> This isn't true. OEMs have been forbidden from publishing "incompatible forks" of Android. Incompatible being: Not having Google's apps, which are required to pass the CTS.
I'm writing this message on a Fairphone 2 running an incompatible fork of Android that has all Google services removed. This fork is provided by the manufacturer of the phone.
That's not an incompatible fork; that's just AOSP with a few apps preinstalled. Likewise vendors like Samsung are able to add their own interfaces on top of Android, but that wouldn't do for Purism.
I'm not completely sure, but I think it's when you have to actually modify Android code, rather than changing some default settings - i.e. a fork of Android, rather than a distro.
No, I think they're still mainly focused on the 2. The latest announcement was [1]:
> So, we’re excited to announce that nearly three years after the introduction of the Fairphone 2, we’re not releasing a new model just yet. Instead, we’re aiming to extend the life cycle of the phone as much as we can.
I'm writing this message on a Fairphone 2 running an incompatible fork of Android that has all Google services removed. This fork is provided by the manufacturer of the phone.