Rand-Uzer
To me, the OP's tone was factual and neutral, ie., no caps, no urgency words, no exclamations.
"The OP asked in a panicky tone what to do..."
Claiming "The OP asked in a panicky tone..." is pure projection interrupted by your own emotional lens, attributing your own sense of urgency/anxiety to the them and (IMHO) to dramatize your response. Or possibly to (knowingly) justify overreaching "suggestions" in a thread related to a project that has openly documented ongoing hostility and coordinated disinformation campaigns against it. See:
Either way, There’s no textual evidence of panic. Next:
"... if Graphene disappears?"
Technically, it's "... if graphene os project ends", as stated by the OP in both the title and body of the post. The terms "ends" and "disappears" aren't interchangeable. If the project were to end, everything currently public in the repositories would remain publicly accessible, it wouldn’t vanish ("disappear").
You can archive a repository to make it read-only for all users and indicate that it's no longer actively maintained.
i.e., the repositories would still appear visible in read-only mode, archived and marked as a Public archive. Next:
"... you offered no replies that take into account what the OP was actually asking about ..."
I wasn’t replying to the OP! I quoted a specific sub-claim from your comment. Not sure how that wasn’t obvious, but here we are: countering you shifting the focus away from the technical substance to social dynamics, avoiding evidence, and implying that because you were helping the OP, your claims shouldn’t be examined. Well, that’s not how this works.
How about we do this instead - may you please provide a primary source citation for:
"... e/OS flashed onto to them can lock the bootloader and verify eg some Pixels"
Because as far as I can tell (based on their support documentation), "Does /e/OS allow for the bootloader to be locked on phones that support verified boot":
The bootloader can be locked on the following devices:
- Fairphone 4
FP4
- Fairphone 3/3+
FP3
- Teracube 2e
emerald
Note: on at least some devices, /e/OS is signed with publicly available AOSP test keys and they have verified boot largely disabled.
My final two cents on this conversation with you is regarding these point:
"... chose to criticize my reply that actually addressed the OP's concerns"
Again, it was a factual (my) response to a technical assertion made in your reply. It’s not personal... it’s just how technical discussion works when facts/accuracy matters. And:
"... and the operative word is 'suggestions'."
To clarify, your “suggestions” includes a statement “can lock the bootloader and verify,” you’re not just suggesting, you’re making harmful and false claims. So, if we're talking about helping the OP, clarity around the security trade offs of these other OSes is more helpful than uncritically listing them under “alternatives” without noting their substantial deficiencies.
Additionally, see: