Join us 2026-01-09T22:00:00Z for This Week in Privacy #35, to catch up on the latest Privacy Guides updates and to discuss trending news in the privacy space.
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Can you discuss the worst case scenario here? What is it or can it be? I’m thinking Google completely stopping doing this and/or becoming closed source. Is this at all in the realm of possibilities? Please reasonably speculate. Thank you!
I’m also quite curious of what would happen if Google ever just quits FOSS.
I guess they’ll sign their own death in some way but maybe not? Not sure how big are the AI/business income and if they can (just like Micron for RAM) just focus on businesses, hence be bullied by the community but not caring enough because still staying afloat.
Very unlikely I think.
At the same time, there is no alternative besides iOS so they could pull that kind of nonsense because it won’t be a thing that people would be able to just switch over at any point.
This will also just makes compliance with other governments/mandates/etc easier when they knock at Google’s door with a given mandate to snoop in (easier when the source code is just closed source).
I guess best would be to check what’s being said on the GOS/maintainers’ forum.
Very unlikely that somebody will achieve to just build something as big and compatible as Android out of thin air tho. Last time I checked, Linux OSes were quite subpar in terms of…everything.
