Will LineageOS, Graphene and /e/OS be affected by Google’s changes to prevent sideloading? Is UbuntuTouch or Sailfish OS promising in the long term?
I understand that right now we are in a bad place, but in your opinion, what OS do you think people who care about freedom should rally around?
This question shows you do not seem to understand what is actually going on.
It’s not the OS that need to be supported it’s the phone who’s manufecturer isn’t contractually bound by Google to implement developer verification for blocking installation, otherwise they lose access to Google’s proprietary suite including Play Store.
There are already a LOT of existing, established and technological mature OSes that are open source and don’t need to block anyone for installation applications, including Android AOSP itself.
But the problem is you canNOT use a smartphone OS without a smartphone which allows you to run it on, with unlockable bootloader so you can install the desired OS, or is designed to run the desired OS instead of Google’s garbage out of the box.