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Article mentions Librem, KaiOS and Jolla but fails to mention PinePhone which is (IMO) the most promising echo system so far. Also, there's PostMarketOS which

Article mentions Librem, KaiOS and Jolla but fails to mention PinePhone which is (IMO) the most promising echo system so far. Also, there's PostMarketOS which is Google/Apple free, though you'd have to buy a Googled device and install it yourself (and ... it's not remotely close to being usable day-to-day last I heard)

fsflover 6y ago
Why is Pinephone the most promising ecosystem? In fact more than half of its users run Phosh written by Purism for Librem 5. There are no paid developers for Pinephone.
- agsdfagsd 6y ago
  Because it is affordable, and more importantly, because it shipped. I'm thankful for the open source work the folks at Purism have put out, but the reality of the situation is that I can drop $800 and wait a few months on a Librem, or I can drop $150 and wait a few weeks on a Pinephone. If I splurge and spend $50 more ($200), I even end up with a Pinephone with more RAM than the Librem. The only real wins for the Librem are aesthetics (it's pretty), an ever so slightly higher clock speed on the ARM64 cores, and a GPU that is historically better supported by open source software. The final point is of less and less concern every day now that Mali is seeing open source support.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
    I bought a Pinephone PostmarketOS Edition. I'm going to be honest, at worst it is e-waste, at best a toy. You wouldn't really use it as a phone. Its too slow, too flaky, feature lacking. Pinephone is a very raw product lacking basic functionality that would be essential in modern phone - encryption at rest is one. One day, it might turn into a usable product, but there are many, many years from this being something you would actually want to carry. It feels less useful than the first iphones a decade ago. That being said, I would strongly support people buying these devices and building the ecosystem. We need alternatives. The reality is today you have no escape from the big players if you want a modern usable phone device. Maybe in n years.
    - ramtatatam 6y ago
      I bought a pinephone which I immediately flashed with Arch Linux. It definitely is not a workhorse of productivity as we used to but I did not buy pinephone to be one. I wanted a phone I can use for making calls and sending texts, and maybe taking photos. And the one that does not spy on me. I have plans to run podman on it and use it for things like firefox or thunderbird but that's not critical. I am happy to have a phone that does not constantly draw my attention :) And on a side note Arch community is soooo briliant, they even helped me on New Year's Eve when I had spare time to play with the phone. It's kind of response that brings back some nice memories :)
    - agsdfagsd 6y ago
      The Pinephone is a development platform, and I don't think anyone is suggesting that Pinephone (or Librem for that matter) is anywhere near ready for daily use by most folks. That said, when it comes to open mobile platforms, I think my assertion that the Pinephone is the most promising platform still stands -- they're the most successful at getting today's "state of the art" in open dev platforms into the hands of developers, even if that "state of the art" has a woefully out of date SoC.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  Because there is absolutely no way I will be dropping $800 for a phone that has half the features of an Android device with a mature ecosystem. Raspberry Pi made many things possible because of its cost. The fact is that not many makers (or just dabblers) will spend a lot of money on e-waste.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    It's not so simple. Which Android phone has convergence, killswitches, will be updated forever and has other 3 innovations [0]? [0] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#14-do-the-specs-justify-paying-599-799-for-the-librem-5 https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...
hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
Echo system?
perilunar 6y ago
> echo system Unintentionally funny typo. Aren't we trying to avoid that?
- beagle3 6y ago
  DYAC. It was indeed unintentional. Hopefully there is no echo chamber; I was intending to write "ecosystem" in case it's not clear.

fsflover 6y ago

Why is Pinephone the most promising ecosystem? In fact more than half of its users run Phosh written by Purism for Librem 5. There are no paid developers for Pinephone.

agsdfagsd 6y ago
Because it is affordable, and more importantly, because it shipped. I'm thankful for the open source work the folks at Purism have put out, but the reality of the situation is that I can drop $800 and wait a few months on a Librem, or I can drop $150 and wait a few weeks on a Pinephone. If I splurge and spend $50 more ($200), I even end up with a Pinephone with more RAM than the Librem. The only real wins for the Librem are aesthetics (it's pretty), an ever so slightly higher clock speed on the ARM64 cores, and a GPU that is historically better supported by open source software. The final point is of less and less concern every day now that Mali is seeing open source support.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
  I bought a Pinephone PostmarketOS Edition. I'm going to be honest, at worst it is e-waste, at best a toy. You wouldn't really use it as a phone. Its too slow, too flaky, feature lacking. Pinephone is a very raw product lacking basic functionality that would be essential in modern phone - encryption at rest is one. One day, it might turn into a usable product, but there are many, many years from this being something you would actually want to carry. It feels less useful than the first iphones a decade ago. That being said, I would strongly support people buying these devices and building the ecosystem. We need alternatives. The reality is today you have no escape from the big players if you want a modern usable phone device. Maybe in n years.
  - ramtatatam 6y ago
    I bought a pinephone which I immediately flashed with Arch Linux. It definitely is not a workhorse of productivity as we used to but I did not buy pinephone to be one. I wanted a phone I can use for making calls and sending texts, and maybe taking photos. And the one that does not spy on me. I have plans to run podman on it and use it for things like firefox or thunderbird but that's not critical. I am happy to have a phone that does not constantly draw my attention :) And on a side note Arch community is soooo briliant, they even helped me on New Year's Eve when I had spare time to play with the phone. It's kind of response that brings back some nice memories :)
  - agsdfagsd 6y ago
    The Pinephone is a development platform, and I don't think anyone is suggesting that Pinephone (or Librem for that matter) is anywhere near ready for daily use by most folks. That said, when it comes to open mobile platforms, I think my assertion that the Pinephone is the most promising platform still stands -- they're the most successful at getting today's "state of the art" in open dev platforms into the hands of developers, even if that "state of the art" has a woefully out of date SoC.
selfhoster11 6y ago
Because there is absolutely no way I will be dropping $800 for a phone that has half the features of an Android device with a mature ecosystem. Raspberry Pi made many things possible because of its cost. The fact is that not many makers (or just dabblers) will spend a lot of money on e-waste.
- fsflover 6y ago
  It's not so simple. Which Android phone has convergence, killswitches, will be updated forever and has other 3 innovations [0]? [0] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#14-do-the-specs-justify-paying-599-799-for-the-librem-5 https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

hobby-coder-guy 6y ago

Echo system?

perilunar 6y ago

> echo system Unintentionally funny typo. Aren't we trying to avoid that?

beagle3 6y ago
DYAC. It was indeed unintentional. Hopefully there is no echo chamber; I was intending to write "ecosystem" in case it's not clear.