AOSP is under the Apache 2.0. Yet, if you ever used a "de-googled" lineageos phone, you probably know that the OS you get is a *far cry* from the commercially supported versions (**extremely** bare-bones, **lots** of missing features, lots of apps that don't work, etc). It used to work a lot better, but as Google integrated more and more apps in their proprietary offering, the FOSS library became *extremely* terse: [Browser (minimal and not production ready)](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Browser2/+/refs/heads/main/README), Camera (think the most basic app there is), Calculator (doesn't support copy pasting anymore AFAICT, I had to install another one), Calendar (same, extremely bare-bones, doesn't work as is, it needs other software), Clock (that one works just fine), Contacts (same), Email, Files (basic but useful), Gallery, Messaging, Music (dead simple player), Phone, Recorder and Launcher3 (the "home app"). Anything else and you will need to side-load f-droid. So much so that commercial implementations such as [/e/OS](https://e.foundation/e-os/) have to use alternative implementations such as [microG](https://microg.org/), and put extensive effort in going around the limitations the hard way (providing their own store, etc). In my experience, they are really buggy, and not a commercially viable alternative to using the Google services. In the end, I use LineageOS as my daily driver on my phone, I have since 2013, but it isn't without sacrifices (and it is terrible enough that I decided to eventually migrate away from smartphones entirely: the alternative of using a non FOSS phone doesn't work for me). One important fact, as I wrote above, is that prior to android 6 (AFAIR), the AOSP offering was a *lot* more consequent. Google likely realized it cost them money (in dev time), but more importantly opportunities (people using degoogled phones isn't exactly in their best commercial interest), so they dropped the support for most apps. For example, the launcher app, launcher3, has been unmaintained in quite a while, and ROM distributors, such as Lineage, provide users with their own. Besides, *Chromium* might be licensed under LGPL or whatever, but **Blink is [clearly licensed under the 3-clause BSD license](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink/+/refs/heads/main/LICENSE)** ¹. So, when you say > Google are themselves bound by LGPL when it comes to Blink. It is incorrect. It is under a 3-clause BSD license, which does NOT give any warranty whatsoever with regards to sharing the source of components. Whenever Google decides to keep it proprietary, to relicense it, to stop updating the public repository, they can. No questions asked. Additionally, the affirmation (emphasis mine): > so long as other browsers exist that use the engine, of *which there are plenty*. Strikes me as also incorrect. The only browsers that matter in this context are Open Source ones, and besides chromium, which is literally Google's product, I only know of Brave. But maybe you know others? --- 1. I "diffed" that license against the 3-clause BSD, and as you can see with the following command, it is a match (don't blindly believe me, check the `sed` command, as you can see, the changes are minimal): ```sh $ _URL_REF="https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause.txt"; \ _URL_CMP="https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/blink/+/refs/heads/main/LICENSE?format=text"; \ _ADDITIONAL_NOTICE="The Chromium Authors can be found at\nhttp://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/AUTHORS" \ _F1="$(mktemp)"; _F2="$(mktemp)"; \ curl -SsL "$_URL_REF" | dos2unix | sed \ -e 's,(c) < ;match=\.+>>,2014 The Chromium Authors,;' \ -e 's,reserved\. ,reserved.\n\n'"$_ADDITIONAL_NOTICE"',;' \ -e 's/<>/Google Inc./;' \ -e 's/<>/\1/;' \ -e 's/<>/\1OWNER\2/;' \ -e 's/"AS IS"/\n&/; s/FOR A/FOR\nA/; s/$reproduce the above$ $copyright notice$/\1\n\2/;' \ -e 's/$its$ $contributors$/\1\n\2/; s/[1-3]\. / * /;' \ | fold -s -w 72 | sed 's,^,// ,; s/ *$//; 12d; 17d; $s/$/\n/' > "$_F1"; \ curl -SsL "$_URL_CMP" | base64 -d > "$_F2"; \ diff -s -u "$_F1" "$_F2"; \ rm "$_F1"; rm "$_F2" Files /tmp/tmp.MQfi4Ya6P4 and /tmp/tmp.PmU8tsfiB0 are identical $ ```

7heo