However, if something goes wrong, and they do the wrong thing, we want to be able to send out some kind of command or similar, that will completely lock, block, or wipe the sensitive data.
You're assuming you'll have a network connection and that sensitive data is all in the same place.
Short of remotely unlocking an encrypted disk on every single boot... and even then...
Check your instance, Bob, you're not getting all the data.
I've got nothing to hide.
Who would've thought defunding would lead to this...
Meanwhile the US surveillance state does it as a full-time job.
Not an actual lock-in as they (still) provide tools to cross-compile and the source is (still) available, more like a vendor push-out if you insist.
I can imagine that theirs is safer and more suited for targeted devices. Linux is extremely generalistic and has a ton of cruft.
For targeted devices so is Gentoo. Their edge is having access to proprietary drivers.
But I have never looked at their code or tried to port a Linux app to Android. The #Krita devs might have some insight here.
If it's written in portable C you can use the Android NDK/SDK to cross-compile it for the 4 archs they support. I do it at work.
glibc is key here, it's what most linux distros use. One of Google's vendor-lock moves was to start using their own libc implementation, making it incompatible with everything else.
The only thing linux about android is the kernel, i wouldn't call that a linux distro and it's not even compatible with any others.
XFCE for the aforementioned reasons and not depending on gnome. Xmonad otherwise.
Oh yeah, the foundation for docker and vagrant.
What kind of game?