microG GmsCore is a FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) framework to allow applications designed for Google Play Services to run on systems, where Play Services is not available. The linux-based open-source mobile operating system Android is not only the most popular mobile operating system in the world, it’s also on the way to becoming a proprietary operating system. How is that? While the core operating system is still released as part of the Android Open Source Project, the majority of core apps are not. It gets worse: More and more libraries and APIs are only available on phones that run various Google apps pre-installed, effectively locking third-party apps to the Google ecosystem. For these reasons Android is described as being a “look but don’t touch” kind of open. At this point, several popular open-source applications already require some of Google’s proprietary libraries to be installed.
Features
- A free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries
- microG is not only used on real devices, but also replaces Google tools in test emulators and is even used in virtual mobile infrastructure
- Library app, providing the functionality required to run apps that use Google Play Services or Google Maps Android API
- Small helper utility to allow apps developed for Google Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM) to use the compatible Google Cloud Messaging service included with GmsCore
- ell-tower-based geolocation to applications that use Google’s network location provider
- System library, providing the same functionality as now deprecated Google Maps API (v1)
Project Samples
