On Software Projects and their Longevity

I felt compelled to add my two cents after hearing about the end of Divest OS and how I recently migrated my phone to start using Divest OS. This entire project was maintained by one person, Tavi. While I don’t fault him for wanting to change for whatever reason, this does make me wonder about the services I use and what their longevity will be.

➡️ Moving to Divest OS

For a long time I was rocking Calyx OS as the primary OS for my phone, the Pixel 5. I didn’t choose Graphene OS at the time as they had a pretty restrictive messaging that phone which weren’t receiving firmware updates wouldn’t be supported. Calyx OS explicitly supports phone with OS and software updates for ~3 years after they aren’t supported by Google. It appears Graphene OS has changed their policy a bit on this and do support devices for an indeterminate amount of time after Google ends their support for the device.

The biggest problem I had with Calyx OS was the slower software updates. For certain software I was using to access work assets, there were a few times that I had complaints about not having up to date security updates. I was convinced to move to Divest OS from a Techlore discussion post which linked to this comparison chart. Divest OS seemed to fix the issues I was having with software updates and device support. Divest OS uplifts some of the security and privacy changes from Graphene OS and similar project to a OS based on Lineage OS with a de-Googled base.

🤨 Now What?

With Divest OS ending last month and Calyx OS only guaranteeing support till later this year, it looks like I am forced to upgrade. I have also been noting increasing difficulty with using some applications on de-Googled devices. Even with MicroG installed on my current pixel, I was getting the message on some apps that it would fail to run because of a verification check. Interestingly the first app that this appeared on was the Bibibop rewards app since I frequent that restaurant when I need food quick.

App Verification is Needed for Bibibop?



With all of these caveats in mind, I think I’ll get a Pixel 8a and start using Graphene OS. Their sandboxed Google Play seems to fare better than MicroG at passing the verification checks and I’ll have support until 2031 directly from Google and Graphene OS for updates. Most importantly, Google finally started adding wireless charging to the ‘a’ variants with the 7a. I consider wireless charging a must as I’ve seen several people need to replace devices just because the charging port was destroyed in some accident.

😩 Other Software I Should be Concerned with?

With this unexpected hiccup in my plans, I am re-evaluating other software I use for important tasks to see if they might suffer the same fate.

I don’t see much else that would have longevity issues currently. I think the one app which I use that is maintained by a single dev would be Joplin. Even apps like AntennaPod, Breezy Weather, and Tasks.org have multiple maintainers. I would like to more of the services I use to open source alternatives, but I have not had muck luck switching away from Spotify and Magic Earth is the least terrible option for navigation that has all the features I need. Similarly I am forced to use Discord for messaging with the board gaming groups I am part of.

🤔 What About Reckoner?

The keen eyed among you may have noticed that I didn’t mention Reckoner as a single maintainer application I am worried about. Mostly that’s because I am not worried about it for me personally. However, I have thought about how Reckoner might be setup to outlive me. I have done a few actions which set it up to be ongoing as a project. The first is that Reckoner is setup as an organization in Codeberg. Thus I could transfer ownership of the project without forcing people to change the URL for the code. Additionally, I would like to setup either a non-profit or public benefit corp if the project gets big enough for me to form such an entity.

But that is putting the cart before the horse. Reckoner has several additional feature which need to be added before I consider business entities like this. Reckoner still has on the order of 10-20 mobile users (based on download statistics) and probably a comparable number of users on Linux. Based on what I can tell from download statistics, my wife and I are the only users of the iOS and MacOS versions of the app respectively.


← Reckoner Update January 2025