RedPhone Removed from Google Play Store

[grarpamp]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 2:29 PM, Ted Smith <tedks at riseup.net> wrote:
> There's essentially no way to get around this on Android, which is I
> think why Moxie has abandoned that goal. If a solution exists, the
> people detracting TextSecure for using Google infrastructure should
> build that solution, fork TextSecure, and add it. Code speaks louder
> than words.

At lot of the issue is that currently the OS map on phones looks like:
'Android/green' hardware = Google OS, 'iWhatever/white' hardware = Apple OS.
The solution is to remove the '=' ties between the two. Already we are
seeing porting efforts by BSD and Linux kernels to the ARM
and other hardware commonly found in phones and other less than
PC form factors. And hardware integrators are making more open-friendly
devices where they can, perhaps someday up to and including baseband.
Eventually, other than some binary driver blobs, you'll probably see a full
Unix running on them in 5 years, driven by 'just because it's cool', and to
get out from under the complete hardware to appstore, bottom to top,
stacks we're stuck with today.

With the nexus6 and the droid sdk, you could strip out a big chunk
of useless google stuff and make your own rom. Even without venturing
into unix porting efforts. Guardianproject and some other customization
efforts seem to be doing just that.

'Appstores' are nothing more than the commercial side of things
with all the typical historical lock ins. Eventually opensource
provides alternatives and demand leverage to open up some
cracks as happened with PC's and Microsoft. Those cracks build.