>Because its existence relies on a good will of Google

AOSP is open source. Anyone can fork it.

>Google will allow only apps from verified developers

This is done by Play Services which is not included in AOSP even.

>Only megacorps will likely be able to support a hard fork for such a large codebase.

The same can be said about any operating system. The scope of an operating system is huge.

> The same can be said about any operating system.

GNU/Linux is already supported without a (single) megacorp. So not all OSes have this problem.

@charcircuit

Sailfish is more like GNU/Linux, that is the OS in this context. For Jolla that is less code to maintain themselves then what Google maintains in Android/Linux. Hard forking Android/Linux looks to be quite a big bite to chew on.

Jolla doesn't need to hard fork AOSP. They can continue to benefit from the billions of dollars Google infests into AOSP and Android.

infests is a nice freudian slip.

When millions of dollars support a feature, that feature beats others- even technically superior ones, on the basis of support and polish.

We’re all playing to the tune of what Google wants because Google has the power.

Imagine a world where theres no Linux because MacOS and Windows paid lip service to people using partially functional derivatives of their OS’s, they’d still push things like liquid ass and windows recall, and those features would be spidered in.

Then people would be saying “don’t use linux, you can just use WinCore” Even though using Wincore is aiding Windows commercial interests over those of the industry as a whole.

If a product meets all of the needs of their users that's a good thing. It is a good thing to reward commercial entities for providing value to their users.

How do you know that the product meets the needs of users? From the usage? Did you hear about duopolies and walled gardens? Did you hear about banks forcing people on the duopoly?

Because if they didn't a competitor could get a foothold by solving those needs.

No, it couldn't, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in

Lock in doesn't work if it doesn't solve a customers problem.

Famously, GNU/Linux solves practically all problems of normies and yet it's usage is 5%. It's not easy for them to install a new OS, and you can't buy preinstalled GNU/Linux in a store.

Most of Linux is written by corporations and that's just a kernel, not a full operating system like ChromeOS which took Google to be able to build.

I updated my comment to indicate GNU/Linux.

That still uses the Linux kernel which uses the work of mega corporations.

Which is not the same as one single, hostile corp.