if you want to minimize the data sent to google
I was answering under the assumption/the context of of “Amazon wants to release an Android-based OS that doesn’t contact any of Googles services”.
So, when I said “easy enough to remove” that was relative to releasing any commercial OS based on AOSP, as in: this will be one of the smallest tasks involved in this whole venture.
They will need an (at least semi-automated) way to keep up with changes from upstream and still apply their own code-changes on top of that anyway and once that is set up, a small set of 10-ish 3-line patches is not a lot of effort. For an individual getting started and trying to keep that all up to do date individually it’s a bit more of an effort, granted.
The list you linked is very interesting, but I suspect that much of that isn’t in AOSP, my suspicion is that at most the things up to and excluding the Updater even exist in AOSP.
Yes but people are just sideloading GAPPS and escaping their ecosystem. Might even run custom launchers so you can’t experience their ads.
I wonder if it’s going to be as terrible as their Fire OS.
Hahahaha cool, Linux with ads and tracking and all the spyware you could ever want.
So just like android ?
Minus the sandboxing and security improvements, apparently
And no sideloading
A third competitor for Android and iOS would be amazing. But not if it’s Amazon…
https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/
https://pine64.com/product-category/smartphones/pinephone-pro/
There is already something in the works (that you can technically buy right now if you wanted), and it actively respects your freedom. Granted, as with everything in this ecosystem, its a very slow burn, so it’ll be a while before the software is actually good, but it’s already made massive strides from where it started.
I would say wait a bit and take a look at this later, but i do have one friend daily driving one now to some success (this wasn’t possible a year ago).
That would be great, but you can buy a $20 burner from a gas station that’s more powerful than those phones.
The regular version uses the Allwinner A64 chip which retailed for $5 when it was released… Back in 2015.
The Pro version uses the RK3399S, which is a custom lower binned version of the RK3399. Neither chip was made available retail, but the SK3399 was released in 2016 and only otherwise used in low-end Chromebooks and SBCs.
I just read an article about how they’re increasing advertising on their Fire TVs. Rest assured, an Amazon OS is an Advertising OS.
Although, from what I’ve gathered of public opinion online, there’s LOTS of people willing to forgo their privacy in exchange for free shit.
Edit: Oh…
They say they expect Vega to begin shipping on Fire TVs early next year.
And that article https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/after-luring-customers-with-low-prices-amazon-stuffs-fire-tvs-with-ads/
Amazon would sell your DNA for 25 cents if they could.
No difference to Google then
Google would sell it for 20 cents
OOnly if it is Libre Software. We are tired of proprietary rubbish
Android is already free software, and see how far that gets you. The kicker is that you’re tied into their services (with all the data harvesting, targeted advertising and monetisation that that involves).
If you’re tied to their non-free services, then its not free software.
I use GrapheneOS. Not all android is born equal
Yes, because it is permissively open source, not only are these companies free to build what they want - we are entitled to that same right. We therefore created LineageOS and GrapheneOS, and its really great.
There’s also a lot of motivated people getting regular Linux distributions running on mobile devices too, so we have that as well
The author is exited but I’m not. I am not a big fan of corporations taking the free work of FOSS developers and turning it into a proprietary dystopia.
I think that having a strong public domain is good for everyone. For instance properties like Sherlock Holmes really took off once it was in the public domain and people could write spin-offs and whatnot without worry that a copyright lawyer would come along and sue them.
Linux is the same thing, Amazon using the kernel and stuff to build an OS on doesn’t take anything away from anyone else who uses Linux as a desktop or server environment, and in fact can lead to some good pass back, even if it is just that the devices are easier to root. Take a look at the Open-wrt project, where Linksys built their router on top of a Linux kernel and it led to a whole ecosystem of open routers. People went out of their way to buy a WRT-42G just with the intent of rooting it, and Linksys got their money either way.
If it were anyone other than Amazon or Apple.
Speaking of which, isn’t MacOS Linux based these days? How much have they contributed back? (Genuine question)
A quick search confirms that MacOS is based from proprietary BSD UNIX code. It is not compatible with Linux
It’s pretty annoying you replied to someone’s nice, well thought out comment with your own bullshit. Then speculated about something you could have googled in 7 seconds max.
GPLv3 fixes that
Windows Phone: Electric Boogaloo
TL;DR Amazon is building a Linux distro that starts a chromium to run react native apps. Apparently, you need hundreds of people for that.
TBH Amazon has a whole zoo of devices. Even if they are putting a small team of 2 or 3 people in charge for porting this to each device, they might end up with a few hundred people
Apps are going to be written in React Native
So despite the desire for one, Vega won’t be an Android-killer, won’t bring an influx of big name apps to benefit regular Linux distros, nor see Amazon do something crazy cool like create its own Linux tablet UI.
You know how much overhead Electron apps are? Well, here’s React Native! Enjoy all the annoyances of mobile development with the ugliest that is React!
(I kid. Or am I?)
It actually works pretty great, it genuinely does compile to native code pretty well. The js code just drives - everything visual or I/O is native, so it’s faster than you’d think
Apps are going to be written in React Native
Idk if I’m the only person who thinks this, but I feel like React has gotten worse over the last couple of major versions. Not only does the code look a lot messier when you use their new syntax, but the end result seems unreliable. Facebook is barely even usable now. Their history management is laughable, and it’ll drop you out of the site randomly when using the back buttons. I used to think React was really neat, but I’m not a big fan anymore. There’s too much re-engineering for problems that were solved decades ago.
Damn…I’m trying to modernize my personal app’s UI and I thought react was the shit. What is the recommended framework now?
If you like it, then use it. There’s no point in jumping every time some new framework comes out. Most of them don’t last. I have used React off and on since it came out, and I personally don’t like how the syntax has changed. My personal website is React and doesn’t have any browser history issues. Idk what’s up with Facebook history management. I guess they just don’t care very much because they’re too busy trying to gobble up data.
Honestly this. You’ll rebuild it in a few years anyways.
If you absolutely want your project to survive after 15 years…
Either web components using vanilla, or hell, just go jquery. Jquery is impossible to kill.
MorbiusJS
Oh so I won’t be able to sideload streaming APKs onto any new Amazon devices? Guess you can fucking keep your shit hardware then
But that would also mean you can sideload a whole another OS, maybe?
Locked boot loader says otherwise
There are two options here, given that the OS seems to rely heavily on React Native to work: having the streaming APKs converted to React Native apps, or simply use the web browser and PWAs.
This is not what I meant when I said we need more Mobile OS competition…
I literally said this to a friend just two days ago… And yes… Also not what I meant.
Amazon out here thinking “could you imagine how much cheap garbage we could try to sell people if we can harvest literally all of the data directly?”
Amazon can’t make TVs or ereades without filling them to the brim with ads and spyware like the greedy shits they are, I dont want to think about how screwed up their OS would be. As much as I sneer at Microsoft and windows BS as a snobby Linux user I get the impression amazon would be way worse and make Ol Gatey boy say ‘have a little class, would you?’
If it runs Amazon-Linux it won’t take long for someone to build a Wamazon Linux distro with all the features and none of the crap.
If anything, it’ll be a thing where amazon ends up close sourcing the code/parts that they create after forking whatever OS they decide. That, or they’ll just close source the entire codebase 100% before release without any regard or repercussions.
it won’t take long for someone to build a Wamazon Linux distro with all the features and none of the crap.
I don’t know what “features” Amazon would include that aren’t somehow directly tied into their store and ease of shopping…aka “crap.” It’s not like they would build a better video/audio driver or something. It would all just be more…advertising and analytics, probably on a cheap platform as hardware has never been their largest source of income, to include Kindles (AWS is, last I checked). Strip those two out of their build and we have essentially an untouched kernel lol, at least that’s how I see it happening.
LMFAO, can’t wait to see Adbuntu.
But thats just a derivative of Debiad.
