📱 Gaël Duval a créé /e/OS, le projet open source mobile qui nous libère de Google & Apple.

Gaël Duval and the Ethical Mobile OS Revolution

This episode of À La French features an in-depth conversation with Gaël Duval, the pioneering French engineer behind Mandrake Linux (later Mandriva), one of the most successful Linux distributions of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The discussion centers on his current venture, Murena and its operating system /e/OS, which he describes as a "bio-tech" alternative to the dominant mobile ecosystems from Google and Apple. The video retraces his journey from desktop Linux pioneer to mobile privacy advocate, exploring the technical challenges, ethical motivations, and market realities of building an ethical smartphone ecosystem in 2026.

From Mandrake to Murena: A 25-Year Journey

Duval's story in tech began in 1998 with the launch of Mandrake Linux, a distribution he created to make Linux accessible beyond the expert community. The project experienced explosive growth, receiving over 300 emails in just a few days from people worldwide wanting to distribute, sell, or collaborate.

• Mandrake became one of the most widely used Linux distributions globally, peaking at around one in six Linux users worldwide.

• After being ousted from his own company in 2006, a cautionary tale he relates to Steve Jobs' dismissal from Apple, Duval founded Ulteo, a cloud-based OS concept ahead of its time. He describes it as a "global distributed computer" and a precursor to SaaS and cloud platforms.

• Ulteo ran from 2006 until 2014, teaching Duval crucial lessons about timing, technology choices, and the painful but necessary learning through experience.

The Birth of Murena and /e/OS

The inspiration for Murena came after Duval saw Firefox OS running on a phone in 2016. Despite its innovative open-source approach, Firefox OS collapsed because it lacked native app support, a lesson Duval had learned with Mandrake regarding compatibility. After the project was abandoned, Duval recognized a critical gap: the need for a smartphone OS that respects users while maintaining compatibility with the existing Android app ecosystem.

His concept was validated through a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2017-2018, which raised €100,000 (four times its initial goal) and built the foundation of a community around the project. The OS is designed to eliminate the "digital pollution" of constant data harvesting, which he quantifies: an average Android phone sends about 12 MB of personal data to Google daily, and an iPhone sends roughly 6-8 MB.

Technical Architecture: Forking and De-Googling Android

Murena's OS is a fork of LineageOS, which itself is a fork of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Critically, the team removes all Google dependencies and proprietary elements.

• AOSP is only partially open source: Google develops it internally and releases code periodically, while a massive proprietary blob called Google Play Services (GPS) sits on top. These services handle location, push notifications, and other vital APIs.
• Replacing Play Services with MicroG: Murena integrates MicroG, an open-source reimplementation of the principal Google Play Services APIs, developed in collaboration with its creator.
• De-Googling the Base: The team patches AOSP to remove hidden Google calls, such as connectivity checks and DNS/NTP servers, ensuring the OS does not phone home by default.
• Hardware Abstraction: Unlike traditional Linux, AOSP requires specific builds for each device model. Murena compiles the OS for approximately 250 different smartphones, using dedicated servers and vendor-provided board support packages (BSPs).

Privacy Features and the App Ecosystem

Murena's flagship feature is Advanced Privacy, which detects and blocks application trackers—essentially cookies for smartphones—at a granular level. In a 30-day period, the system can block over 160,000 tracker attempts. The OS also allows users to fake their location for specific apps.

The App Lounge is Murena's application store, which aggregates apps from multiple sources, including the Google Play Store, F-Droid, and Progressive Web Apps. The store works by letting users connect their own Google account to pull apps, though the documentation recommends creating a dedicated account for this purpose. Approximately 95-98% of banking apps work on officially sold Murena devices.

Market Positioning and Challenges

Duval positions Murena against the varying degrees of openness on other platforms and within the context of European regulations.

• The Apple and Google duopoly allows limited true choice; the DMA (Digital Markets Act) and DSA (Digital Services Act) have created some openings, though Duval notes these platforms still resist.
• Google's Play Integrity API is a significant challenge, as some applications use it to verify device legitimacy, potentially blocking sideloaded or modified OS builds.
• Firefox OS failed due to its insistence on web-only apps and ignoring the need for native compatibility and high-end devices.

Artificial Intelligence and Future Outlook

On the topic of AI, Duval believes a massive local model on phones is impractical today due to RAM constraints, battery drain, and significant download sizes (15-40 GB). He sees the future in hybrid approaches, where inference is split between the device and the cloud using privacy-preserving techniques like homomorphic encryption or split computing. He advocates for an "ethical AI" rather than resisting the trend itself.

Key Takeaway

Gaël Duval's journey demonstrates that creating a viable ethical technology is a long, iterative process. The success of Mandrake Linux came from making technology accessible, and the vision for Murena builds on this by prioritizing user control and digital hygiene. His strategy of forking Android rather than building from scratch addresses the fundamental barrier of app compatibility. This approach, coupled with a sustainable business model for hardware and cloud services, proves that high-quality, privacy-respecting tech can exist as a practical alternative to the current duopoly.