• skuzz
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    5 months ago

    Google’s not been very open source for a long time.

    Android continues to remove open source from their OS over the years for proprietary binaries. They are also continuing to abstract away openness. Stock file managers can’t see inside the /sdcard/Android folder anymore. Only via USB on a computer. USB on a computer won’t copy some kinds of files into that part of the filesystem. ADB still allows you, for now.

    If you try to go to the Android File Transfer app page, it now redirects to Quick Share.

    Low level stuff continues to be taken away from the OS. Samsung Android phones in the US aren’t even allowed to turn off 5G on some carriers. All Android phones are having carrier select and network mode menus neutered in the US. Apple has more flexibility there, hilariously.

    Fun fact: Back when it all kicked off, iPhone had a pretty big open source component in the underlying Mach microkernel and supporting software and there was a whole slew of OSS on their platform.