History

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GrapheneOS was founded by Daniel Micay in late 2014. It started as a solo project + incorporating his previous open source privacy/security work. The project initially + created a port of OpenBSD malloc to Android's Bionic libc and a port of the PaX kernel + patches to the kernels for the supported devices. It quickly expanded to having a + large set of homegrown privacy and security improvements, particularly low-level + hardening work on the compiler toolchain and Bionic. Work began on landing code + upstream in AOSP and other upstream projects. A substantial portion of these early + changes were either successfully landed upstream or heavily influenced the upstream + changes which replaced them. The project was able to move very quickly in these days + because there was so much low hanging fruit to address and it wasn't yet trying to + produce a highly robust, production quality OS.

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In late 2015, a company was incorporated which became the primary sponsor of the + project. GrapheneOS was previously known as CopperheadOS while it was sponsored by + this company. The intention was to use the company to build a business around + GrapheneOS selling support, contract work and customized proprietary variants of the + OS. The company was supposed to serve the needs of the open source project, rather + than vice versa. It was explicitly agreed that GrapheneOS would remain + independently owned and controlled by Daniel Micay. This company failed to live up + the promises and is no longer associated in any way with GrapheneOS. The company + ended up holding back the open source project and taking far more from it than was + provided to it.

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In 2018, the company was hijacked by the CEO who attempted to take over the project + through coercion, but they were rebuked. They seized the infrastructure and stole the + donations, but the project successfully moved on without them and has been fully + revived. Since then, they've taken to fraudulently claiming ownership and authorship + of our work, which has no basis in fact. They've tried to retroactively change the + terms of their involvement and rewrite the history of the project. These claims are + easily falsified through the public record and by people involved with the open source + project and the former sponsor. This former sponsor has engaged in a campaign of + misinformation and harassment of contributors to the project. Be aware that they are + actively trying to sabotage GrapheneOS and are engaging in many forms of attacks + against the project, the developers, contributors and supporters. Meanwhile, they + continue profiting from our open source work which they falsely claim as their own + creation.

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After splitting from the former sponsor, the project was rebranded to + AndroidHardening and then to GrapheneOS and it has continued down the original path of + being an independent open source project. It will never again be closely tied to any + particular sponsor or company.

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GrapheneOS now has multiple full-time and part-time developers supported by + donations and multiple companies collaborating with the project.