[Magisk] DiamondJohn:
Sorry I didnt address this sooner, but personal PC and Phone issues took precedence. But the points do need to be addressed.

Firstly, I wasn't "discussing" Apple, I was simply correcting a statement that I felt needed to be corrected as part of "point and counterpoint", the basis of a forum. I kept it down to only 1 or 2 sentences. Not a "discussion"

Also. You have been here long enough to know if you were concerned about OT discussions, there is a report button to have it considered/assesed by an assigned mod, not an individual random self appointed user. Posting that it is OT is counter productive/ironic, and OT in itself. You have posted more on Apple than I had.

Further to being "on topic", I also posted the thought that people would build magisk into the ROMs in the future. I was actually a little too cautious. That is already happening. There is currently already a custom kernel for my Pixel 4a, that has magisk baked in. ie again on topic.

I would have to strongly disagree, in that they are not 100% open source, only the parts they are legally bound, by using other open source projects as a base. That does not make their whole project open source. They also have control over their hardware, which puts further protections on them requiring to open source hw related code.

Even looking at their own wording you linked to, claiming their open source "use".

Not all. Its PR. Read it with some thought of what they are actually saying or more importantly trying not to say. "Significant" is not "all" and its their own definition of what they consider "significant", which could be a single line of code (outside of legal requirements). I have yet to see anyone migrate their "open source" to an arm device. I have heard of it go the other way with an "iDroid"

You know your post is not correct. The difference between a userdebug build and a user build is MUCH more than the above. Even at first glance, a user build is odexed while a user debug build is deodexed. There is a lot more to it, but the page clearly made no effort to explain the diff. It looks like an old post possibly from before kitkat.

Also, again, most user here would be running stock manufacturer firmware, which will be a user build, rooted with Magisk. A user build CAN be rooted, and a userdebug build is not rooted out of the box. Its obviously wrong and misleading to anyone who reads this.

Google are not trying to limit customisations, I think their goal is security & stability focused, which unfortunately spills over to restrict our desired customisations. As a general statement, open source would be a better bet for customisations, including side-stepping the things Magisk is trying to achieve, over flying blind with closed source.

When I was trying to catch up on this thread, I skim read a post by @HippoMan questioning the costs of securing rooted phones, when they only make a small percentage of devices in the world and therefore make little financial / security costs. However, thats only because it works so well. If the banks opened up their apps to enable abuse by rooted devices, every organised crime figure would root their phone and steal from the then unprotected banks. Its not a direct comparison of the protection cost to the losses while under protection, its a projection of what the losses would be if there was NO protection. Remove the safe door, the cameras & the armed guards, and I may just walk in and grab a few free dollars. ;)