There's a lot of things to be said on these topics, it probably is worth trying to keep android "open" here, but there's also a lot of alternative routes to consider and in the long run I think maybe Android is a lost cause (?) to be abandoned

The big alternative is mobile linux or linux mobile, which is akin to desktop linux in the 2000s maybe in lagging behind the competing operating systems. An influx of interest in these operating systems and related hardware might make this discussion more moot (software like: postmarketos, mobian, ubuntu touch, and so on. hardware like: pinephone, raspberry pi used as a phone?, librem phones, and so on.)

Some progress has been made to have android phones run on linux with projects like postmarketos and mobian. Again, more people just focusing on building these projects, especially with the help of LLMs, might make this discussion less necessary.

F-Droid could also pivot a bit to promoting more linux mobile initiatives.

Apple should be called out as much as Google here for already being closed off.

Both platforms (ios and Android) could probably be appealed to through the incentive of "developer openness being good for business" - it probably helps both companies to make more money by making "sideloading" easy. If they both essentially become closed, this opens up a giant incentive for linux mobile to take over. (Maybe that is something we should root for?)

On the hardware side, we need some ios/android alternative phones. I've seen some people post that you can attach cell dongles to raspberry pis and use those as phones (?). Maybe more diy cell phone projects would be nice to see.

I guess the FSF is trying to create a Librephone; initiatives like this are overdue: https://liliputing.com/free-software-foundation-announces-a-...

Not sure what else to add, the writing has been on the wall that Google and Apple are trying to be closed source systems, so generally linux mobile (and/or *BSD mobile, if that's to be a thing in the future) need more attention.

This is probably a good moment to consider the alternatives and the seemingly predictable trajectory of where things are going.