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> There are 18 distributions now for the PinePhone ... Still people want to create more distributions instead of actually implementing missing features in the e

> There are 18 distributions now for the PinePhone ... Still people want to create more distributions instead of actually implementing missing features in the existing distributions or fixing issues in the upstream applications those use. Sounds like linux to me!

taf2 6y ago
If I’m working on something for fun I’m gonna choose to work on the puzzles I enjoy... if it’s work and I’m being paid I’ll probably consider your less interesting bugs:)
- lumost 6y ago
  This in essence is the tragedy of the commons for consumer Linux applications. Contributing to complex consumer software is hard, the people who do it in their spare time are inclined to satisfy their own itch. Linux works exceptionally well in the areas where large companies with many developers pay to make it work well.
  - gerdesj 6y ago
    I think you'll find that Linux works quite well regardless of your current inclination. Your tragedy is unfortunately your own. Soz, we'll crack on
  - r3trohack3r 6y ago
    The purpose of freedom respecting software is that you can take it, make it your own, and contribute back. No expectation that it is suitable for your use in its current state. But it is suitable for the use of its maintainers. Put in the elbow grease, sponsor someone else to put in the elbow grease, or settle for non-free software where your itches seem to come pre-scratched. Personally I encourage you to scratch your own itch and contribute back.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      So freedom respecting software is for people who can program or pay someone else to program for them. That's why there will never be widespread use of it?
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    Not quite. I me a I think that’s a part of it. I think the other part is that people see it as an opportunity to “make it big” so to speak. If you develop some small part of the UI or functionality for someone else’s OS you get a pat on the back and a commit message with your name on it. If you develop the distribution that becomes popular, you get to name it. You get to go to conferences and tell everyone how you started it. You give keynote speeches. You can start a company to make money off the distro. It opens a lot of doors. So with that in mind, with only 18 distros, why wouldn’t I throw a 19th into the ring vs toiling away at fixing just my own annoyances?
    - MartijnBraam 6y ago
      Heh the first mistake they make is thinking they can make a distro by themselves. Made that mistake before before joining postmarketOS. At least I didn't make my own distro public.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    >Linux works exceptionally well in the areas where large companies with many developers pay to make it work well. The elephant in the room is that we desperately need better funding mechanisms. For instance, most distro repos don't support selling Free Software - either the package is available gratis to everyone, or it's not available to anyone. There are hacks to get around it perhaps, but no support at the OOTB click-a-button level. The only way the Year Of The Linux Desktop will ever happen is if we actually make it a priority as a community to figure out ethical funding mechanisms.
    - tdeck 6y ago
      Didn't Canonical try this with the Ubuntu Software Center and it completely failed? The top selling app in 2012 made $400 in one month. That's not bad for a side project, but you can't build a business on it. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2224460/linux-users-don-t-buy-software--but-it-s-still-worth-selling.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2224460/linux-users-don...
      - jolux 6y ago
        The real elephant in the room is that a lot of people use Linux because they don't like paying for software, and like using other people's labor for free. The free software movement has completely failed at providing a business model for itself. This is why funding its projects is essentially charity when they're not valuable to a large corporation selling proprietary software.
        hedora 6y ago
        I’d say it’s even worse than that. I’d be willing to pay for a Linux distro (and have donated in the past), but, in their pursuit of user lock-in and/or profit, Ubuntu and RedHat are increasingly hostile toward desktop users. Therefore, my money goes to smaller projects without many (any?) full time developers.
        jolux 6y ago
- FalconSensei 6y ago
  Which is ok when you are frank and say you are not doing something for most people. I guess the problem is assuming that PinePhone is usable to the majority of consumers.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    It is sold as a hacking or development device even right now.
Nursie 6y ago
Sounds exactly like what happened with the Openmoko phones too. A proliferation of half finished platforms, few of which could even reliably take a call.
- hedora 6y ago
  Yeah, though PinePhone has chosen manjaro + kde as their default moving forward. I’m guessing that’ll improve the polish for that specific combination of software, and they’ll hit critical mass. After that, having more diversity of choices would be nice, but there needs to be one working option first. Hopefully they won’t repeatedly change their minds before then, like openmoko did.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    Yeah that seemed to be the main problem, each time Openmoko released a platform, they had already announced that it was deprecated because they were working on the next one. I think my disappointment stemmed from this - I was expecting a (perhaps rudimentary, perhaps unpolished) platform that would make a base to start developing things on, but that wasn't there. I'll keep an eye on pinephone, hopefully they've done their historical research in this area :)
ineedasername 6y ago
And there's no reason that in OSS software like this that distros can't borrow the best features from other distros. I'm sure that if, given time to mature, there will and up being a few core distros many people turn to and then a whole bunch of others that meet the specific preferences of other users. It's not yet a mature ecosystem, but desktop linux is, and there's plenty to borrow from there.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
Many of those distros are just focused on making their preferred distro work on ARM, it's not like they are targeting the PinePhone. They even count Gentoo as one of the 18.
- LanternLight83 6y ago
  As they should- provided a strong binhost,, it's the distribution that has brought me the most joy to run on mine, and it's been a delight to see Gentoo users come together over time to make easier as it's evolved alongside other pinephone distribution c:
SavantIdiot 6y ago
This made me LOL. And also: cryptocurrency. ~4,000 coins as of today.
rodgerd 6y ago
It sounds like a paper characterizing the problem with Lisp as being that (to paraphrase) "the kind of person who uses Lisp would rather create a new DSL than learn to re-use yours".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rvz 6y ago
> Sounds like linux to me! Here we go again. App developers now have to 'define' support for a distribution target and test each of them to show it is actually 'supported' and not showing 'experimental support'. Fantastic news for the technical consumer and the whole open-source crowd, Not so good for the app developers who need to test their apps on these numerous distros and bewildering for general users looking at this technical contraption that is likely not to have the same apps on their old phones. If they want to solve this like it or not, supporting the Flutter ecosystem sounds like a good idea. > Do you want Linux phones? If it gets in the way of things and is harder to use than the alternatives, then no thanks and no deal. There is more things to consider than just 'open-source' or the 'free software' argument.
- swiley 6y ago
  > 97% of the apps found on their old phone Probably close to that percentage are either better as a website or actually harmful garbage. > Is the app ecosystem ready? Here's the question you ask: Would you be happier if your thinkpad running Alpine Linux fit in your pocket and could do sms/calls? It has the same answer.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Unfortunately a big part of having a truly working phone is the long tail of one-off apps. City-specific rideshares and bus apps, easy airline boarding, some new chat app that your friends started using. I was a Lumia Windows Phone user, and I loved the OS, and I'm not at all some avid app user on the phone (I don't like mobile games, I don't install random apps that are just a packaged web site). Still, every time I got out of a well-worn bubble, the phone felt second-class. I couldn't order a cab, couldn't scan that coupon, I couldn't install that dating app, etc etc. I used that phone for 3 or 4 years until the battery gave out or whatever, but moving to iOS and Android felt so empowering. I can only imagine the experience on Linux, without any corporate pushing to get your app on their phone, would be much worse.

taf2 6y ago

If I’m working on something for fun I’m gonna choose to work on the puzzles I enjoy... if it’s work and I’m being paid I’ll probably consider your less interesting bugs:)

lumost 6y ago
This in essence is the tragedy of the commons for consumer Linux applications. Contributing to complex consumer software is hard, the people who do it in their spare time are inclined to satisfy their own itch. Linux works exceptionally well in the areas where large companies with many developers pay to make it work well.
- gerdesj 6y ago
  I think you'll find that Linux works quite well regardless of your current inclination. Your tragedy is unfortunately your own. Soz, we'll crack on
- r3trohack3r 6y ago
  The purpose of freedom respecting software is that you can take it, make it your own, and contribute back. No expectation that it is suitable for your use in its current state. But it is suitable for the use of its maintainers. Put in the elbow grease, sponsor someone else to put in the elbow grease, or settle for non-free software where your itches seem to come pre-scratched. Personally I encourage you to scratch your own itch and contribute back.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    So freedom respecting software is for people who can program or pay someone else to program for them. That's why there will never be widespread use of it?
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Not quite. I me a I think that’s a part of it. I think the other part is that people see it as an opportunity to “make it big” so to speak. If you develop some small part of the UI or functionality for someone else’s OS you get a pat on the back and a commit message with your name on it. If you develop the distribution that becomes popular, you get to name it. You get to go to conferences and tell everyone how you started it. You give keynote speeches. You can start a company to make money off the distro. It opens a lot of doors. So with that in mind, with only 18 distros, why wouldn’t I throw a 19th into the ring vs toiling away at fixing just my own annoyances?
  - MartijnBraam 6y ago
    Heh the first mistake they make is thinking they can make a distro by themselves. Made that mistake before before joining postmarketOS. At least I didn't make my own distro public.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  >Linux works exceptionally well in the areas where large companies with many developers pay to make it work well. The elephant in the room is that we desperately need better funding mechanisms. For instance, most distro repos don't support selling Free Software - either the package is available gratis to everyone, or it's not available to anyone. There are hacks to get around it perhaps, but no support at the OOTB click-a-button level. The only way the Year Of The Linux Desktop will ever happen is if we actually make it a priority as a community to figure out ethical funding mechanisms.
  - tdeck 6y ago
    Didn't Canonical try this with the Ubuntu Software Center and it completely failed? The top selling app in 2012 made $400 in one month. That's not bad for a side project, but you can't build a business on it. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2224460/linux-users-don-t-buy-software--but-it-s-still-worth-selling.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/2224460/linux-users-don...
    - jolux 6y ago
      The real elephant in the room is that a lot of people use Linux because they don't like paying for software, and like using other people's labor for free. The free software movement has completely failed at providing a business model for itself. This is why funding its projects is essentially charity when they're not valuable to a large corporation selling proprietary software.
      - hedora 6y ago
        I’d say it’s even worse than that. I’d be willing to pay for a Linux distro (and have donated in the past), but, in their pursuit of user lock-in and/or profit, Ubuntu and RedHat are increasingly hostile toward desktop users. Therefore, my money goes to smaller projects without many (any?) full time developers.
        jolux 6y ago
FalconSensei 6y ago
Which is ok when you are frank and say you are not doing something for most people. I guess the problem is assuming that PinePhone is usable to the majority of consumers.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  It is sold as a hacking or development device even right now.

Nursie 6y ago

Sounds exactly like what happened with the Openmoko phones too. A proliferation of half finished platforms, few of which could even reliably take a call.

hedora 6y ago
Yeah, though PinePhone has chosen manjaro + kde as their default moving forward. I’m guessing that’ll improve the polish for that specific combination of software, and they’ll hit critical mass. After that, having more diversity of choices would be nice, but there needs to be one working option first. Hopefully they won’t repeatedly change their minds before then, like openmoko did.
- Nursie 6y ago
  Yeah that seemed to be the main problem, each time Openmoko released a platform, they had already announced that it was deprecated because they were working on the next one. I think my disappointment stemmed from this - I was expecting a (perhaps rudimentary, perhaps unpolished) platform that would make a base to start developing things on, but that wasn't there. I'll keep an eye on pinephone, hopefully they've done their historical research in this area :)

ineedasername 6y ago

And there's no reason that in OSS software like this that distros can't borrow the best features from other distros. I'm sure that if, given time to mature, there will and up being a few core distros many people turn to and then a whole bunch of others that meet the specific preferences of other users. It's not yet a mature ecosystem, but desktop linux is, and there's plenty to borrow from there.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

Many of those distros are just focused on making their preferred distro work on ARM, it's not like they are targeting the PinePhone. They even count Gentoo as one of the 18.

LanternLight83 6y ago
As they should- provided a strong binhost,, it's the distribution that has brought me the most joy to run on mine, and it's been a delight to see Gentoo users come together over time to make easier as it's evolved alongside other pinephone distribution c:

SavantIdiot 6y ago

This made me LOL. And also: cryptocurrency. ~4,000 coins as of today.

rodgerd 6y ago

It sounds like a paper characterizing the problem with Lisp as being that (to paraphrase) "the kind of person who uses Lisp would rather create a new DSL than learn to re-use yours".

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rvz 6y ago

> Sounds like linux to me! Here we go again. App developers now have to 'define' support for a distribution target and test each of them to show it is actually 'supported' and not showing 'experimental support'. Fantastic news for the technical consumer and the whole open-source crowd, Not so good for the app developers who need to test their apps on these numerous distros and bewildering for general users looking at this technical contraption that is likely not to have the same apps on their old phones. If they want to solve this like it or not, supporting the Flutter ecosystem sounds like a good idea. > Do you want Linux phones? If it gets in the way of things and is harder to use than the alternatives, then no thanks and no deal. There is more things to consider than just 'open-source' or the 'free software' argument.

swiley 6y ago
> 97% of the apps found on their old phone Probably close to that percentage are either better as a website or actually harmful garbage. > Is the app ecosystem ready? Here's the question you ask: Would you be happier if your thinkpad running Alpine Linux fit in your pocket and could do sms/calls? It has the same answer.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Unfortunately a big part of having a truly working phone is the long tail of one-off apps. City-specific rideshares and bus apps, easy airline boarding, some new chat app that your friends started using. I was a Lumia Windows Phone user, and I loved the OS, and I'm not at all some avid app user on the phone (I don't like mobile games, I don't install random apps that are just a packaged web site). Still, every time I got out of a well-worn bubble, the phone felt second-class. I couldn't order a cab, couldn't scan that coupon, I couldn't install that dating app, etc etc. I used that phone for 3 or 4 years until the battery gave out or whatever, but moving to iOS and Android felt so empowering. I can only imagine the experience on Linux, without any corporate pushing to get your app on their phone, would be much worse.