Despite using KDE Plasma on my computer I never actually knew they had a mobile specific environment. This is good to know though.
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Will it include the freedom for Richard Stallman to slide into your DMs? 
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That pic of Stallman is unlikely to drive GNU/Linux sales among the rest of the world. Just the opposite, I think. 
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Without a relatively cheap and easily obtainable âlibreâ smartphone hardware, any new âplatformâ will be nothing but niche. I mean where will it work? Not in any chinese or big brand devices. Maybe in the US, you can find the thing that i am talking about, But quality and price, well, i donât know about that. And we definitely donât have any of those in where i live. Even if we had, IMEI restrictions would make it obsolete from the get go. Our government only allows the devices that it allowed to be imported to work on the networks.
This is an article about LineageOS release of Android 16 but you can read in it the implications for the custom roms of Googleâs not releasing the source code to AOSP as it used to before, not publishing all the security patches in a timely manner and not publishing the device tree.
When it comes to the security patches, GrapheneOS has found a âworkaroundâ. They can get hold of these patches via their partnership with an OEM (unknown to pubic as of now) and deliver them as binaries without the code being published in the open before a time interval of few months (3 or 4 months if I remember correctly). This is an opt-in option for those who want to have the latest security patches.
At the moment I am not very hopeful about the deGoogled alternativesâ future, none of them.
If someone is interested/curious about GrapheneOSâ recent âworkaroundâ to deliver security updates in form of âdelayed-open-sourcedâ binaries, a measure taken due to Googleâs recent we-are-not-evil-shennanigans:
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Isnt this initiative a bit too late. The Mobile wars are over. Android won. All other mobile OS, baring iOS, are dead.
Why has this changed occurred? Atleast the custom roms of Google can release their security fixes source code to AOSP? Otherwise they are locking their devices out from AOSP.
What is happening now is that Google has moved all the development of Android to what so far was called the internal branch, that is behind Googleâs closed doors. They have said that they are committed to keep Android open source and release the code to AOSP.
Perhaps this may annswer your question
External developers who enjoy reading or contributing to AOSP will likely be dismayed by this news, as it reduces their insight into Googleâs development efforts. Without a GMS license, contributing to Android OS development becomes more challenging, as the available code will consistently lag behind by weeks or months. This news will also make it more challenging for some developers to keep up with new Android platform changes, as theyâll no longer be able to track changes in AOSP.
You can read more here:
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I was literally pandering to get an old-school phone with a physical keyboard, however, my bank requires me to have their app on the phone. I sincerely doubt it would work on any open-source phone, as already many apps donât work just because I de-googled by Android. Iâd be very happy with an alternative, as long as it is guaranteed not to cut me out of access to my money.
A bit speculative perhaps but thatâs what it is:
As explained in an announcement and interview with lead developer Rob Savoye, and a FAQ on the Librephone website, the goal is not to design a new smartphone operating system or build a new phone.
Instead, the idea is to reverse engineer the stuff that keeps existing operating systems from running completely free and open source software without any closed-source components.
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