Okay, so welcome to this Foss on Mobile Devroom.
It's great to see the room fill up so quickly, although I know that's kind of annoying
for people who want to get in, but hey, everything is recorded.
I'm just an important member before I jump into their presentation proper, but just to
say that we're combining a range of open source software on mobile, so we are doing
Linux on mobile, we're doing AUSP, Android open source, and we're also doing a bunch of
stuff about ecosystem and apps and all that kind of stuff.
So this is everything you could ever want to know about Foss on mobile.
I haven't said that then, I'm going to kick off with the first presentation.
So just to reiterate what I've just said in actual facts, this room is about Foss on
mobile and Linux-based platforms.
There are maybe other operating systems that are not Linux-based, but hey, we don't
do them.
So we're talking about all the things I've just mentioned, AUSP, custom ROMs, Linux mobile
operating systems, free apps, free app stores, and also open source hardware and kernel
enablement and all that kind of stuff.
We like the idea of bringing everybody together from this range of disciplines, which
have a lot of commonality, so we're looking for some, we're looking for some cross-pollination
colonization here.
So this presentation actually has three presenters, so I'm Chris Simmons.
We also have David, you guys want to come on because you're on an element and remain lurking
over their own corner.
They will come on their appropriate times and just in case you can't remember what
it looked like, this is what we all looked like.
So I'm going to kick off with a quick chat about AUSP, the Android open source project.
So I just want to emphasize a lot of people don't think of Android as being open source,
but it kind of is, though the OS in AUSP is open source.
And it's what every Android device is based on.
The interesting thing then is that AUSP is used by thousands, tens of thousands have
developed.
So there is a big community of people using AUSP, developing it, porting it, modifying
it.
A lot of them are working in big companies, so phones, cars, TVs, all the big names are
using Android.
There's also the more direct community that we're addressing here today, so people working
on custom ROMs, free apps, and so on.
And there's also kind of the community I kind of started out with, actually, is the
community of people developing small scale what we used to call embedded Android products.
So you find Android in all kinds of interesting things.
The bottom there it says, gym equipment, so Palatone use Android in there, in their machines,
apparently, point of sale, digital advertising, tons and tons of stuff.
So Android is everywhere.
So I haven't said the scene, what about Android and Google?
So the good news is, Google found the development of AUSP.
Ooh, so that's a good thing.
The bad news is that they have complete control of the repositories.
So if you want to upstream a patch to AUSP, you have to do it through Garrett, and you
need to do it through the Android dev team, and as kind of tricky.
So it's fair to say, I think, that Google don't encourage patches from outside of the
other company.
And indeed, this actually is documented.
And you Rubin, who is the founder of Android, has his quote, he says, open source is different
from a community driven project.
We're light on community.
And that pretty much sums it up.
So Palatone, what we're here for is to put the community back into AUSP, and we'll come
back to that again in a couple of slides of time.
I just want to document a couple of things that have been happening with AUSP over the last
year.
So it's fair to say that from a community aspect, 2025 was not a good year for AUSP.
So I've highlighted a few things, and remain will also go into a couple of things as well.
But the first thing that happened back in March, no more main branch.
So there used to be a main branch for AUSP, and that had updates pushed to it throughout
the year.
And in particular, there were a bunch of projects that were AUSP first, in other words,
they were developed on the main branch of AUSP.
So Bionic, Bluetooth, cuttlefish, and a bunch of others.
Unfortunately, that is all gone now.
All of that is done now on the private branch.
And it is then pushed to the public branches from time to time.
We'll talk about exactly what times in the next slide.
So that was a bit of a blow.
June, when Android 16 was released, we noticed that the support for pixel devices was missing.
So if you look in the devices directory of AUSP now, all the pixel stuff has gone, there
was really just the emulators, cuttlefish and goldfish, and some dev boards, so the K-dass
VIM, VIII, and a couple of corecom boards supported by Lenovo are still there.
Apart from that, it's all gone.
As a real pain, because even if you weren't developing directly to run on pixel, it was
really nice to have the configuration that's a Google account with to see this is how
you should configure Android for a real device.
So we no longer have that.
And then in July and in January, they clarified a little bit as to exactly when they're
going to be pushing their internal branches to the public service.
So initially they said it will be on every QPR, every quarterly platform release.
They've rolled back a little bit on that.
So at the start of this year, there's a banner appeared on all of the source to Android.com
pages, which says effective in 2026.
We will publish the source code to AUSP in QT and Q4, Q2 and Q4 only, in other words, with a major
release and then with the QPR-2 release.
So we only get two code drops per year now.
That's a little bit sad.
So this has taken a play, and we're going to come to the end of the presentation.
We have some ideas as what we can do to come together as a community, and we can work
with Google, but ultimately the basis that we're working on is the AUSP that we get from
Google.
OK, so this is what I want to say for the moment.
I'm going to hand over now to remain, because you write microphones over, ignore the
thing noise.
We'll get better of this.
Thank you, Chris.
As Chris said, 2025 was not a good year for AUSP, and Android in general, in terms of open source
I mean, and no less focus a bit more on application side.
One of the major announcements of Google, the past year, was the Google developer registration
or the silo-ding topic, or whatever we call it, so today, I mean until now you were a
developer, anyone to develop an application, and to share it, or internet, and anyone
was about to install, more and more with some warnings, but you were about to install, and over
the past year, Google announced that from now, in order to install it easily, as a normal
developer, you will have to show your identity to Google, so you'll be kind of a proof
by Google to share your ATK over Android, so that's a measure shift, and kind of a bit
against open source, and well, you will still be able to share an APK freely with our
disregistration, but you will have even more warning than before, et cetera, so it's not
so much, I will say a problem for custom homes, because custom on developer are probably
can get rid of that, but if you want your application to be used by people on Google on
Android, then it will become a problem. I think it's average, we made a very good blog post
about this topic that you can find on the internet. The other topic, which is important
about Android application in 2025, was the raise of plain integrity, plain integrity,
as Chris said, AOSP is open source, but as you may know, to run your application, most of
them rely on some Google components, and one of them is plain integrity, so plain integrity,
the tool, as you case, at a low-app developer, to ensure the app will run only on a proved
device by Google, so it works well for Google devices for sure, but it works a bit less
well when it comes to run your application on a custom room. This is a problem, for example,
of banking gap or some AI application, which are checking that you are running on an official
Google Android. More and more developer are using plain integrity, and it becomes challenging
for custom ROM to get those app working without all the Google services packages, which
means that even if AOSP is open source, if you want to run all your application, becomes
more and more difficult for run developer to claim that you are compatible with all applications.
So that's one of the challenge, and well, at least at Mirina, the company I'm working with,
we are working on this, and many others are working on this, but that's a challenge from last year.
Well, time is ring, so other data for the major, I will say, custom ROM or AOSP based OS,
the order is not the popularity of each, it's just in the alphabetical order. There are many
others, I've put here what I feel out of both popular, there are police ROMs also,
there are really many others, that's the most popular on the internet, and well, most of them
over the past year moved to other with the 16, that was one of the major shift over the last year,
and bring many, many other features. The good news, I spoke a bit about venues,
the good news is we have way more, I will say, devices, and hardware which are compatible with
non-google Android, which are released on the market. So again, I put the list here, probably
there are probably many others, but at least the old brand are selling Google Android devices
without Google, which is I think a good thing for open source, most of them are open source,
not always, but most of them are, and at least we're not relying on Google, so that's what
we can refer to, and that's only what was announced last year, and probably more to come this year.
What's cooking for 26 now? We spoke about restriction from Google, they are also coming from
other manufacturer, at first Samsung announced that they will kill, but they're unlocking,
so but what they're unlocking is the features that allow you to unlock your device and install
whatever you want. Samsung has announced that they mail my kill this feature, as well as other
manufacturer did in the past, I think Xiaomi did a long ago. So well, for sure, for the community,
it means that you will not be able to develop anymore and to install. There are always way to
access such stuff, but it's way more complicated. Another challenge for the ecosystem is the 2G 3G
shutdown. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but most of the carrier will shut down such network
in the next years. The point is if your device is not compatible today with the OLT, the voice
of LTE, the voice of a 4G or 5G, you will not be able to pass a call anymore. So it means that for
community developers who want to bring AOSP on the device, they have to ensure that
the LTE is working otherwise in a couple of years, you will have an open source device, but you will not
be able to make any call. So that's a challenge. It's well too important now, but for very
old device that we are still supporting, I'm thinking for a good up all about some all some
some devices at the LTE or AOSP. It will become a challenge in a broken.
And that's where I will probably transition to David with the more upper hour and maybe
the line driver's support, which is growing. And yes, I will switch to David for the next slide.
Again, transition, sorry about the sound.
Great, thank you very much for me. Thank you, Chris. Some of these challenges that we see for
AOSP are also challenges for other Linux distributions, which I'm going to talk a little bit now.
So so far we've talked, like, broadly speaking about AOSP, but although AOSP is,
by far the most popular Linux distribution, I think it's probably fair to say,
it is not the only Linux distribution that runs on mobile phones. And there are a bunch of others
that you might call more, you might call mainline or mainline-esque type Linux that run on mobile
phones. And that's what I'm going to talk about to the last section of this talk.
And there are lots of districts, as with desktop Linux, there are lots of different distributions,
desktop or laptop Linux. There are lots of distributions that run on mobile phones.
It's a similar source of ecosystem in that it's there are all these different organizations that
run them. And this slide captures some of those organizations. So on the left side, you can see
a mixture of distributions. Some of you might be running distributions that are not in this list.
Please give a shout out at the end of the questions. If you'd like to do that,
but this is definitely some of them. And on the right hand side, there is a mixture between the
distributions and the shells that you can run on the user interfaces. So the user interfaces might be
things like Knome Shell Fosh, which are both Knome Shell and Fosh are known based user interfaces,
or for example, Plasma Mobile, which is a KDE variant. And some of these distributions will work with
some of the user interfaces. But some of the distributions essentially have their own user
interface, which is TIE2, or semi-TIE2, the distribution, or encouraged for use. For example,
with a BIN2, the user interface would be the mirroring for example. So I'm going to go through
just for the last bit, some of these distributions are given up data on the sorts of things
that's been happening with them over the last 12 months. So first up is Joy-Dion. Joy-Dion is a
version of, as a name suggests, a version of Linux that is a mixture of both Android and
Debian. So the way that works is that it is a GNOME-based Linux at the top layer. The user
space is like, it's just like Linux. And the underlying parts are based on the Android drivers.
So it benefits from using the Android drivers, using lip hybrid or helium, which means that it
gets potentially better platform support, better support on the devices, but you still get the user
experience of a Linux-based system on top. And over the last 12 months, the project has been
doing well. It's had several releases. The latest one was in September, was one A1,
based on Debian 4K, and GNOME 48. So it's been having a successful development year. They've introduced
things like captive portal detection for when you're using Wi-Fi on a close network.
M3 lock screen controls for controlling audio multimedia apps from the lock screen
phone, which is a genuine quality of life improvement for end users, at least that's certainly my
experience. And also updating way-droid, which allows the Android apps to run within the Linux environment
to Android 13. So a good year for joining. I'm doing these in alphabetical order, but actually
there's a bit of a link here. FuryLab is an organization that was set up to cell phones with Linux
installed on them. And their version of Linux is called Furious, Furious, Furious. It's kind of neat.
And their objective was to, they tie the hardware with the software. So you buy the hardware
and you get the operating system with it. And their objective was to make one release per month during
last 12 months. And there was your phone, the FLX-1 was released. Maybe about 18 months ago,
it was a big deal at Boston last year, but it's a relatively new thing. And it has they have
broadly speaking achieved to get a release out every month. So really, a really good result for Furious
and Furry Labs. They've had some hardware issues. As I understand, at the FLX-1, they can no longer
they can no longer source, so they are moving to the FLX-S, the slim version, which is slightly
different hardware design. I've just had to look at it downstairs. They have a standard UD2. So if you
want to have a look, don't do it today, because you're in here today, tomorrow, go to the stand
and have a look at the Furious, the Furry Labs device. It's really nice. It has kill switches on the side,
which is an upgrade from the original version, and it has more RAM, but it also has some
aspects, which are not quite as good as the FLX-1. The screen is not quite as good, for example.
So it's more recycled than an upgrade, but it's a really nice device and worth having a look at.
Their user interface is based on Foch, which was the GNOME-based user interface that was developed
by Purism and is a community effort and it's being developed quite extensively. So that's Furry Labs.
Next up is Mobion. So Mobion is a dubion variant, so like-droidion, but it is a mainline-linx variant.
So that means that it is designed, the changes that are required to get it running on the
devices are pushed upstream to be used in the main-linx kernel. They do also have some releases that
run on lipide-riss and hellium as well, but they've also had multiple releases during the
year, so they recently moved to Mobion Tricksie in October that upgraded to Foch 46 and Plasma
Mobile 63, so the product is bubbling along nicely and progressing. Hardware support, there are
a few devices which it runs on, which are officially supported. If you want to give it a try, you can
download it, and we do have some Mobion variants on the Linux or Mobile stand at UD2 again tomorrow,
not today, and have a look at those, if you want to give them a try.
Postmark it, OS is another Linux variant, which has had a really successful year this year,
it's doing really successfully, and it is a mainline-linx variant again that has a biannual release,
so it has two releases a year, the most recent one was in December, and they've had a really
big year, they switched, it's now plain Linux variant, they switched to using system D this year,
it was a really big shift, they've had a lot of really strong development, they have an improved
Firefox and Thunderbird user interface that was released over the last 12 months, and they've also
managed to secure funding from NLNet for their backhand infrastructure, so a really successful,
and I think as it says there, they've also got a new code of conduct team introduced, so lots of
really good stuff. Okay, just a couple more to go, self-push OS, which is the system developed by
Yollas, it is a development of Mimo, the old N900 devices, has had a very successful year with a
you may be aware of crowdfunded device that they are putting together to call the TID, the TID,
so the DIT phone, the do it together phone, and they have five releases during the last year,
including improvements to app support, which is their ability to run Android on the device,
they've introduced wireguards, VPN support, landscape views on more of the official apps,
and things like all blocking in a whole bunch of bug fixes as well, so lots of changes.
And then finally, I've been to touch, so this is the development of the original
Ubuntu touch released by Canonical, which can be called dropped, but the community picked up,
and it has been developing very successfully, it's based on the Lumeree user interface,
which you may be familiar with, as you may be familiar with it, when using the term Unity,
so it was the original Unity interface that has become this, and they have been adding
voltage support to various devices, we've heard about the 2D3D switch-off, and the voltage support
is aimed to provide a solution to that, and they've also had other improvements like three
theme improvements, improved personal data encryption and things like that.
So all these projects, you can see there's a whole band of them, they're all charging along really
well and developing very successfully. There are a whole load of others, which I'm not going to
talk about, but which you can have a look at if you want too many to speak of, but maybe it's all
Linux, so maybe you want to develop your own version or something for it, and you'll come back
to the DevRum next year and do that, and we would welcome that very, very much.
All right, so that's kind of landscape of mobile in it, so I'm just going to hand back
now over to remain for, sorry, to Chris to wrap things up, I could pump.
If I can get this off, there we go.
Okay, so just to finish off then on what's, hopefully, some of the positive notes.
So the thing we have here at particular FOS then, is a community.
So if the corporates are not doing everything, then we can come together and we can make things happen.
So three bullet points, share and coordinate, promote community efforts, pull resources.
That is the essence of FOS then. And then finally,
particularly what we're doing about creating communities, so I wanted to do a quick shout out for
ASP Devs, which we are putting together a community for ASP developers, hence the name.
There's also the Meetup, the ASP and the ASM Meetup that I run every two months.
There's the Keep Android Open project page, which is, there's what it says.
It is lobbying people to keep Android open source.
And then Linux and Mobile, LinMob is a generic project, which aims to pull a lot of resource for all of the
Linux-based mobile devices that David was just talking about. So take a picture of this, click on those links,
this is how we create community. We're kind of at a time, I think if anybody has questions and I'm
sure there's lots of questions raised from all of that, we're going to have to take this either
offline in the corridor track or, of course, you can always put post questions on the chat for
the FOS and Mobile Devs. But thank you very much and that's me down for the moment.