from Hacker News

AOSP project is coming to an end

by kaladin-jasnah on 6/12/25, 5:27 AM with 130 comments

  • by transpute on 6/12/25, 6:43 AM

    Hopefully AOSP Pixel device support is merely delayed, not ended, since Pixel is the only way to get Debian Linux ("Terminal") VM + desktop mode support, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43973395.

    With Apple's ongoing refusal to enable VM/JIT support on iOS and iPad, Google Pixel + GrapheneOS + Debian is a very competitive 2025 offering.

  • by sebtron on 6/12/25, 6:22 AM

    As far as I understand this only concerns Google Pixel devices, and AOSP "coming to an end" is mostly speculation. Is this going to affect other manufacturers too, e.g. the Fairphone[1]?

    [1] https://www.fairphone.com

  • by xnx on 6/12/25, 11:06 AM

    Not true.

    From the Android VPN and GM: "We're seeing some speculation that AOSP is being discontinued. To be clear, AOSP is NOT going away. AOSP was built on the foundation of being an open platform for device implementations, SoC vendors, and instruction set architectures.

    AOSP needs a reference target that is flexible, configurable, and affordable – independent of any particular hardware, including those from Google. For years, developers have been building Cuttlefish (available on GitHub as the reference device for AOSP) and GSI targets from source. We continue to make those available for testing and development purposes."

    https://x.com/seangchau/status/1933029688202703062

  • by ABS on 6/12/25, 9:49 AM

    FWIW: Google says Android Open Source Project not being ‘discontinued’ amidst Pixel change impacting custom ROMs

    https://9to5google.com/2025/06/12/android-open-source-projec...

  • by SlowTao on 6/12/25, 7:41 AM

    While the title is jumping the gun a little, it is only a matter of time until I suspect this will be real. Give it maybe 5 years Max.

    That said, first rule of predictions, don't provide a time frame.

  • by prmoustache on 6/12/25, 7:20 AM

    Correct title would be: Google is locking Google Pixel platform.

  • by pzo on 6/12/25, 6:20 AM

    sad, was thinking to switch from iPhone to pixel 10 in few months once released exactly for the reason that is clean android and gives and escape hatch to use grapheneOS or lineageOS or calysOS. Any other android phone manufacturer that is supported by any of those projects? Most devices supported except pixel devices are few years old.

  • by bubblethink on 6/12/25, 10:20 AM

    I don't get the motivation behind this RedHatification. Hasn't Google already won in the Android space ? Nobody that matters is forking or using AOSP without Google's blessings anyway due to the stranglehold of Google Play Services. Why the sudden dick move ? I see some mention of the impending antitrust cases, but I don't quite see how that fits.

  • by xbmcuser on 6/12/25, 6:43 AM

    Could be they don't want devices to have latest Android before their own latest flagship devices are released. They might release the AOSP in Aug when the new Pixel hardware drops.

  • by raffael_de on 6/12/25, 8:32 AM

    On a tangential:

    I recently found out that using Kagi it is possible to configure RegEx replacements in the search results (this makes it possible to replace "[www.]reddit.com" with "old.reddit.com").

  • by nickburns on 6/12/25, 1:54 PM

  • by DidYaWipe on 6/12/25, 7:13 AM

    Can you even use the Play store on AOSP? I was interested in trying it (I don't use Android currently) but from what I gathered it seemed like a bit of a fraud (on Google's part) because it was fundamentally gimped.

  • by petabyt on 6/12/25, 6:45 AM

    Why do pixel device trees have to be updated through different Android versions? If so the differences would be minor, right?

  • by october8140 on 6/12/25, 7:39 AM

    Android Open Source Project

  • by ranger_danger on 6/12/25, 5:51 AM

    No it's not, they're just not releasing sources until a new version is actually released, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

  • by skeledrew on 6/12/25, 12:46 PM

    Unlikely now, but the writing has been on the wall since "Android Market" became "Google Play Store" and feature after feature has slowly been migrated from AOSP to GMS over the years. The frog continues being brought to boil, and the inevitable will eventually happen.

  • by palata on 6/12/25, 2:22 PM

    Hypothetically, what would happen to the Android SDK and all those developer tools if Google was to go proprietary with AOSP?

    One could fork AOSP, but the Android SDK is not open source, is it?

  • by fithisux on 6/13/25, 9:10 PM

    People became lazy because of the "godsent" involvement of corporates.

    This involvement was not free and not guaranteed because of their profit/power motives.

    I think it is the time for the community to find innovative solutions for the community and to guarantee involvement by the community.

    There are boards out there and x64/arm64 motherboards that can run AOSP.

    Someone has to take the task of co-ordinating the efforts and maintain good documentation on how people can contribute, in a friendly to the community manner. I think it is possible.

  • by seventh12 on 6/12/25, 10:42 AM

    Bad info

  • by zeech on 6/12/25, 6:00 AM

    From https://calyxos.org/news/2025/06/11/android-16-plans/ -

    > Google did not publish any device-specific source code for supported, modern Pixel devices.

    > In previous years, Google released full device trees alongside new Android versions. This allowed developers to build and boot AOSP on Pixel hardware relatively easily.

    > With Android 16, only the platform/framework code has been released. The device trees are missing, at least for now.

    > This means AOSP 16 cannot currently be built or run on any recent Pixel device easily just using official source. It’s unclear whether this is a delay or a policy change. Either way, it seriously disrupts custom ROM development and our porting efforts.