5 ms·

As a tech community, we should really rally around a libre/free mobile OS and soon. Being beholden to corporations for our operating systems is antithetical to

As a tech community, we should really rally around a libre/free mobile OS and soon. Being beholden to corporations for our operating systems is antithetical to freedom.

idlewords 8y ago
And we can have the handsets run on biodiesel and little windmills.
qznc 8y ago
There is https://postmarketos.org/ https://postmarketos.org/
- neilv 8y ago
  PostmarketOS is the closest I've seen to the right idea for sustainability and openness: mainline Linux kernel, no closed drivers, and a userland that lets various current and future environments be layered (and can run the existing wealth of GNU/Linux software immediately, modulo the small touchscreens). A word of warning is that still developer-only, not ready for real use. (Even my Replicant devices are much more functional than my PostmarketOS ones, at the moment, but PostmarketOS is a much better idea.)
_bxg1 8y ago
It's so much harder to do on mobile, for multiple reasons: - Hardware is not very modular (mainly because of size constraints), meaning you have to purpose-build libre hardware if you can't/don't want to run on tech-giant devices (you can right now if you're forking Android; you probably won't be able to once it's replaced with Fuschia). - Developers' needs have always been a bastion for keeping desktop OSes flexible and open. No matter how closed-down software gets, someone somewhere has to be able to muck with it so as to build and improve it in the first place. This doesn't apply to mobile OSes; people don't use them for development. Not that it's impossible for these things to be overcome, but it's a much steeper uphill battle.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Also, perhaps even more importantly, you'd be starting from scratch in terms of app ecosystem, which is even more important today (and especially on mobile) than it used to be in the PC era. You could get some mileage out of the web- but first you'd have to build or port a browser. Chromium certainly won't target your open OS, and with its 75% market share, it now strongarms the direction that web standards take. And many app makers don't even have mobile web apps these days (or their web apps are crippled versions of their "real apps"). Good luck getting Slack and Favor, or your bank, to build apps for your new OS. Or even Dropbox and Evernote. Forget about Netflix and YouTube. Maybe you're okay with going back to the iPhone 1.0 days where a smartphone was just for phone calls, texting, email, a calendar, listening to music, looking up directions, and searching the web. But while you might get an mp3 player app, many people no longer own copies of their music and you won't get Pandora or Spotify. You certainly won't have a decent maps app - maps are one of the most heavily monopolized core features of today's phones, mainly because of the sheer size of the task of mapping the world. OpenStreetMap exists, but it's honestly not very good. You start to see the problem. I used an Android fork for about a year without any Google services before I gave up. I was able to grab a few crucial apps from APKMirror, but not many. I tried using OsmAnd for maps; it was awful. I once bought a pair of headphones I literally couldn't use without the app - available only on the App Store and Play Store. I used web apps to fill in some of the gaps; they were spotty and many were ugly and/or slow and/or didn't hook into APIs like push notifications. At least I had a fully up-to-date Chrome fork to use as my browser. Maybe after the death of Android there would be greater momentum behind building and sustaining this kind of ecosystem. That would help bolster not only app development, but possibly even the value of the open web, and maybe even the contributions to (and therefore quality of) things like OpenStreetMap. It's hard to say.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    For those curious, what I ended up doing was switching to an iPhone. I decided that my boycott of Google was mainly about privacy, not openness, and I resigned to the fact that I'd rather be able to fully function within our digital society than have openness in my phone (I still use Linux on my desktop). I've been happy with my decision; but for what it's worth I'd still try out a mature, truly open mobile OS if one ever surfaced.
burtonator2011 8y ago
> Being beholden to corporations for our operating systems is antithetical to freedom. This may be an unpopular statement here but where do you think Linux comes from? Corporations. It's Open Source but the vast vast vast majority of funding comes from IBM, Google, etc.
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  Linux was started by a student and brought into the limelight by volunteers. While the current development is largely paid for by corporations the essence of the thing is still the same, Linux-the-kernel is free software and can be forked by anyone who so pleases. If those corporations all were to loose interest, go bankrupt or suddenly decide they want to change Linux into a DRM-infested monster which only listens to its corporate master it would be a simple thing to fork the thing and ditch the corporate version. What would be less simple is the answer to the question who would pay for future development and how drivers would be written if and when hardware manufacturers started acting up but it would not be impossible to go that way. OpenBSD is a good example of a system which is developed without too much corporate funding, the concept has been tried and tested and is known to work.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    This theoretical situation is precisely the one Android is in. The only difference is that Google is the only corporate stakeholder, so as they lose interest in various open-source Android components, those components simply die. Maybe the answer is to get more corporations invested in AOSP.
    - bennofs 8y ago
      A big difference is that development of Android is done behind closed doors, whereas for Linux you can observe what is happening in public (discussions on the mailing lists for example). This means that it's essentially impossible to follow or contribute to Android development in a meaningful way. This is also reflected in the fact that there are open issues in Android with almost no reaction from any developer for years.
kamfc 8y ago
Firefox OS tried. https://medium.com/@bfrancis/the-story-of-firefox-os-cb5bf796e8fb https://medium.com/@bfrancis/the-story-of-firefox-os-cb5bf79... https://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-death-of-the-firefox-phone-matters/ https://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-death-of-the-firefox-phone... What do you guys think about Purism's smartphone built with PureOS https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ ?
hellisothers 8y ago
While I get this desire I have a hard time imagining ever using a free/open OS of any kind, mobile or otherwise. Mobile OSs and platforms tend to prioritize things that are unimportant for most users’ day to day use and thus suffer accordingly. They make good thought experiments or are great for the areas they’re optimized for (see *nix), but not for day to day use.

As a tech community, we should really rally around a libre/free mobile OS and soon. Being beholden to corporations for our operating systems is antithetical to freedom.

idlewords 8y ago

And we can have the handsets run on biodiesel and little windmills.

qznc 8y ago

There is https://postmarketos.org/ https://postmarketos.org/

neilv 8y ago
PostmarketOS is the closest I've seen to the right idea for sustainability and openness: mainline Linux kernel, no closed drivers, and a userland that lets various current and future environments be layered (and can run the existing wealth of GNU/Linux software immediately, modulo the small touchscreens). A word of warning is that still developer-only, not ready for real use. (Even my Replicant devices are much more functional than my PostmarketOS ones, at the moment, but PostmarketOS is a much better idea.)

_bxg1 8y ago

It's so much harder to do on mobile, for multiple reasons: - Hardware is not very modular (mainly because of size constraints), meaning you have to purpose-build libre hardware if you can't/don't want to run on tech-giant devices (you can right now if you're forking Android; you probably won't be able to once it's replaced with Fuschia). - Developers' needs have always been a bastion for keeping desktop OSes flexible and open. No matter how closed-down software gets, someone somewhere has to be able to muck with it so as to build and improve it in the first place. This doesn't apply to mobile OSes; people don't use them for development. Not that it's impossible for these things to be overcome, but it's a much steeper uphill battle.

_bxg1 8y ago
Also, perhaps even more importantly, you'd be starting from scratch in terms of app ecosystem, which is even more important today (and especially on mobile) than it used to be in the PC era. You could get some mileage out of the web- but first you'd have to build or port a browser. Chromium certainly won't target your open OS, and with its 75% market share, it now strongarms the direction that web standards take. And many app makers don't even have mobile web apps these days (or their web apps are crippled versions of their "real apps"). Good luck getting Slack and Favor, or your bank, to build apps for your new OS. Or even Dropbox and Evernote. Forget about Netflix and YouTube. Maybe you're okay with going back to the iPhone 1.0 days where a smartphone was just for phone calls, texting, email, a calendar, listening to music, looking up directions, and searching the web. But while you might get an mp3 player app, many people no longer own copies of their music and you won't get Pandora or Spotify. You certainly won't have a decent maps app - maps are one of the most heavily monopolized core features of today's phones, mainly because of the sheer size of the task of mapping the world. OpenStreetMap exists, but it's honestly not very good. You start to see the problem. I used an Android fork for about a year without any Google services before I gave up. I was able to grab a few crucial apps from APKMirror, but not many. I tried using OsmAnd for maps; it was awful. I once bought a pair of headphones I literally couldn't use without the app - available only on the App Store and Play Store. I used web apps to fill in some of the gaps; they were spotty and many were ugly and/or slow and/or didn't hook into APIs like push notifications. At least I had a fully up-to-date Chrome fork to use as my browser. Maybe after the death of Android there would be greater momentum behind building and sustaining this kind of ecosystem. That would help bolster not only app development, but possibly even the value of the open web, and maybe even the contributions to (and therefore quality of) things like OpenStreetMap. It's hard to say.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  For those curious, what I ended up doing was switching to an iPhone. I decided that my boycott of Google was mainly about privacy, not openness, and I resigned to the fact that I'd rather be able to fully function within our digital society than have openness in my phone (I still use Linux on my desktop). I've been happy with my decision; but for what it's worth I'd still try out a mature, truly open mobile OS if one ever surfaced.

burtonator2011 8y ago

> Being beholden to corporations for our operating systems is antithetical to freedom. This may be an unpopular statement here but where do you think Linux comes from? Corporations. It's Open Source but the vast vast vast majority of funding comes from IBM, Google, etc.

Yetanfou 8y ago
Linux was started by a student and brought into the limelight by volunteers. While the current development is largely paid for by corporations the essence of the thing is still the same, Linux-the-kernel is free software and can be forked by anyone who so pleases. If those corporations all were to loose interest, go bankrupt or suddenly decide they want to change Linux into a DRM-infested monster which only listens to its corporate master it would be a simple thing to fork the thing and ditch the corporate version. What would be less simple is the answer to the question who would pay for future development and how drivers would be written if and when hardware manufacturers started acting up but it would not be impossible to go that way. OpenBSD is a good example of a system which is developed without too much corporate funding, the concept has been tried and tested and is known to work.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  This theoretical situation is precisely the one Android is in. The only difference is that Google is the only corporate stakeholder, so as they lose interest in various open-source Android components, those components simply die. Maybe the answer is to get more corporations invested in AOSP.
  - bennofs 8y ago
    A big difference is that development of Android is done behind closed doors, whereas for Linux you can observe what is happening in public (discussions on the mailing lists for example). This means that it's essentially impossible to follow or contribute to Android development in a meaningful way. This is also reflected in the fact that there are open issues in Android with almost no reaction from any developer for years.

kamfc 8y ago

Firefox OS tried. https://medium.com/@bfrancis/the-story-of-firefox-os-cb5bf796e8fb https://medium.com/@bfrancis/the-story-of-firefox-os-cb5bf79... https://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-death-of-the-firefox-phone-matters/ https://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-death-of-the-firefox-phone... What do you guys think about Purism's smartphone built with PureOS https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ ?

hellisothers 8y ago

While I get this desire I have a hard time imagining ever using a free/open OS of any kind, mobile or otherwise. Mobile OSs and platforms tend to prioritize things that are unimportant for most users’ day to day use and thus suffer accordingly. They make good thought experiments or are great for the areas they’re optimized for (see *nix), but not for day to day use.