Bootloading > Sideloading

An insightful take from Hugo Tunius that makes a distinction between sideloading apps and controlling what software runs on "hardware you own":

When Google restricts your ability to install certain applications they aren't constraining what you can do with the hardware you own, they are constraining what you can do using the software they provide with said hardware.

To wit, if you own your iPhone outright, it's completely reasonable to demand that you be able to boot an alternative operating system and, to whatever extent regulatory action against the platform holders is warranted, it should be targeting this layer of the software stack as opposed to mandating how specific features of the operating system ought to function.

Which means the remedy would look a bit like the surprisingly-successful Right to Repair movement:

However, our critique shouldn't be of the restrictions in place in the operating systems they provide – rather, it should focus on the ability to truly run any code we want on hardware we own. In this context this would mean having the ability and documentation to build or install alternative operating systems on this hardware. It should be possible to run Android on an iPhone and manufacturers should be required by law to provide enough technical support and documentation to make the development of new operating systems possible.

A "Right to Run" movement that demanded hardware vendors enable their devices to run unsigned operating systems—and to perhaps provide documentation and device drivers—seems to me like it would stand on far firmer legal and conceptual ground than the knots the Europe Commission has tied itself in trying to enforce the Digital Markets Act.

Of course, pragmatist regulators would point out that approximately abso-fucking-nobody would go to the trouble of running "Linux on the phone," because of how miserable an experience it would be relative to using the default operating system. And the platform holders would justifiably cry foul that criminals and state actors could effectively rootkit people's devices and gain an unbelievable amount of surveillance and control over their lives. But there's no form of freedom that doesn't pose these sorts of risks.

Anyway, interesting idea.