It’s an absurd reply obviously written by someone who’s never written a single Android application. Probably a secretary who got Claude to write it up for her while she plans Hawaiian shirt Friday. They make it sound as if they have a thorough process of some kind, but the process is almost certainly going to be a few people signing off that it comes from either Google or Apple.
The bank’s IT exec probably read an article or a blog post written by some Google guy spreading FUD. Google decided the non-Google versions of Android needed to die a few years ago when they hired an engineer in from Motorola (Lenovo). Getting rid of these third party high-security OSs has always been a priority among those in charge in mainland china.
The common issue is larger companies are staffed almost exclusively by mid-wit trendies who don’t really know much about anything they manage on a detailed level. The better people learn quickly they need to go to a smaller companies or start their own or maybe go become a Park Ranger. This applies to Google just as much to banks with stupid names that aren’t real words. When the founders leave, that’s usually the last flight out of a formerly good company before the bureaucrats take power.
Graphene will likely ignore the EU, as will most Linux distros having no EU connections. Graphene’s very picky about hardware, which is why they stick with the Pixel, but anyone with the cash can pay an OEM to make a phone to their specs and install whatever Android or Linux mobile variant they want, then make 1000 or 10,000 of them to sell.
These kinds of laws will not succeed. People will choose to ignore them, like they ignore other laws, like they litter, jaywalk, drive 10 over the limit, run stop signs, etc. It will succeed in driving up prices on products from those companies who choose to comply, because they will be forced to hire in a lot more lawyers and compliance staff. These laws create lots of full time jobs in tech companies that few realize even exist. They have meetings every week, attend conferences, constantly send letters back and forth to each other. Then people wonder why their Gamepass fees went up $10 (its not actually the games)
I don’t actually believe Linux desktop user marketshare is what’s being recorded in their metrics. It’s more likely local AI, possibly home users using Linux computers that run local AI, but it’s web scrapes not what’s typically defined as home user activity. There’s no real way to measure the desktop Linux market because there isn’t a centralized licensing tracker except for the small percentage using paid options from Redhat, SuSE, or Canonical.
I don’t think it’s critical to knowing of Linux is more relevant than it was 10 years ago. It certainly is, and we know anecdotally that many more people are using it outside of servers and a small number of corporate workstations. The rise of local AI and Steam OS (which has a Linux desktop mode) is causing most of it
You might check out coreboot and PCs that support it https://www.coreboot.org/end_users.html
It’s a totalitarian move aimed only at establishing a police state for the average people. It will not affect the criminals or terrorists in the least. They’ve managed to figure out how to operate without cell phone tracking apparently. Seems the gadgetcops need to figure out how to do real police work again. I’m sure a few guys in their 60s-80s might remember how it was done before the gadgets showed up