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May this be the way open source arrives to the masses? As a solution against planned obsolescence? If people gets used to giving their old devices a second lif

May this be the way open source arrives to the masses? As a solution against planned obsolescence? If people gets used to giving their old devices a second life by lending their old devices to a fellow geek, to install this "weird app" that allows them to keep using it, that could become huge exposure for FLOSS operating systems.

bacongobbler 9y ago
It's the exact same story with Windows and Linux. Many old PCs running Windows XP that cannot handle Windows 7's minimum requirements are being wiped by geeks and are installing Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, or some other distro onto these devices. As long as Linux, postmarketOS or LineageOS are the "weird apps" geeks install for their friends' devices, I highly doubt they'll ever gain any real exposure outside of tech circles.
- JoelTheSuperior 9y ago
  In fairness though I'd say the issue is far less pronounced with desktop and laptop hardware than it is with mobile devices. I can get a PC from 10 years ago and install Windows 10 and it'll most likely run absolutely fine - really rather well in fact. On the other hand, many people would probably be quite frustrated if they had to use a phone that's even three or four years old. It amazes me how people react even when I tell them I'm still using an iPhone 6 Plus that I bought in 2015.
  - SomeHacker44 9y ago
    I am using the same phone. I just wish I could get Spectre fixes on an iOS 10 release.
  - dejv 9y ago
    I am still using iPhone 5S, 16GB and it still works great. Marketers did a great job convincing people that they need to renew their phones every two years (or less)
    - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
      It's not marketers. It's that it used to be free (baked into the plan) so there used to be no advantage to not get a phone every two years. Do while the free phone went away (for this in the cell phone market, did plans get any cheaper?) the purchase styles didn't.
    - lucb1e 9y ago
      Galaxy Note 2 here. What are they at, the Note 8 or something? My device just won't die after I put Cyanogenmod on and stopped things from autostarting/wakelocking (battery life is great again). Just like my bluetooth headphones. I had to re-solder a weak connection twice, but after adding some hot glue to keep it in place the second time, it hasn't broken anymore. The battery life is still better than advertised, and I've been using it daily for 3-4 years. "Throwaway" is a culture, contributing to the problem just as much as (or maybe even more than?) planned obsolesce.
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      Problem with iPhone is when Apple decides to pull the plug with iOS support. Android devices suffer from the same problem with their vendor, but then you can flash it with e.g. LineageOS (+ microG if you wanna avoid Google) or postmarketOS.
      - josephg 9y ago
        True; although Apple keeps supporting their old phones for quite awhile. iOS 11 still supports the iPhone 5S, which came out in September 2013. Only 6% of ios devices use an ios 9 or earlier[1]. 4.5 years is pretty good in this market - last I checked you were lucky to get 2 years of software updates from most android vendors. According to usage stats about half of all android phones are stuck on an operating system from 2014 or earlier[1]. I don't want to think about the security consequences of most android phones never having security updates installed. 4.5 years still is nothing on postmarketOS's 10 year target. Bravo. [1] https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ [2] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
drdaeman 9y ago
What would be the reasons to do so? Ancient devices don't cease to work (unless their hardware fails, of course). They just don't get upgrades and new features (new apps, etc etc). A factory reset (or reflash) may be required to get rid of cruft, then reinstall apps from backup - but afterwards it would work. If the postmarketOS would offer more features (mostly I think of apps) than some ancient Android, this may be a reason to replace the OS. But I really doubt it would happen. It would require a lot of effort to get anywhere close to Android 4.x ecosystem. And I believe most users would prefer old apps (downloaded as .apks from random archive sites) to some security patches they frequently don't even know about.
- codazoda 9y ago
  Some old devices do cease to work or they start working more slowly. Apple slows down phones with old batteries, for example, even when they are plugged in. Many of todays devices also require online accounts and some completely stop working when those online services aren't available. I'm kinda dealing with that with a modern company right now. My Ring doorbell doesn't work without Internet access and I can't get it for 7 days or so. I've got a home network setup, but no Internet. The Ring device won't even ring the bell on my house when you push the button, even though it is wired strait in... Now I'm off topic a bit.
- alex7o 9y ago
  The main reason for android phons to slow down is the storage, most of the android phones run cheap emmc chips, even some of the more high end ones. Even with a new battery and an AOSP rom, my Nexus 2012 is unusable even when I reverted to the version of android that that tablet came with, which is JB. So I don't believe that this will solve the hardware obsolescence problem.
- TsomArp 9y ago
  Because of bugs that affect security?
gcb0 9y ago
that's the dumb (sorry) idea that hold Linux on the desktop for so long. lots of time wasted without any big increase in adoption. companies making the devices standards (apple, google, samsung) all make lots of money from ads, and subscription services. both of those things get huge advantage if you can lock in your customer. we are still living the main frame age on mobiles. even if you can install your os on old and new devices, it doesn't matter, because they can cut you out of whatsapp or youtube (see Amazon firephone) the os is irrelevant to adoption. but it must have the or dictate killer apps. when foss solve IM, social and ugc video streaming, then the personal computer era will begin on mobiles.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > companies making the devices standards (apple, google, samsung) all make lots of money from ads, and subscription services I think that’s only true for one of the companies in your list.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - gcb0 9y ago
    see imusic and ipay revenue projections for apple. and see how much they invested (and projected) for iAd before giving up. samsung also tried it all. and they make a killing selling pre-installed bloatware in PCs as phones. which is pretty much advertising.
- TuringTest 9y ago
  But there's the chicken-and-egg problem. IM was solved for a long time, yet the masses didn't adopt the FLOSS version, because that required everyone switching at the same time. Yet if people get to use the platform anyway as a secondary device, this could get these tools a significant steady user base that might grow to critical mass if/when a security/privacy scandal happens, disparaging the stablished players.
  - gcb0 9y ago

bacongobbler 9y ago

It's the exact same story with Windows and Linux. Many old PCs running Windows XP that cannot handle Windows 7's minimum requirements are being wiped by geeks and are installing Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, or some other distro onto these devices. As long as Linux, postmarketOS or LineageOS are the "weird apps" geeks install for their friends' devices, I highly doubt they'll ever gain any real exposure outside of tech circles.

JoelTheSuperior 9y ago
In fairness though I'd say the issue is far less pronounced with desktop and laptop hardware than it is with mobile devices. I can get a PC from 10 years ago and install Windows 10 and it'll most likely run absolutely fine - really rather well in fact. On the other hand, many people would probably be quite frustrated if they had to use a phone that's even three or four years old. It amazes me how people react even when I tell them I'm still using an iPhone 6 Plus that I bought in 2015.
- SomeHacker44 9y ago
  I am using the same phone. I just wish I could get Spectre fixes on an iOS 10 release.
- dejv 9y ago
  I am still using iPhone 5S, 16GB and it still works great. Marketers did a great job convincing people that they need to renew their phones every two years (or less)
  - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
    It's not marketers. It's that it used to be free (baked into the plan) so there used to be no advantage to not get a phone every two years. Do while the free phone went away (for this in the cell phone market, did plans get any cheaper?) the purchase styles didn't.
  - lucb1e 9y ago
    Galaxy Note 2 here. What are they at, the Note 8 or something? My device just won't die after I put Cyanogenmod on and stopped things from autostarting/wakelocking (battery life is great again). Just like my bluetooth headphones. I had to re-solder a weak connection twice, but after adding some hot glue to keep it in place the second time, it hasn't broken anymore. The battery life is still better than advertised, and I've been using it daily for 3-4 years. "Throwaway" is a culture, contributing to the problem just as much as (or maybe even more than?) planned obsolesce.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    Problem with iPhone is when Apple decides to pull the plug with iOS support. Android devices suffer from the same problem with their vendor, but then you can flash it with e.g. LineageOS (+ microG if you wanna avoid Google) or postmarketOS.
    - josephg 9y ago
      True; although Apple keeps supporting their old phones for quite awhile. iOS 11 still supports the iPhone 5S, which came out in September 2013. Only 6% of ios devices use an ios 9 or earlier[1]. 4.5 years is pretty good in this market - last I checked you were lucky to get 2 years of software updates from most android vendors. According to usage stats about half of all android phones are stuck on an operating system from 2014 or earlier[1]. I don't want to think about the security consequences of most android phones never having security updates installed. 4.5 years still is nothing on postmarketOS's 10 year target. Bravo. [1] https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ [2] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

drdaeman 9y ago

What would be the reasons to do so? Ancient devices don't cease to work (unless their hardware fails, of course). They just don't get upgrades and new features (new apps, etc etc). A factory reset (or reflash) may be required to get rid of cruft, then reinstall apps from backup - but afterwards it would work. If the postmarketOS would offer more features (mostly I think of apps) than some ancient Android, this may be a reason to replace the OS. But I really doubt it would happen. It would require a lot of effort to get anywhere close to Android 4.x ecosystem. And I believe most users would prefer old apps (downloaded as .apks from random archive sites) to some security patches they frequently don't even know about.

codazoda 9y ago
Some old devices do cease to work or they start working more slowly. Apple slows down phones with old batteries, for example, even when they are plugged in. Many of todays devices also require online accounts and some completely stop working when those online services aren't available. I'm kinda dealing with that with a modern company right now. My Ring doorbell doesn't work without Internet access and I can't get it for 7 days or so. I've got a home network setup, but no Internet. The Ring device won't even ring the bell on my house when you push the button, even though it is wired strait in... Now I'm off topic a bit.
alex7o 9y ago
The main reason for android phons to slow down is the storage, most of the android phones run cheap emmc chips, even some of the more high end ones. Even with a new battery and an AOSP rom, my Nexus 2012 is unusable even when I reverted to the version of android that that tablet came with, which is JB. So I don't believe that this will solve the hardware obsolescence problem.
TsomArp 9y ago
Because of bugs that affect security?

gcb0 9y ago

that's the dumb (sorry) idea that hold Linux on the desktop for so long. lots of time wasted without any big increase in adoption. companies making the devices standards (apple, google, samsung) all make lots of money from ads, and subscription services. both of those things get huge advantage if you can lock in your customer. we are still living the main frame age on mobiles. even if you can install your os on old and new devices, it doesn't matter, because they can cut you out of whatsapp or youtube (see Amazon firephone) the os is irrelevant to adoption. but it must have the or dictate killer apps. when foss solve IM, social and ugc video streaming, then the personal computer era will begin on mobiles.

saagarjha 9y ago
> companies making the devices standards (apple, google, samsung) all make lots of money from ads, and subscription services I think that’s only true for one of the companies in your list.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gcb0 9y ago
  see imusic and ipay revenue projections for apple. and see how much they invested (and projected) for iAd before giving up. samsung also tried it all. and they make a killing selling pre-installed bloatware in PCs as phones. which is pretty much advertising.
TuringTest 9y ago
But there's the chicken-and-egg problem. IM was solved for a long time, yet the masses didn't adopt the FLOSS version, because that required everyone switching at the same time. Yet if people get to use the platform anyway as a secondary device, this could get these tools a significant steady user base that might grow to critical mass if/when a security/privacy scandal happens, disparaging the stablished players.
- gcb0 9y ago