With Android Oreo, Google Is Introducing Linux Kernel Requirements (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson shares a report from BetaNews: As is easy to tell by comparing versions of Android from different handset manufacturers, developers are -- broadly speaking -- free to do whatever they want with Android, but with Oreo, one aspect of this is changing. Google is introducing a new requirement that OEMs must meet certain requirements when choosing the Linux kernel they use. Until now, as pointed out by XDA Developers, OEMs have been free to use whatever Linux kernel they wanted to create their own version of Android. Of course, their builds still had to pass Google's other tests, but the kernel number itself was not an issue. Moving forward, Android devices running Oreo must use at least kernel 3.18, but there are more specific requirements to meet as well. Google explains on the Android Source page: "Android O mandates a minimum kernel version and kernel configuration and checks them both in VTS as well as during an OTA. Android device kernels must enable the kernel .config support along with the option to read the kernel configuration at runtime through procfs."

Comments

Re:Trying to kill Custom Firmwares?

[swillden]

Wouldn't a better solution be Google requiring the bootloader code to all be free and open source, and all phones to be rootable?

I won't go into detail because I'm not sure how much I can actually say, but I'll just point out that Google has to walk a very fine line. Every player in the ecosystem understands Google's role in ensuring compatibility across the ecosystem, so they're willing to accept Google's imposition of the compliance test suite (CTS). Which isn't to say they don't grumble about it and roll their eyes when they think Google is quibbling over minor details that they think don't matter, but they accept.

And I think they'll be willing to go along with the new form of compatibility demanded by Treble and the vendor test suite (VTS). CTS ensures that apps run on all Android devices. VTS aims to ensure that future versions of Android run on all Android devices (up to a point).

But there are real limits. Android is open source, and any of the big players, or a consortium of smaller ones, could fork Android and run with it. If Google steps too far out of the compatibility-enforcement role and starts trying to dictate how OEMs can do business with their customers (the carriers, mostly), the OEMs absolutely will fork Android. You think there are fragmentation problems now? And how much do you think those leading the new fork(s) will care about unlockable bootloaders?

So Google has to step lightly with mandating anything outside of compatibility. And by "step lightly" I pretty much mean "not do it". What we can do is to try to engineer things so it's easier for OEMs to do the right thing, but if they don't want to, or carriers don't want them to, we can't make them.

BTW, one note on your use of the word "rootable". That's the wrong word. Rooting is neither necessary nor sufficient to actually take control of your device. Thoroughgoing application of SELinux is actually making rooting irrelevant. Since root can't violate the SELinux restrictions, it can't really do much anymore anyway. I think we're not too far from making root just another user.

No, what you want is to be able to unlock the bootloader so you can flash custom images to it. Your custom images, of course, can eschew SELinux and make root all-powerful again, if that's what you want (though it's a bad idea, and I strongly recommend against it). But the key is that with the bootloader unlocked you can do whatever you like with the device.