I don't know, but I'm not sure if a government funded fork would be the right move.

Many people have their doubts about using funding for things like that, I wouldn't be opposed to it but Europe has other problems that people might consider more urgent.

I mean, it's the Android Open Source Project. Restricting it would be against the interests of the Free Software/Open Source movements and I believe that's a violation on the principles of the project in my opinion.

I love how many upvotes this simplistic view gets on lemmy. EU passed strongest privacy laws on the planet, leading the way and inspiring many other countries to follow and now it's actually enforcing them by punishing biggest corporations but the narrative on lemmy is still that they are terrible surveillance state. Why? Because they proposed a law that would force some social media sites with history of being used to groom children to do age verification while preserving privacy and encryption. A law that did not pass. The narrative that EU is fighting privacy is so stupid it just has to be propaganda. And we all know who's spreading it.

They care about European markets and ensuring those markets can compete. This is all public day to day infrastructure now. It's about long-term survival.

Theoretically you'll still be able to sideload but only after going through a convoluted process.