They secured £1m from Jack Dorsey only a few years ago. Think they are covered for a while, and I don’t see any danger of this, tbh.
At some level, GrapheneOS developers are mostly misunderstood. I’ve found their views to be based on pretty solid security and privacy grounds. It is another thing that such absolutism rubs the pragmatists or realists the wrong way. The arena GrapheneOS operates in is pretty high stakes, anyway, and so there’s bound to be “drama” (like you put it) with or without them.
As someone who’s been on the receiving end of GrapheneOS developers’ criticism and personally know a couple other AOSP developers who have been, I can tell you that this is all reconcilable. From the pattern I’ve observed, I can tell that the differences stem from whether you’re willing to stand the ground just to push an agenda to sell & position your project, or recognize the shortcomings & potential misleading marketing material on the part of your project.
Hm. They are? Their update cadence, as @anon63378639 points out, for GrapheneOS and Vanadium is still as fast as it could be, for example. Software engineering involves a tonne of stuff other than writing code for new features. And the kind of features GrapheneOS wants to implement (app scopes, for instance) aren’t getting any simpler. That said, I do get your point; but from GrapheneOS perspective, they must also defend their choices, community and the project, be it on social media or elsewhere.
For instance, if you ran the GrapheneOS project, could you let such allegations slide?
That said, I agree that pettiness is a waste of everyone’s time, but let’s not forget the roles everyone else plays, in this mud fight, too.
To your point about other ROMs besides GrapheneOS and the upcoming GrapheneOS phone, I have high hopes for iodéOS and SailfishOS (Jolla), especially since /e/OS & Fairphone have been a disappointment.