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Without mass-market and the scale that comes with it (including returning income from existing users) it's near impossible to provide the same nice UX as an iPh

Without mass-market and the scale that comes with it (including returning income from existing users) it's near impossible to provide the same nice UX as an iPhone or a Google-riddled Android phone. That's the whole problem with most projects and why they neither produce acceptable usability nor a an acceptable price point. It's not that it's not technically possible, it's just infeasible without becoming yet another android vendor. Even just having an 'alternative OS' on existing hardware is a non-existent market, and those projects try very very hard. Adding the hardware problem in to the mix makes it harder, not easier.

jchw 6y ago
I’m not very concerned with it competing per se; they managed to put out a fairly compelling package and sell through 30k units. Yeah, they won’t be fabbing custom ARM cores any time soon, but it ain’t nothing. Open source software is a slow burn. It takes time, but projects can grow for a very long time even when things seem dormant, and then suddenly seemingly out of nowhere things are actually pretty good. I certainly was impressed with how well they were able to bring GNOME onto phones so far. It’ll always work best if people don’t consider them to be on the same level as commercial software; it has a different appeal, but one that should not be discounted. Just as there have been so many “year of the Linux desktops,” so to have there been many incorrect calls about the death of it.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
I keep wondering why nobody just supersets Android. Even just having an Android phone which is designed to be repairable and have drivers in the kernel tree so it isn't tied to a specific kernel version, people would pay for that. And then on top of it you can add all of your Google-alternative libraries and services, which need not be perfect immediately to get people to use it because they can start off running Android apps and buying it for the open hardware. But as you get more users, the software improves too.
- cuu508 6y ago
  The mass market does not care about repairable hardware or open drivers. Using niche open SoC will make the device slower and/or more expensive. The mass market cares about price and performance.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > The mass market does not care about repairable hardware or open drivers. The evidence for this is that people didn't refuse to buy the first generation of unrepairable devices. Because nobody told them they were unrepairable until they broke, and by then they already owned it. And by then the unrepairable devices were all you could get. How many people would buy a phone if you could honestly market it as lasting for ten years instead of three and having a lower repair cost when you drop it on the concrete? > Using niche open SoC will make the device slower and/or more expensive. The mass market cares about price and performance. The mass market doesn't care about performance on mobile devices. They can't even tell the difference. It's all marketing. Even the phones that are actually faster on paper aren't faster in practice when the "slower" one still does everything instantaneously.
cerved 6y ago
Agreed. Even on the deskstop, linux arguably has a less stable GUI. At least on the desktop you can drop into a CLI and fix things. Even if you don't know what you're doing, you can google your way to a script and copy + paste. Mobile and touch is 100% GUI dependent.

jchw 6y ago

I’m not very concerned with it competing per se; they managed to put out a fairly compelling package and sell through 30k units. Yeah, they won’t be fabbing custom ARM cores any time soon, but it ain’t nothing. Open source software is a slow burn. It takes time, but projects can grow for a very long time even when things seem dormant, and then suddenly seemingly out of nowhere things are actually pretty good. I certainly was impressed with how well they were able to bring GNOME onto phones so far. It’ll always work best if people don’t consider them to be on the same level as commercial software; it has a different appeal, but one that should not be discounted. Just as there have been so many “year of the Linux desktops,” so to have there been many incorrect calls about the death of it.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

I keep wondering why nobody just supersets Android. Even just having an Android phone which is designed to be repairable and have drivers in the kernel tree so it isn't tied to a specific kernel version, people would pay for that. And then on top of it you can add all of your Google-alternative libraries and services, which need not be perfect immediately to get people to use it because they can start off running Android apps and buying it for the open hardware. But as you get more users, the software improves too.

cuu508 6y ago
The mass market does not care about repairable hardware or open drivers. Using niche open SoC will make the device slower and/or more expensive. The mass market cares about price and performance.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The mass market does not care about repairable hardware or open drivers. The evidence for this is that people didn't refuse to buy the first generation of unrepairable devices. Because nobody told them they were unrepairable until they broke, and by then they already owned it. And by then the unrepairable devices were all you could get. How many people would buy a phone if you could honestly market it as lasting for ten years instead of three and having a lower repair cost when you drop it on the concrete? > Using niche open SoC will make the device slower and/or more expensive. The mass market cares about price and performance. The mass market doesn't care about performance on mobile devices. They can't even tell the difference. It's all marketing. Even the phones that are actually faster on paper aren't faster in practice when the "slower" one still does everything instantaneously.

cerved 6y ago

Agreed. Even on the deskstop, linux arguably has a less stable GUI. At least on the desktop you can drop into a CLI and fix things. Even if you don't know what you're doing, you can google your way to a script and copy + paste. Mobile and touch is 100% GUI dependent.