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> GPL doesn't set a standard time limit for providing the sources, but that doesn't mean they can delay it indefinitely.

I wonder actually what a court would say here and if "doesn't set a time limit" could mean "the source needs to be made available immediately". IANAL.

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A reasonable interpretation would be that they had a previous process that eliminated delivery latency and required no manual manpower for responding, so changing it has been done to induce artificial friction, against the intent of the license.

Not that the intent of a license can be enforced.

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Compliance with the intent of the law is one of the things courts get to decide on.

Someone just needs to be crazy enough to sue (and rich/lucky enough to win)

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In the US? Under the current political and economic circumstances? Against Google's legal department? I wouldn't get my hopes up...
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No, it would be in Canada.
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Well, it is only a matter of luck and internal politics, that Linux kernel hasn't yet been replaced by Zircon on AOSP, which is I guess the only GPL piece that is left from the original 1.0 version.
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> They need to do it in a reasonable amount of time.

If they did that for years within hours and if we look at the tools available today, I would expect that "reasonable" equates to how they provided it prior: fast.

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They did it for many years with 0 delay because they pushed the tags to AOSP. It was moved to Google Drive with a Google Forms setup to request access with manual fulfillment of the request. It was deliberately done to make it into a hassle. The delays are by design through making it a manual system regardless of how much of a delay was intended as part of this change. They could be automatically handling the requests especially from people who have already been given sources for a product. They're deliberately making it take substantially more work on their end to make it into more of a hassle.
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I was involved in one of the communities involved in the Block Sidewalk efforts in Toronto Canada, which prevented Sidewalk Labs from moving forward on a multi-billion dollar project to redevelop a chunk of downtown Toronto.

I was at the Data Power 2017 conference in Ottawa where I shared with people (who would become key Block Sidewalk organizers) the clues I had, that Google was about to bid on the as-yet-unknown land development opportunity, closing later that month.

I had previously been in collaboration with secure ROM developers hitting their first adversarial efforts to thwart use of Android for alt app markets. I know that Google's public story of Android openness (which drove people trusting them to build a city platform) was bullshit, and I made sure many many of the key activists and public servants knew it.

While I can't know exactly how my specific actions affected things, I would guarantee that Google's adversarial positions and failed stewardship have already contributed to them losing real opportunities.

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I understand - you said that before - I was just interpreting to what the GPL means with "reasonable time".

Maybe a lawsuit would change things?

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...hoping a Google Gemma agent can handle those Google Forms and Google Drive for you too!
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This comment has convinced me to switch from iOS to GrapheneOS for my next phone. Thank you for all your hard work.
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Thanks for GrapheneOS, and shame on Google.

> They'll sell far fewer Pixels because of these overall changes.

They don't even sell Pixels internationally. Can't tell you how glad I am you're moving to Motorola. I'm really looking forward to having a Motorola GrapheneOS phone!!

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Are you sure, I got one and I'm in Central Europe.
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Should have said "worldwide". I apologize for the confusion.
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They definitely sell them in the UK too, the OP is just wrong.
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Me too, and I'm in Australia...
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They're from Brazil, Google doesn't sell pixels there
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First of all; thanks for working on GrapheneOS!

2 questions:

  - How hard is it for manufacturers to include the option Android/Graphene just like they have memory and storage options?

  - Could this be a point where GrapheneOS disconnects from Android and become an independent OS?
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i have owned nearly every Google phone since the G1. i will not be purchasing any future devices from them unless they change course.
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What will you purchase instead? It sucks that the modern smartphone OS market is a duopoly.
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Fairphones are easy to unlock, repairable, have a long lifetime and offer a variety of different operating system distributions.
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The Motorola one, when it comes with GrapheneOS!
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Since they're saying "Google phone", not "Android phone", I imagine the next purchase could be a Samsung or such.
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Comments elsewhere in this thread say other major brands are even more locked down.

Edit:

> With One UI 8, Samsung removed the OEM-unlocking capability globally,

> Samsung uses a physical Knox Warranty Bit/e-fuse. Loading unofficial software can permanently trip it.

This seems far worse than google releasing source slowly

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> They'll sell far fewer Pixels because of these overall changes. It pushes GrapheneOS and other projects towards other devices instead. For us, Pixels are being used due to security rather than ease of supporting them. It's now a lot harder to deal with Pixels than it would be for many other devices but they're currently still the most secure option. We're working on changing that and have a lot less reason to contribute to improving Pixels.

Which brand and model is currently best supported by GrapheneOS, if I want to buy an Android device to run GrapheneOS on?

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Only Pixels, most other device are ironically locked down a lot more (not allowing custom keys for verified boot) or lack modern security features (like hardware security modules).

So you'll have to wait for the mentioned Motorola Flagship

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I really cross my fingers your partnership with Motorola will be successful
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Well, it's as you wrote: they are making the source available, albeit in a very inconvenient way, and because there is no time limit specified, they're complying with the letter of the GPL (although not with its spirit), so you can't even realistically sue them. And the number of people who buy new Pixels to immediately install GrapheneOS on them is (no offense) negligible, so I don't think they'll see a sales impact from it...

Which is not to say that I'm on Google's side, this is absolutely a dick move from them, and they wouldn't have done it 20 or even 10 years ago, but today's Google is definitely no longer the "don't be evil" company.

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> they are making the source available

Not in the preferred form for modification expected by the build system and not in a reasonable amount of time. It's artificially delayed with no legitimate reason.

> And the number of people who buy new Pixels to immediately install GrapheneOS on them is (no offense) negligible

Nearly all of our current users bought a device specifically to install GrapheneOS. Our current userbase is around 500k and many of those are users had one or more earlier devices with GrapheneOS. Our userbase is rapidly growing. Look up how many Pixels are actually sold in a year. It's not negligible at all.

There are also many large companies wanting GrapheneOS devices with official support from the OEM.

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Sorry, I stand corrected: Despite owning a Pixel 9 Pro myself, I didn't realize Google's Android phones market share was so tiny (1.1%! according to https://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-manufacturers). In that case, of course, the number of Pixels bought because of GrapheneOS could be a significant fraction.
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That’s 1.1% of ~1.1-1.2B Android phones sold per year. I dont’t know how long the average GrapheneOS user holds on to their device, but if 25% of them per year buy a new phone (rather than upcycling a used one or using their previous phone another year), that would amount to about 1% of Google’s annual sales at best.
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> so you can't even realistically sue them

Genuinely asking: are you a lawyer?

Sounds to me that going from "it works easily and rapidly" to this deserves a big big fine. That's the only thing they understand.

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No, I'm not (a lawyer might recommend to sue, hoping for a big payout, even if the chances of it happening are small?). I looked at the GPL text, and what Google is doing is really pushing the "If you convey a covered work, knowingly relying on a patent license, and the Corresponding Source of the work is not available for anyone to copy, free of charge and under the terms of this License, through a publicly available network server or other readily accessible means", but others have done the same or worse, and so far fines that are really painful for a large company are few and far between...
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The main thing here is it used to work faster and google surely can deliver data fast - but now they intentionally changed procedure to make it slower. That could be fined for going against the spirit of the licence contract.
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