Thanks for the update. I hope main development branch of Android can stay opensource even after splitting off from GOOGLE.
We've made a lot of progress on porting to Android 16 already. If things hadn't been made harder for us, we would likely be able to publish an experimental release tomorrow and quickly get a release into the Alpha and then Beta channels to start ironing out the bugs in the port.
We have early builds of #GrapheneOS based on Android 16 booting in the emulator. We would usually be working on quickly porting over device support and getting the kernels ready including doing the production kernel builds now. Unfortunately, that will be harder than usual.
Our speculation about this is that a result of Google losing a US antitrust case and likely losing several more soon, they're preparing for Android and Chrome being split into separate companies. If Android gets split off, they want to retain Pixels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/technology/google-search-remedies-hearing.html
Google seems to be in the process of splitting up Android and Pixels along with moving towards treating other Android-based platforms as their competitors instead of their partners. Pixels retain first class alternate OS support with Android 16 firmware so it's not about that.
Discussion
If Android is to be forcibly split from Google due to legal decisions then there is a risk of the new organisation being even more hostile towards this work. They may not even choose to keep it open source, in a worst case.
Even if a fork happens to continue where left off, there could be security shortcomings, the new team may not be committed to security at all. Where to rebase would need to be a heavily thought out decision.
Google provide financial incentive by paying security researchers to uncover vulnerabilities in Android:
Id personally be unsure if such incentives could even be continued. If there's no reward, some people won't do it.
Yes I totally see this risk. On the other side, I am in favor of Google loosing power in the digital world. Since I feel, it can not be good, that they create quasi monopoles with Android, Chrome and their Search engine.
But defnitly big risks of shortcomings go with splitting these companies apart. On the other hand, these costs would not get lower, when the splitting would happen further in the future. Therefore, probably faster is better to create a new stability.