5 ms·

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 device

by 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
  im was far from solved. it was always very hard to find people. and even then, when the best protocol showed up, google made a point to associate it with gtalk and kill both.
ollieparanoid 9y ago
Keep in mind that the project at its current state does not aim at consumers, it's looking for fellow hackers who want to join the effort to create a sustainable alternative OS that can be used on phones that would otherwise be thrown away, and simply to have fun while doing that [0]. Regarding the walled-garden services like YouTube or WhatsApp: From a privacy and security point of view it would be better to avoid these altogether and switch to open source and decentralized services like Matrix[1] instead (for instant messaging/VoIP). I know, for most people it is not feasible to convert all your friends to such services, but even in that situation it is possible to use open implementations that work on Linux. Check out this list [2] ("Apps that only work with proprietary services" table at the bottom). Going further, when there's enough interest by one or more individuals to package anbox[3] for postmarketOS, it is possible in theory to run regular Android apps (NewPipe[4] is just one example of a great open YouTube client, that you can use on Android today). [0]: https://postmarketos.org/blog/2017/09/03/100-days-of-postmarketos/#why-we-evolve-in-many-directions https://postmarketos.org/blog/2017/09/03/100-days-of-postmar... [1]: https://matrix.org https://matrix.org [2]: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Potential_apps https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Potential_apps [3]: https://anbox.io/ https://anbox.io/ [4]: https://newpipe.schabi.org/ https://newpipe.schabi.org/

by gcb0 9y ago

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
im was far from solved. it was always very hard to find people. and even then, when the best protocol showed up, google made a point to associate it with gtalk and kill both.

ollieparanoid 9y ago

Keep in mind that the project at its current state does not aim at consumers, it's looking for fellow hackers who want to join the effort to create a sustainable alternative OS that can be used on phones that would otherwise be thrown away, and simply to have fun while doing that [0]. Regarding the walled-garden services like YouTube or WhatsApp: From a privacy and security point of view it would be better to avoid these altogether and switch to open source and decentralized services like Matrix[1] instead (for instant messaging/VoIP). I know, for most people it is not feasible to convert all your friends to such services, but even in that situation it is possible to use open implementations that work on Linux. Check out this list [2] ("Apps that only work with proprietary services" table at the bottom). Going further, when there's enough interest by one or more individuals to package anbox[3] for postmarketOS, it is possible in theory to run regular Android apps (NewPipe[4] is just one example of a great open YouTube client, that you can use on Android today). [0]: https://postmarketos.org/blog/2017/09/03/100-days-of-postmarketos/#why-we-evolve-in-many-directions https://postmarketos.org/blog/2017/09/03/100-days-of-postmar... [1]: https://matrix.org https://matrix.org [2]: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Potential_apps https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Potential_apps [3]: https://anbox.io/ https://anbox.io/ [4]: https://newpipe.schabi.org/ https://newpipe.schabi.org/