LineageOS, the de-Googled Android ROM that serves as the backbone for pretty much the entire custom Android ROM community, has published an article about what the Android developer verification changes mean for them. I really like the factual tone of their article, especially this part: Critics such as F-Droid, EFF, and “Keep Android Open” point out that this also happens to route every install path through Google-controlled infrastructure, hands Google a kill switch over any app or developer worldwide, and arrives shortly after Google’s antitrust lawsuits. Both things can be true at once: real fraud is a problem and the restriction of developers is a convenient side effect of solving it this way – and we’re not in a position to pretend we know Google’s internal reasoning. We’re just telling you what they’ve said and what it changes; you can weigh the “why” yourself. ↫ Nolen Johnson on the LineageOS website For LineageOS, these new verification measures don’t really mean much, as they don’t affect the project’s work or software. The developer verification infrastructure is a separate application that is part of Google Mobile Services, and LineageOS does not ship GMS nor does it ever intend to. As such, they don’t have to do anything, as this won’t be an issue unless LineageOS users choose to install a GApps package that happens to include the developer verification infrastructure. If Google were to move the developer verification infrastructure into Play Services in the future, LineageOS makes it clear they’ll disable it globally, as they have done with a number of other “annoying Play Services-provided over-the-air update implementations“. There really isn’t much more they can do; the rest is up to users and projects that use LineageOS as their base.
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