The GrapheneOS developers are giving me concerns about the future of GrapheneOS

Not as bad a taste as the French government is giving me.

If its do I trust GOS or a confirmed pro chat control governments side of the story, its an easy choice.

While I do find GOS drama a bit annoying, they aren't wrong about the lacking security of many AOSP forks. iode and /e/OS have a history late patches for security vulnerabilities in both the OS (https://web.archive.org/web/20241231003546/https://divestos.org/pages/patch_history) and for the forked apps they bundle with it. Each Android monthly and Chromium patches usually contains dozens High Risk CVEs, so taking a month or 2 is unacceptable. Neither are good for privacy or security.

See a comparison between some Android ROMs here, especially noting the update speed section: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

Two things can simultaneously be true, Daniel can be an individual who engages in very problematic behaviours and GrapheneOS can still be the most-secure and reliable OS out there.

I would prefer my privacy software to be developed by people like this, rather than people who are calm and flexible

Its nutjobs like them that are pushing progress further. State security apparatus doesn't want to work by law. That can be observed worldwide.

French went after Telegram even though it doesn't market itself primarily for security. It was just that some public channels went against their strategic objectives and they felt the need to bruteforce their way.

So GrapheneOS is very right to be nervous and pack their bags before they come knocking at the door.

They're being threatened by the entire French government. Its not drama. This is a very real situation. 

I've accepted for a while that the lead developer is extremely paranoid and could probably genuinely do with healthcare intervention. Like in much open source development I think it isn't helped by overwork and burnout, so I hope that at some point Graphene gets a better governance structure which spreads responsibility and which hopefully will limit the incessant drama that only harms the project. I don't see him being willing to give up his grip, but I can always hope.

I'll continue to use Graphene unless things go entirely off the rails though, as it is a great OS and I don't really think there are many great alternatives.

Such drama has been going on for years. I wouldn't read too much into it.

I wouldn't trust a sane person to do a ultra private phone OS.

You need the paranoia, you need to see the shadows move to do it right.

It mainly makes me pine for linux phones. I think Graphene is the best we have at the moment in the mobile space, but that's far more of a testament to our lack of options than how valuable Graphene is. I have no doubts that we'll eventually kick Graphene to the curb when it stops being useful, so I'm not overly concerned with its future. Worst-case, I think many of us would be just fine on any other AOSP rom for a few extra years until linux phones can come save us all.

GrapheneOS has always had a massive PR problem and crazy leadership unfortunately.

Who benefits?

Who benefits from sowing a narrative around "drama", "accusation", and/or "paranoia". Seriously.

I think given the following circumspect; GrapheneOS's reaction, to move project pieces out of potential hostile environments/jurisdiction, is perfectly reasonable.

1. France's Support for EU “Chat Control”, scanning proposals. France has been one of the governments most supportive of EU‑level proposals that would require scanning of communications and devices for illegal content.

2. The general French framing and approach to cybercrime. As in other EU countries, French authorities are pushing for: Expanded powers to compel cooperation from service providers, and developers. Strong rhetoric against tools that are seen as systematically obstructing investigations.

Unless there’s drama in my updates I don’t particularly care too much about drama.

I also feel concerned about GrapheneOS. Here's why.

I got banned from the GrapheneOS Matrix chat simply for asking a question, it was worded similar to this:

"Hey there! GrapheneOS is cool. I noticed CalyxOS added support for eSIM, are you planning to add that as well?"

The post got deleted, I thought I had not sent it and posted it again. It was deleted again. I asked something along the lines of "Wait, where has my question regading eSIM support and doing the same as CalyxOS gone? Seems to have disappeared, lol".

THAT was also deleted.

Then I posted something along the lines of "Huh, my questions seem to be disappearing".

That was NOT deleted.

Then I asked something like "Anyway, are there plans to add eSIM support just like CalyxOS? :)".

That was ALSO deleted.

I got a private message from a mod saying I was banned.

That was alle the interaction I ever had with the GrapheneOS project. I might have started contributing, but I could not even ask a simple question. It seems that they don't like it if you mention any other custom ROM, I guess.

(This has been a while ago, so I don't remember my precise wording)

I don't care about the community, I just care about the experience of using it.

In my opinion both the evident ego of of the project lead as well as his naivety (tethering the project to Google) are huge red flags despite any assumed technical superiority.

You're not the only one. It's one of my biggest reasons for staying away from it

The source code's just as transparent, and the fundamental concepts and implementations aren't going to vanish at all. If we get a future CarbonOS, so be it, but I doubt that will be in any near future scenario.

some of it is kind of inevitable when you see how far ahead from everyone else they are technically and when people shitting on their work just aren't at their (technical) level it seems to be very draining. and eventually lead to dramas.

GOS is a great project. This is a FUD campaign.

Too be fair (not French but aware of their culture and government) the French are pretty smart, for people and don’t fuck around with serious issues. I bet you if they got access, it wouldn’t be long till issue a long warning before a ban if it were to cause harm to others.

The main reason why I decided not to use it, despite it being an obvious choice. But I'm also that kind of old dude that is not very receptive to drama... this may explain ;)