16 ms·

We've had several FOSS based phones. The problem is that no one buys them, their finances dry up and the whole thing goes down the drain.

rapnie 8y ago
Isn't that a bit of a marketing issue as well? I am tracking development of Fairphone, puri.sm Librem5 and e.foundation (just released beta version, based on LineageOS). Do you have pointers to the FOSS OS'es you refer to?
- gear54rus 8y ago
  ubuntu phone might be the one
- pjmlp 8y ago
  - Maemo (2005) - OpenMoko (2006) - Symbian (2009) - MeeGo (2010) - Mer (2011) - Jolla (2011) - Tizen (2012) - Ubuntu Touch (2013) - Firefox OS (2013) - Web OS (2013) So it is a bit more than just lack of marketing.
  - rhn_mk1 8y ago
    Most of those are not truly Free, or at least not much freer than Android. - Maemo: open middleware, closed many applications and some drivers - OpenMoko: closed drivers - Symbian: was it ever libre? - Meego: same as Maemo - Mer: this is actually open AFAIK, but no native devices I know of - Jolla: Android kernel (closed drivers), closed applications - Tizen: ? - Ubuntu Touch: Android kernel - Firefox OS: Android kernel - Web OS: ? Only a couple of the above really matter in this light.
de_watcher 8y ago
Phone developers need to have a lot of money in order to get the permission from major services to write an app to connect to those services. That was the story of the Ubuntu Phone.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  That is the real problem I see. The networks and tech required to connect to cell towers are too closed. Even when you do get a open phone going the bits and parts that connect to the network are often small computers themselves that allow very little control. At least in the US the people sort of own the airwaves, maybe we can push for our government to enforce open protocols for connecting to cell networks?
hardwaresofton 8y ago
I'm a broken record at this point, but I'll say it again until I'm convinced I'm wrong -- FirefoxOS did great but was tragically mishandled. I'm 100% a FFOS stan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(person)#%22Stan%22_fans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(person)#%22Stan%22_fans) but it absolutely could have (and did) work -- they just fumbled the execution and 0 executives took responsibility (as per usual). While I appreciate Mozilla's recent exploits like the IoT Gateway (https://iot.mozilla.org/gateway/ https://iot.mozilla.org/gateway/), they should have put all their non-thunderbird non-firefox effort into FirefoxOS, it was a strategic bet.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  The fact that Google has brought Android to ChromeOS and not the other way around, that Fuchsia is based on Flutter and not ChromeOS UI, and all the corpses of Web based OSes all the way back to Web Widgets Runtime on Symbian is quite telling about the performance of web UIs on phone hardware.
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    As far as Flutter vs ChromeOS UI, I think it makes sense because of how Flutter works and how much success it's seen being used on android/iOS which reflects how much work they put into it. Flutter literally draws every pixel on the screen, and they put their army of engineers to work on rebuilding native interfaces in android[0]/iOS[1] to replicate their interfaces. The amount of control that flutter gives them is probably can't be matched by any existing widget framework, I don't think anyone's actually done something that crazy yet. Fuchsia is their thing, it makes sense for them to re-use the projects that they find offer the best abstraction for them I don't think this is so much a condemnation of web UIs on phone hardware, they also chose not every other widget/display library in existence. Also I want to point out that rendering and performance of web UIs could be good on phone hardware, the native implementations just have to want that to be the case. I honestly haven't thought about it deeply, but I also haven't seen a compelling case for why android/iOS's specific markup languages naturally render faster than something that was HTML based -- android/iOS just have subsets of the power HTML offers and that's where the savings is. [EDIT] - I got what you mean about bringing Android-to-ChromeOS, so removed the section asking for clarification
emredjan 8y ago
People don't care for privacy and freedom as much as they care for features and convenience.
- elorant 8y ago
  Until someone hacks their phone and steals all their naked pics. Then they're infuriated.

rapnie 8y ago

Isn't that a bit of a marketing issue as well? I am tracking development of Fairphone, puri.sm Librem5 and e.foundation (just released beta version, based on LineageOS). Do you have pointers to the FOSS OS'es you refer to?

gear54rus 8y ago
ubuntu phone might be the one
pjmlp 8y ago
- Maemo (2005) - OpenMoko (2006) - Symbian (2009) - MeeGo (2010) - Mer (2011) - Jolla (2011) - Tizen (2012) - Ubuntu Touch (2013) - Firefox OS (2013) - Web OS (2013) So it is a bit more than just lack of marketing.
- rhn_mk1 8y ago
  Most of those are not truly Free, or at least not much freer than Android. - Maemo: open middleware, closed many applications and some drivers - OpenMoko: closed drivers - Symbian: was it ever libre? - Meego: same as Maemo - Mer: this is actually open AFAIK, but no native devices I know of - Jolla: Android kernel (closed drivers), closed applications - Tizen: ? - Ubuntu Touch: Android kernel - Firefox OS: Android kernel - Web OS: ? Only a couple of the above really matter in this light.

de_watcher 8y ago

Phone developers need to have a lot of money in order to get the permission from major services to write an app to connect to those services. That was the story of the Ubuntu Phone.

mbrumlow 8y ago
That is the real problem I see. The networks and tech required to connect to cell towers are too closed. Even when you do get a open phone going the bits and parts that connect to the network are often small computers themselves that allow very little control. At least in the US the people sort of own the airwaves, maybe we can push for our government to enforce open protocols for connecting to cell networks?

hardwaresofton 8y ago

I'm a broken record at this point, but I'll say it again until I'm convinced I'm wrong -- FirefoxOS did great but was tragically mishandled. I'm 100% a FFOS stan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(person)#%22Stan%22_fans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(person)#%22Stan%22_fans) but it absolutely could have (and did) work -- they just fumbled the execution and 0 executives took responsibility (as per usual). While I appreciate Mozilla's recent exploits like the IoT Gateway (https://iot.mozilla.org/gateway/ https://iot.mozilla.org/gateway/), they should have put all their non-thunderbird non-firefox effort into FirefoxOS, it was a strategic bet.

pjmlp 8y ago
The fact that Google has brought Android to ChromeOS and not the other way around, that Fuchsia is based on Flutter and not ChromeOS UI, and all the corpses of Web based OSes all the way back to Web Widgets Runtime on Symbian is quite telling about the performance of web UIs on phone hardware.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  As far as Flutter vs ChromeOS UI, I think it makes sense because of how Flutter works and how much success it's seen being used on android/iOS which reflects how much work they put into it. Flutter literally draws every pixel on the screen, and they put their army of engineers to work on rebuilding native interfaces in android[0]/iOS[1] to replicate their interfaces. The amount of control that flutter gives them is probably can't be matched by any existing widget framework, I don't think anyone's actually done something that crazy yet. Fuchsia is their thing, it makes sense for them to re-use the projects that they find offer the best abstraction for them I don't think this is so much a condemnation of web UIs on phone hardware, they also chose not every other widget/display library in existence. Also I want to point out that rendering and performance of web UIs could be good on phone hardware, the native implementations just have to want that to be the case. I honestly haven't thought about it deeply, but I also haven't seen a compelling case for why android/iOS's specific markup languages naturally render faster than something that was HTML based -- android/iOS just have subsets of the power HTML offers and that's where the savings is. [EDIT] - I got what you mean about bringing Android-to-ChromeOS, so removed the section asking for clarification

emredjan 8y ago

People don't care for privacy and freedom as much as they care for features and convenience.

elorant 8y ago
Until someone hacks their phone and steals all their naked pics. Then they're infuriated.