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> Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could e

by wilg 3y ago

> Think of what truly open VR headsets, smartwatches, tablets and smartphones etc. would be capable of, the rich ecosystem of apps and capabilities that could exist - but greed is literally holding us back by decades. Nothing is stopping anyone from making these devices, and I think many do in fact exist but are not popular.

fsflover 3y ago
> Nothing is stopping anyone from making these devices Anti-competitive practices do. Example of a struggle: https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/ https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/
- wilg 3y ago
  That article is about how they weren't stopped, and there's nothing anticompetitive in it.
  - fsflover 3y ago
    Purism almost went bankrupt due to challenges like this one. They had to choose a relatively outdated, slow hardware and reverse engineer many things to make them work, e.g., camera. All companies producing the required chips refuse to work with FLOSS -- if this isn't anti-competitive and destroying competition, I don't know what is.
    - wilg 3y ago
      Yeah, I mean you have to do the work. It doesn't seem like they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, just that it's difficult to them.
      - fsflover 3y ago
        >It doesn't seem like they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, just that it's difficult to them. Do you have anything to back that up? Only one manufacturer agreed, who doesn't even work in the smartphone industry (NXP). > I mean you have to do the work This is extremely dishonest. Do you imply that reverse engineering is a normal part of writing software? Do you imply that Apple or Google don't have detailed specifications of hardware they buy from other vendors?
        wilg 3y ago
        > Do you have anything to back that up? I'm saying you need to back up the claim that they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, if you want to make it. > This is extremely dishonest. ??? If you want to build a phone that works in a particular way, you have to do the work of finding suppliers and parts and such that fit your design goals. It's not someone else's responsibility to supply it to you in the exact way you want.
        fsflover 3y ago
        It's easy: If there was a good hardware with open specs, FLOSS drivers would be written quickly from the community. Case in point: Pinephone.
        wilg 3y ago
        And yet there isn't, so if you want such hardware you must do the work to make it.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      They say nothing of the kind in that article, the only challenge they talk about is that they couldn't use integrated chipsets like the rest of the industry does for various privacy reasons, and that various suppliers they chose didn't have open-source drivers for the OS they wanted. Nothing mentioned in this article is anti-competetive, and I would bet those manufacturers also didn't have drivers for iOS or Windows Mobile or what have you.
      - fsflover 3y ago
        > couldn't use integrated chipsets like the rest of the industry does for various privacy reasons "Various privacy reasons" is in fact the main point: You can't create a privacy-respecting device, owned by the user, with any of the available vendors. > didn't have open-source drivers for the OS they wanted No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that. This is gate-keeping. > Nothing mentioned in this article is anti-competetive Again: There is no single company in the whole smartphone industry which agrees to provide specs to their hardware, so you could write free and open-source drivers. This is serious gate-keeping for the walled gardens.
        tsimionescu 3y ago
        > No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that. This is gate-keeping. Do you have a source for this claim? Because the article above definitely doesn't say this. Not that I'd be surprised if it's true, mind you. > "Various privacy reasons" is in fact the main point: You can't create a privacy-respecting device, owned by the user, with any of the available vendors. That is orthogonal to whether you can make a device with a FOSS OS, or whether you can compete with Apple and/or Google. If you want to make a device that doesn't trust the software your hardware vendors provide, you are going to face hurdles. This is not an anti-competitive thing - Apple or Google would face the exact same hurdles. Further, going with a non-integrated chip is a massive complication (and a significant performance loss) that they inflict on themselves.
margana 3y ago
Openness is about people being able to run their own software on hardware that they buy. It is a completely unreasonable argument to state that "if you want to run your own software, first build your own hardware".
- wilg 3y ago
  I think it is a completely unreasonable argument to say I have to insert and support some kind of public API surface somewhere within any hardware product I want to make to satisfy your nebulous ideology. I think its okay if people make open or closed products and they should compete on the merits.

by wilg 3y ago

fsflover 3y ago

> Nothing is stopping anyone from making these devices Anti-competitive practices do. Example of a struggle: https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/ https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/

wilg 3y ago
That article is about how they weren't stopped, and there's nothing anticompetitive in it.
- fsflover 3y ago
  Purism almost went bankrupt due to challenges like this one. They had to choose a relatively outdated, slow hardware and reverse engineer many things to make them work, e.g., camera. All companies producing the required chips refuse to work with FLOSS -- if this isn't anti-competitive and destroying competition, I don't know what is.
  - wilg 3y ago
    Yeah, I mean you have to do the work. It doesn't seem like they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, just that it's difficult to them.
    - fsflover 3y ago
      >It doesn't seem like they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, just that it's difficult to them. Do you have anything to back that up? Only one manufacturer agreed, who doesn't even work in the smartphone industry (NXP). > I mean you have to do the work This is extremely dishonest. Do you imply that reverse engineering is a normal part of writing software? Do you imply that Apple or Google don't have detailed specifications of hardware they buy from other vendors?
      - wilg 3y ago
        > Do you have anything to back that up? I'm saying you need to back up the claim that they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, if you want to make it. > This is extremely dishonest. ??? If you want to build a phone that works in a particular way, you have to do the work of finding suppliers and parts and such that fit your design goals. It's not someone else's responsibility to supply it to you in the exact way you want.
        fsflover 3y ago
        It's easy: If there was a good hardware with open specs, FLOSS drivers would be written quickly from the community. Case in point: Pinephone.
        wilg 3y ago
        And yet there isn't, so if you want such hardware you must do the work to make it.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    They say nothing of the kind in that article, the only challenge they talk about is that they couldn't use integrated chipsets like the rest of the industry does for various privacy reasons, and that various suppliers they chose didn't have open-source drivers for the OS they wanted. Nothing mentioned in this article is anti-competetive, and I would bet those manufacturers also didn't have drivers for iOS or Windows Mobile or what have you.
    - fsflover 3y ago
      > couldn't use integrated chipsets like the rest of the industry does for various privacy reasons "Various privacy reasons" is in fact the main point: You can't create a privacy-respecting device, owned by the user, with any of the available vendors. > didn't have open-source drivers for the OS they wanted No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that. This is gate-keeping. > Nothing mentioned in this article is anti-competetive Again: There is no single company in the whole smartphone industry which agrees to provide specs to their hardware, so you could write free and open-source drivers. This is serious gate-keeping for the walled gardens.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        > No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that. This is gate-keeping. Do you have a source for this claim? Because the article above definitely doesn't say this. Not that I'd be surprised if it's true, mind you. > "Various privacy reasons" is in fact the main point: You can't create a privacy-respecting device, owned by the user, with any of the available vendors. That is orthogonal to whether you can make a device with a FOSS OS, or whether you can compete with Apple and/or Google. If you want to make a device that doesn't trust the software your hardware vendors provide, you are going to face hurdles. This is not an anti-competitive thing - Apple or Google would face the exact same hurdles. Further, going with a non-integrated chip is a massive complication (and a significant performance loss) that they inflict on themselves.

margana 3y ago

Openness is about people being able to run their own software on hardware that they buy. It is a completely unreasonable argument to state that "if you want to run your own software, first build your own hardware".

wilg 3y ago
I think it is a completely unreasonable argument to say I have to insert and support some kind of public API surface somewhere within any hardware product I want to make to satisfy your nebulous ideology. I think its okay if people make open or closed products and they should compete on the merits.