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> Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it'll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline lin

> Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it'll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution. I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? The reality is, we can't. And we'll always compare PinePhone and other things to iOS and Android and they'll always come up short. Also, a large part of using a smart phone is the apps. Without apps the phone is just really a phone. For me, to want to use PinePhone they would need to make it super easy to have Android on there.

matkoniecz 5y ago
> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. > How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? In many cases they win by default. If "no leaking of personal data" is on mandatory feature list then Pinephones are already better than Android! And there are many projects where there is simply no commercial product at all and is unlikely to ever appear.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  >That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface
  - throwawayswede 5y ago
    > From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. That's just preposterous. Linux user friendliness has not been slow or fragmented, it has come really far just in the last five years. Windows on the other hand has gotten relatively worse since the 'high' periods of early NT kernel OSes. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Do some research.
    - cto_of_antifa 5y ago
      On the other hand, they wouldn’t have to do any additional research to boot a useable system if they weren’t on Linux.
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      >Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. It is the most important dimension and the only dimension most users care about. Fully correct. >Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Illogical statement and incorrect. I've used Mint and elementary and all the issues remain. But let's say you're right. Then this would STILL be a usability issues. Too many choices... a user has to dig and choose the right distro to be "easy" to use. >Do some research. You do the research. I'm more well informed than you.
  - gm 5y ago
    LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can't get their audio/video working for routine meetings? If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.
- erk__ 5y ago
  But was Linux superior prior to it becoming a commercial project. The majority of changes in the Linux kernel have for many years been done by people hired by large companies like Intel, Huawei and Red Hat/IBM. Linux is no longer created by a small team, but is now a large commercial project.
  - matkoniecz 5y ago
    An interesting classification issue. Original comment contrasted "commercial software" and "open source" so I interpreted it as "paid closed source software" vs "free open source". But it is not covering all software and in some way Linux can be described as commercial. Still there is plenty of other cases: say editing OpenStreetMap. In theory there is some ArcGis Esri plugin but for good reasons it is used by approximately noone, with everyone using open source software. Though some was also developed by grant-supported developers. Is it making it commercial?
- that_guy_iain 5y ago
  > That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I love Linux. I'm a Linux desktop user but I can 100% say my experience is degraded compared to mac and windows users. Not just in apps that are there but in small things like sometimes it changes which mic is being used without telling me. Driver support is also a thing. I have my GUI crash on me on a semi regular basis. And that is on Ubuntu which is a commerical product. And probably the best funded desktop linux there is. Simply put, it is not stable.
  - stOneskull 5y ago
    linux mint somewhat improves ubuntu for the desktop, and fixes many of the little things.
  - fendy3002 5y ago
    > I have my GUI crash on me on a semi regular basis That's true for me at 16.04 or below. I don't really remember encountering one on 18.04 or 20.04 though. May share your use case?
    - d110af5ccf 5y ago
      Same here. As of 18.04LTS Ubuntu has been more stable than Windows 7 ever was for me.
    - that_guy_iain 5y ago
      20.04 on a Dell XPS. Possible causing factors, java, spotify, or slack.
  - okamiueru 5y ago
    I get that argument, but depending on what is being discussed, it might miss the point. If it is "end user experience", then I agree that lack of driver support or software matters. However, if we are comparing operating systems, what they do, and how they do it, I find Linux to be so far ahead of both Windows and MacOS (and I've used all three) that it shouldn't even be much of a question. The limiting factor is, in my experience, only software and driver availability. "Well, that's kinda a big and important thing to ignore" I hear you say. And, I agree. But, it's also not an inadequacy of Linux itself. I've had this discussion quite a few times, so to distill it down, "OS A is better than OS B" tend to touch on the following: - Software availability is better (not a limitation of the OS, but I hear you) - Privacy is better (while, for example MacOS, not being aware that every single executed executable is being logged and transmitted unencrypted) - User experience is better (while not having given latest gnome a try, which aside from subjective preference is really well done, and in my subjective experience, much more intuitive than apple's approach, as well as windows' "here's two ways to do the same thing") - ̶A̶r̶t̶i̶f̶i̶c̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶w̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶m̶i̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶ hardware is better. For Apple hardware, this was sort of true up until around 2010. Since then, you get so much less value I'm amazed they can still pull it off. I see MacOS and Windows going more and more in the direction of a "mobile OS" which less freedom and more telemetry. I see the growing collection of open source hardware as humanity's effort to build something for everyone. Imagine how sad the world would be if Linux or OSS didn't exist.
throwawayswede 5y ago
> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than commercial ones That's demonstrably wrong. Examples are so abundant and obvious that I'm not sure I need to mention any, but for the sake of argument. In software: Linux, Gimp, Firefox, VLC, Blender, OpenOffice, ... In hardware: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, UltiMaker, Adafruit products, Sparkfun Electronics products, etc...
- dataflow 5y ago
  > Examples are so abundant and obvious that I'm not sure I need to mention any, but for the sake of argument. In software: Linux, Gimp, Firefox, VLC, Blender, OpenOffice If you picked an average computer user at random (read: not people on HN) and had them try out Linux, Gimp, and OpenOffice, I don't think they'd agree with you that they're as high-quality as their commercial alternatives.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    > I don't think they'd agree with you I think that’s mostly due to them being different from the thing they are used to, not because they’re inferior. I’d be more interested in what people going in the other direction (e.g. from LibreOffice to MS Office) would say.
  - throwawayswede 5y ago
    I assume you're defining high-quality as easy-to use? If so, then that definition is lacking at best.
    - dataflow 5y ago
      No, I'm not defining it. "High-quality" is in the question you would ask the user. They respond to you based on their own best judgment of what it means to them.
      - throwawayswede 5y ago
yellowfish 5y ago
Are you just trolling?
gm 5y ago
I'm with you, but this is the wrong place to come and say that. That attacks the ego of many people on here. EDIT: But read the other comments on here and they actually prove you right: First hand reports of low build quality by the same manufacturer (downvoted, of course), someone saying "someone should just add X feature and I'd buy it" (as opposed to true-to-open-source "I'll add X feature, which will make it it a kick ass product")." Another comment that says "Yeah it runs many distros, but none of them polished". It all just sort of proves what you are saying.
- katmannthree 5y ago
  Per-programmer-hour I'd bet open source comes out on top, but overall it's basically impossible to compete with anyone with piles of cash.
- numpad0 5y ago
  I think the “open source vs commercial” framing can be adjusted slightly: Proprietary UI products are great and FOSS CLI software are great too. The difference is that businesses require scaling, parallelism, distributed stake holding always, and that many parts of non-code product developments scale, while code authoring don’t/must not be. That causes open source UI to be just under-resourced development compared to proprietary, and proprietary code to be just failed development because of over-distributed decision making.
  - linmob 5y ago
    “Under-resourced” is a good way to put it. There’s often a lack of UX design and thus a lack of polish – since there’s often no money to be made, there’s little to no incentive to bring it up from “works for me” to “works for everybody seamlessly“. (I’ll spare us all the Pareto 80%/20% theory here, although I am pretty sure that it applies here.) The upside is that open source or free software features fewer (and often no) antipatterns modern proprietary software suffers from.
    - mattkevan 5y ago
      There’s also quite a scorn in parts of the open source world for UX and design in general. Attempts at making software more approachable are accused of dumbing down or prioritising form over function. There’s an attitude that it’s not ‘real work’ if you don’t have to memorise tonnes of inscrutable commands or spend ages tinkering with config files.
devfromanatolia 5y ago
> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. Although you may be right, I prefer to be more optimistic. I think we tend to ignore the more successful premise of open source projects. They (at their least) demonstrate people of a possibility of more sincere (more eco-friendly, user-friendly or budget-friendly) products and services.
larodi 5y ago
open source is form of distribution of source code. that is all. open source is technically the same thing for Microsoft and pine and red hat and IBM, etc... now remembering that open source is typically not democracy but rather fairy autocratic in respect to the project owner you can have - more inclusive or fairly non-inclusive community around it. so the source may be available but the community and the project may be as closed as it seems fit towards individuals that fail to cross certain threshold of required technical (or other) skills. then software development is encompassed with number of other things - specifications, testing, devops and various integration activities that does not necessarily benefit from being open source. these activities that complement the software/hardware production are actually an important precursor for the perceived quality. it just so coincides that an open source project with proper amount of contributors will naturally benefit from peer-reviews of the code - as long as more than one person i sable to works on certain component of course. for successful business or entrepreneurship one needs more than software development though - accounting, finance, marketing, packaging and in Pine's case - production of hardware... etc. these are not typically as open as the ... source in the software part. an even if they were - it does not mean they are automatically gotten right. so to be absolutely fair - open source does not immediately on its own mean a better or even viable product. it means that parts of the system are available for independent review and potentially are free from license burden to be reused in other systems. it seems a form of cognitive bias to assume that all components of products that are result of partial or entirely open-source process are by definition better to closed-source process.
pessimizer 5y ago
The reason Linux phones suck at calls has nothing to do with the quality of the software, it's that the hardware vendors make it very very hard to do a very basic thing in a FOSS way. I honestly think the government should step in.
- kilburn 5y ago
  The sad part is that governments did step in and mandated that anything with a radio MUST follow a bunch of rules (certification) and MUST implement measures to ensure that the device cannot reasonably be made to operate outside of those rules. The end result is that while difficult, you can make something like a pinephone where everything is open source EXCEPT for the radio modules and their firmware.
yosito 5y ago
> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones Open source vs commercial is a false dichotomy. But having migrated out of the Google/Facebook world, I find having sometimes less polished software that does what I want is a much better experience than big tech platforms that only allow me to do what they want.
- danielheath 5y ago
  This is a way better way to describe it. Open source projects will almost always provide a less polished product. It'll often be better in ways that matter to me (eg availability of a given bit of software over a decade+ span of time, finer control over UX). But those things are not important to everyone, and that's fine.
prox 5y ago
Reading the comments, and weighing your comment, you say we need to have Android to be successful. Before that you say “we need apps”, that’s the heart of your comment. It can be successfully argued that we don’t need more of what we already have (aka closed walled, ad ridden, privacy off by default - solutions) We (as in developers) should start believing in these projects and adopt them. Blender for a long time couldn’t match the big boys of 3D creation. Right now it’s really gaining traction. I see a couple of factors for its succes: - a well managed project with a equally good vision that adapted to changes and demands. - a crowd that believed it could be great - a funding path to attract devs and hire them for a wanted feature - a different way of looking at these projects instead of “we don’t have x from this ecosystem” , how can we as devs be the forerunners in creating something that supersedes it.
- guiriduro 5y ago
  If they focussed on the bare essentials, and where the work could make the most difference - as in value add - this could be a breakthrough device. By which I mean - in a world with Pegasus, and the (deserved) lack of trust in the CIA, Chinese, Russian and Israeli intelligence services, what is needed is simply secure voice and secure messaging, and a minimalistic secured kernel, and maybe integration with Vault or BitWarden at a push. Any apps would be in some individual sandboxed, isolated web environment, but very secondary.
- rubatuga 5y ago
  Blender also had a massive investment that PinePhone does not have.
  - smokelegend 5y ago
    ...that pine phone doesn't have "yet". Fingers crossed that the coming pine phone 2.0 or 3.0 sails through on enhanced/xtended funding.
  - prox 5y ago
    This is where you start, if PinePhone positions itself well, things -can- change.
Buxato 5y ago
"open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones" not true, Kicad, Blender, Krita, Ardour ... But in this case hardware is on the mix, and it will take years to deliver an ecosystem competitive, also would be nicer to have middle class hardware and no ultra low cost. We will see if openhardware movement reach a decent quality. But I am agree with you that it will be almost impossible to reach the quality of latest Android and Iphone ones, but maybe we will reach a mid-class very productive phone with added privacy value.
- rob74 5y ago
  In the case of "Linux on a phone" I think it makes more sense to take advantage of all the work Google has put into Android and just throw out the tracking and Google apps, like various projects are doing.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > it makes more sense to take advantage of all the work Google has put into Android No, it doesn't: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/ https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph....
  - fragileone 5y ago
    If that's your ideal then just LineageOS. For those that want a Linux distro first and only want the Android apps part of Android, wait for Anbox support on these mobile Linux distros.
_ph_ 5y ago
There are fundamental differences between typical commercial and open source software. The big advantage of commercial software is, that it is developed by larger teams with clear goals and deadlines set, to ship a product. The development team usually is larger and it is not only programmers but professionals of any profession can be involved in the development as needed, most importantly of course, graphical designers and artists. For a lot software, the ability to access other commercial products or confidential information is needed to achieve all goals. Just think about the collaboration of Adobe with the different camera companies to ensure that all kind of files from the cameras are supported perfectly - here also color-correct hardware for the developers is needed, not necessarily available in open source projects. In that respect, commercial software is difficult to beat, if ever. But then, open source plays a differnt game. It is less driven by deadlines to ship, commercial requirements or restrictions, not driven by marketing, for good or bad. The user interaction might not be as polished, but things an open source software does well, it usually does really well. It is difficult to bet often decades of development.
keskadale 5y ago
> open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones linux, gnu utils, almost all programming languages and their entire ecosystems, firefox, blender and many more.
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
Android is extremely unpolished, user-hostile and low-quality in general. People don't run it because of software quality.
magpi3 5y ago
You have to think of the long game when comparing open source and closed source projects. If you need an app in a year, a well-funded closed source effort will win every time. But open source projects with significant mind share from developers (market share is irrelevant for the most part... developer mind share is the true wealth of an opensource project) just keep improving. Both Linux (yes even on the desktop), Blender, and LibreOffice(which admittedly still has a long way to go) are examples of this. I would argue the closed source software you use is generally higher quality because we are just at the beginning of the conversation when it comes to software. If an open source project with enough mind share can take a long enough view, it is hard to see how it WON'T someday surpass its closed-source competitors. Funding is generally on the side of a closed source project, but time is always on the side of an open source one.
Aeolun 5y ago
> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. That depends entirely on the scope of the project. Projects that can be built by one person are pretty much always better as open source. That unfortunately does not include mobile operating systems though.
akho 5y ago
It's really strange how different people's approach to technology can be. I find that free software is generally better, more solid, more stable, and more useful on its own merits than commercial alternatives. There is a clear point where this breaks — new hardware, new hardware interactions — largely because hardware vendors do not do their jobs with regard to Linux / BSDs. But in terms of pure user-friendliness? it's not even a contest. To me, user-friendliness implies that software is moldable to my workflows, and that other users' stuff is easy to integrate. Also, disruptive change is evil. This concept of user-friendliness necessarily implies that software should be end-user programmable, and the pieces of the environment should be composable. Most commercial end-user software fails at this. There are clear commercial motivations why it should, given a need to sell 'apps' for every workflow, and the need to work in corporate environments (where limiting users' ability to interact is a necessity for the people who make software buying decisions). iOS is especially bad at this, given the appification of everything. There seems to be an effort to do at least something good in Shortcuts, but it's very much not enough. I do most computer stuff in Firefox, Emacs, and xterm. Or WSL (xterm and Emacs) on Windows when I'm on a Windows device because something requires it. I'm actually typing this on a Raspberry Pi, where I only have those three installed as graphical apps. I also occasionally need Darktable (which needs a GPU for any kind of performance) and Office, for which I power on a different computer. Which I would find extremely hostile without WSL. You can also track how Linux things are percolating into Windows / macOS. Virtual desktops were a thing in Linuces for years and years before coming to those two. Tiling just begins to arrive. UNIX terminal environments are such a pain decreaser that even MS now has a way to use them. With my xmonad setup I live in the future, and that's the future that has been available for a decade. Browsers are probably the most important user-facing applications right now, and are all opensource-originated. Whether corporate capture of KHTML did any good is a question; I don't think it did.
linmob 5y ago
> Also, a large part of using a smart phone is the apps. Without apps the phone is just really a phone. I attempt to list them all at https://linmobapps.frama.io https://linmobapps.frama.io.

matkoniecz 5y ago

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. > How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? In many cases they win by default. If "no leaking of personal data" is on mandatory feature list then Pinephones are already better than Android! And there are many projects where there is simply no commercial product at all and is unlikely to ever appear.

deltaonefour 5y ago
>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface
- throwawayswede 5y ago
  > From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. That's just preposterous. Linux user friendliness has not been slow or fragmented, it has come really far just in the last five years. Windows on the other hand has gotten relatively worse since the 'high' periods of early NT kernel OSes. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Do some research.
  - cto_of_antifa 5y ago
    On the other hand, they wouldn’t have to do any additional research to boot a useable system if they weren’t on Linux.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    >Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. It is the most important dimension and the only dimension most users care about. Fully correct. >Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Illogical statement and incorrect. I've used Mint and elementary and all the issues remain. But let's say you're right. Then this would STILL be a usability issues. Too many choices... a user has to dig and choose the right distro to be "easy" to use. >Do some research. You do the research. I'm more well informed than you.
- gm 5y ago
  LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can't get their audio/video working for routine meetings? If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.
erk__ 5y ago
But was Linux superior prior to it becoming a commercial project. The majority of changes in the Linux kernel have for many years been done by people hired by large companies like Intel, Huawei and Red Hat/IBM. Linux is no longer created by a small team, but is now a large commercial project.
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  An interesting classification issue. Original comment contrasted "commercial software" and "open source" so I interpreted it as "paid closed source software" vs "free open source". But it is not covering all software and in some way Linux can be described as commercial. Still there is plenty of other cases: say editing OpenStreetMap. In theory there is some ArcGis Esri plugin but for good reasons it is used by approximately noone, with everyone using open source software. Though some was also developed by grant-supported developers. Is it making it commercial?
that_guy_iain 5y ago
> That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I love Linux. I'm a Linux desktop user but I can 100% say my experience is degraded compared to mac and windows users. Not just in apps that are there but in small things like sometimes it changes which mic is being used without telling me. Driver support is also a thing. I have my GUI crash on me on a semi regular basis. And that is on Ubuntu which is a commerical product. And probably the best funded desktop linux there is. Simply put, it is not stable.
- stOneskull 5y ago
  linux mint somewhat improves ubuntu for the desktop, and fixes many of the little things.
- fendy3002 5y ago
  > I have my GUI crash on me on a semi regular basis That's true for me at 16.04 or below. I don't really remember encountering one on 18.04 or 20.04 though. May share your use case?
  - d110af5ccf 5y ago
    Same here. As of 18.04LTS Ubuntu has been more stable than Windows 7 ever was for me.
  - that_guy_iain 5y ago
    20.04 on a Dell XPS. Possible causing factors, java, spotify, or slack.
- okamiueru 5y ago
  I get that argument, but depending on what is being discussed, it might miss the point. If it is "end user experience", then I agree that lack of driver support or software matters. However, if we are comparing operating systems, what they do, and how they do it, I find Linux to be so far ahead of both Windows and MacOS (and I've used all three) that it shouldn't even be much of a question. The limiting factor is, in my experience, only software and driver availability. "Well, that's kinda a big and important thing to ignore" I hear you say. And, I agree. But, it's also not an inadequacy of Linux itself. I've had this discussion quite a few times, so to distill it down, "OS A is better than OS B" tend to touch on the following: - Software availability is better (not a limitation of the OS, but I hear you) - Privacy is better (while, for example MacOS, not being aware that every single executed executable is being logged and transmitted unencrypted) - User experience is better (while not having given latest gnome a try, which aside from subjective preference is really well done, and in my subjective experience, much more intuitive than apple's approach, as well as windows' "here's two ways to do the same thing") - ̶A̶r̶t̶i̶f̶i̶c̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶h̶a̶r̶d̶w̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶m̶i̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶ hardware is better. For Apple hardware, this was sort of true up until around 2010. Since then, you get so much less value I'm amazed they can still pull it off. I see MacOS and Windows going more and more in the direction of a "mobile OS" which less freedom and more telemetry. I see the growing collection of open source hardware as humanity's effort to build something for everyone. Imagine how sad the world would be if Linux or OSS didn't exist.

throwawayswede 5y ago

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than commercial ones That's demonstrably wrong. Examples are so abundant and obvious that I'm not sure I need to mention any, but for the sake of argument. In software: Linux, Gimp, Firefox, VLC, Blender, OpenOffice, ... In hardware: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, UltiMaker, Adafruit products, Sparkfun Electronics products, etc...

dataflow 5y ago
> Examples are so abundant and obvious that I'm not sure I need to mention any, but for the sake of argument. In software: Linux, Gimp, Firefox, VLC, Blender, OpenOffice If you picked an average computer user at random (read: not people on HN) and had them try out Linux, Gimp, and OpenOffice, I don't think they'd agree with you that they're as high-quality as their commercial alternatives.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > I don't think they'd agree with you I think that’s mostly due to them being different from the thing they are used to, not because they’re inferior. I’d be more interested in what people going in the other direction (e.g. from LibreOffice to MS Office) would say.
- throwawayswede 5y ago
  I assume you're defining high-quality as easy-to use? If so, then that definition is lacking at best.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    No, I'm not defining it. "High-quality" is in the question you would ask the user. They respond to you based on their own best judgment of what it means to them.
    - throwawayswede 5y ago

yellowfish 5y ago

Are you just trolling?

gm 5y ago

I'm with you, but this is the wrong place to come and say that. That attacks the ego of many people on here. EDIT: But read the other comments on here and they actually prove you right: First hand reports of low build quality by the same manufacturer (downvoted, of course), someone saying "someone should just add X feature and I'd buy it" (as opposed to true-to-open-source "I'll add X feature, which will make it it a kick ass product")." Another comment that says "Yeah it runs many distros, but none of them polished". It all just sort of proves what you are saying.

katmannthree 5y ago
Per-programmer-hour I'd bet open source comes out on top, but overall it's basically impossible to compete with anyone with piles of cash.
numpad0 5y ago
I think the “open source vs commercial” framing can be adjusted slightly: Proprietary UI products are great and FOSS CLI software are great too. The difference is that businesses require scaling, parallelism, distributed stake holding always, and that many parts of non-code product developments scale, while code authoring don’t/must not be. That causes open source UI to be just under-resourced development compared to proprietary, and proprietary code to be just failed development because of over-distributed decision making.
- linmob 5y ago
  “Under-resourced” is a good way to put it. There’s often a lack of UX design and thus a lack of polish – since there’s often no money to be made, there’s little to no incentive to bring it up from “works for me” to “works for everybody seamlessly“. (I’ll spare us all the Pareto 80%/20% theory here, although I am pretty sure that it applies here.) The upside is that open source or free software features fewer (and often no) antipatterns modern proprietary software suffers from.
  - mattkevan 5y ago
    There’s also quite a scorn in parts of the open source world for UX and design in general. Attempts at making software more approachable are accused of dumbing down or prioritising form over function. There’s an attitude that it’s not ‘real work’ if you don’t have to memorise tonnes of inscrutable commands or spend ages tinkering with config files.

devfromanatolia 5y ago

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. Although you may be right, I prefer to be more optimistic. I think we tend to ignore the more successful premise of open source projects. They (at their least) demonstrate people of a possibility of more sincere (more eco-friendly, user-friendly or budget-friendly) products and services.

larodi 5y ago

open source is form of distribution of source code. that is all. open source is technically the same thing for Microsoft and pine and red hat and IBM, etc... now remembering that open source is typically not democracy but rather fairy autocratic in respect to the project owner you can have - more inclusive or fairly non-inclusive community around it. so the source may be available but the community and the project may be as closed as it seems fit towards individuals that fail to cross certain threshold of required technical (or other) skills. then software development is encompassed with number of other things - specifications, testing, devops and various integration activities that does not necessarily benefit from being open source. these activities that complement the software/hardware production are actually an important precursor for the perceived quality. it just so coincides that an open source project with proper amount of contributors will naturally benefit from peer-reviews of the code - as long as more than one person i sable to works on certain component of course. for successful business or entrepreneurship one needs more than software development though - accounting, finance, marketing, packaging and in Pine's case - production of hardware... etc. these are not typically as open as the ... source in the software part. an even if they were - it does not mean they are automatically gotten right. so to be absolutely fair - open source does not immediately on its own mean a better or even viable product. it means that parts of the system are available for independent review and potentially are free from license burden to be reused in other systems. it seems a form of cognitive bias to assume that all components of products that are result of partial or entirely open-source process are by definition better to closed-source process.

pessimizer 5y ago

The reason Linux phones suck at calls has nothing to do with the quality of the software, it's that the hardware vendors make it very very hard to do a very basic thing in a FOSS way. I honestly think the government should step in.

kilburn 5y ago
The sad part is that governments did step in and mandated that anything with a radio MUST follow a bunch of rules (certification) and MUST implement measures to ensure that the device cannot reasonably be made to operate outside of those rules. The end result is that while difficult, you can make something like a pinephone where everything is open source EXCEPT for the radio modules and their firmware.

yosito 5y ago

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones Open source vs commercial is a false dichotomy. But having migrated out of the Google/Facebook world, I find having sometimes less polished software that does what I want is a much better experience than big tech platforms that only allow me to do what they want.

danielheath 5y ago
This is a way better way to describe it. Open source projects will almost always provide a less polished product. It'll often be better in ways that matter to me (eg availability of a given bit of software over a decade+ span of time, finer control over UX). But those things are not important to everyone, and that's fine.

prox 5y ago

Reading the comments, and weighing your comment, you say we need to have Android to be successful. Before that you say “we need apps”, that’s the heart of your comment. It can be successfully argued that we don’t need more of what we already have (aka closed walled, ad ridden, privacy off by default - solutions) We (as in developers) should start believing in these projects and adopt them. Blender for a long time couldn’t match the big boys of 3D creation. Right now it’s really gaining traction. I see a couple of factors for its succes: - a well managed project with a equally good vision that adapted to changes and demands. - a crowd that believed it could be great - a funding path to attract devs and hire them for a wanted feature - a different way of looking at these projects instead of “we don’t have x from this ecosystem” , how can we as devs be the forerunners in creating something that supersedes it.

guiriduro 5y ago
If they focussed on the bare essentials, and where the work could make the most difference - as in value add - this could be a breakthrough device. By which I mean - in a world with Pegasus, and the (deserved) lack of trust in the CIA, Chinese, Russian and Israeli intelligence services, what is needed is simply secure voice and secure messaging, and a minimalistic secured kernel, and maybe integration with Vault or BitWarden at a push. Any apps would be in some individual sandboxed, isolated web environment, but very secondary.
rubatuga 5y ago
Blender also had a massive investment that PinePhone does not have.
- smokelegend 5y ago
  ...that pine phone doesn't have "yet". Fingers crossed that the coming pine phone 2.0 or 3.0 sails through on enhanced/xtended funding.
- prox 5y ago
  This is where you start, if PinePhone positions itself well, things -can- change.

Buxato 5y ago

"open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones" not true, Kicad, Blender, Krita, Ardour ... But in this case hardware is on the mix, and it will take years to deliver an ecosystem competitive, also would be nicer to have middle class hardware and no ultra low cost. We will see if openhardware movement reach a decent quality. But I am agree with you that it will be almost impossible to reach the quality of latest Android and Iphone ones, but maybe we will reach a mid-class very productive phone with added privacy value.

rob74 5y ago
In the case of "Linux on a phone" I think it makes more sense to take advantage of all the work Google has put into Android and just throw out the tracking and Google apps, like various projects are doing.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > it makes more sense to take advantage of all the work Google has put into Android No, it doesn't: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/ https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph....
- fragileone 5y ago
  If that's your ideal then just LineageOS. For those that want a Linux distro first and only want the Android apps part of Android, wait for Anbox support on these mobile Linux distros.

_ph_ 5y ago

There are fundamental differences between typical commercial and open source software. The big advantage of commercial software is, that it is developed by larger teams with clear goals and deadlines set, to ship a product. The development team usually is larger and it is not only programmers but professionals of any profession can be involved in the development as needed, most importantly of course, graphical designers and artists. For a lot software, the ability to access other commercial products or confidential information is needed to achieve all goals. Just think about the collaboration of Adobe with the different camera companies to ensure that all kind of files from the cameras are supported perfectly - here also color-correct hardware for the developers is needed, not necessarily available in open source projects. In that respect, commercial software is difficult to beat, if ever. But then, open source plays a differnt game. It is less driven by deadlines to ship, commercial requirements or restrictions, not driven by marketing, for good or bad. The user interaction might not be as polished, but things an open source software does well, it usually does really well. It is difficult to bet often decades of development.

keskadale 5y ago

> open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones linux, gnu utils, almost all programming languages and their entire ecosystems, firefox, blender and many more.

otabdeveloper4 5y ago

Android is extremely unpolished, user-hostile and low-quality in general. People don't run it because of software quality.

magpi3 5y ago

You have to think of the long game when comparing open source and closed source projects. If you need an app in a year, a well-funded closed source effort will win every time. But open source projects with significant mind share from developers (market share is irrelevant for the most part... developer mind share is the true wealth of an opensource project) just keep improving. Both Linux (yes even on the desktop), Blender, and LibreOffice(which admittedly still has a long way to go) are examples of this. I would argue the closed source software you use is generally higher quality because we are just at the beginning of the conversation when it comes to software. If an open source project with enough mind share can take a long enough view, it is hard to see how it WON'T someday surpass its closed-source competitors. Funding is generally on the side of a closed source project, but time is always on the side of an open source one.

Aeolun 5y ago

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. That depends entirely on the scope of the project. Projects that can be built by one person are pretty much always better as open source. That unfortunately does not include mobile operating systems though.

akho 5y ago

It's really strange how different people's approach to technology can be. I find that free software is generally better, more solid, more stable, and more useful on its own merits than commercial alternatives. There is a clear point where this breaks — new hardware, new hardware interactions — largely because hardware vendors do not do their jobs with regard to Linux / BSDs. But in terms of pure user-friendliness? it's not even a contest. To me, user-friendliness implies that software is moldable to my workflows, and that other users' stuff is easy to integrate. Also, disruptive change is evil. This concept of user-friendliness necessarily implies that software should be end-user programmable, and the pieces of the environment should be composable. Most commercial end-user software fails at this. There are clear commercial motivations why it should, given a need to sell 'apps' for every workflow, and the need to work in corporate environments (where limiting users' ability to interact is a necessity for the people who make software buying decisions). iOS is especially bad at this, given the appification of everything. There seems to be an effort to do at least something good in Shortcuts, but it's very much not enough. I do most computer stuff in Firefox, Emacs, and xterm. Or WSL (xterm and Emacs) on Windows when I'm on a Windows device because something requires it. I'm actually typing this on a Raspberry Pi, where I only have those three installed as graphical apps. I also occasionally need Darktable (which needs a GPU for any kind of performance) and Office, for which I power on a different computer. Which I would find extremely hostile without WSL. You can also track how Linux things are percolating into Windows / macOS. Virtual desktops were a thing in Linuces for years and years before coming to those two. Tiling just begins to arrive. UNIX terminal environments are such a pain decreaser that even MS now has a way to use them. With my xmonad setup I live in the future, and that's the future that has been available for a decade. Browsers are probably the most important user-facing applications right now, and are all opensource-originated. Whether corporate capture of KHTML did any good is a question; I don't think it did.

linmob 5y ago

> Also, a large part of using a smart phone is the apps. Without apps the phone is just really a phone. I attempt to list them all at https://linmobapps.frama.io https://linmobapps.frama.io.