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The only reason I ditched GrapheneOS is because it doesn’t support automatic call recording. Sure, you can hit the record button every time you pick up, but who

The only reason I ditched GrapheneOS is because it doesn’t support automatic call recording. Sure, you can hit the record button every time you pick up, but who remembers to do that? Plenty of people have asked for this feature on GitHub [0], and the way the lead developer responds makes it look like there are some serious unresolved mental issues at play. Then I watched Louis Rossmann’s video [1] about him, and that sealed it. I refuse to touch Graphene OS with a 20 foot pole. 0. https://web.archive.org/web/20250123135603/https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/2083 https://web.archive.org/web/20250123135603/https://github.co... 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1x1Dy-ej4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1x1Dy-ej4

fluidcruft 1y ago
This is informative, and unfortunate I don't use call recording and also don't care about some guy I've never heard of ranting for 18min about some pointless comment he made on youtube causing drama (but I do care about NFC payments so that's why I haven't tried GrapheneOS yet).
cjonas 1y ago
From what I can tell sounds like this guy's stepped away from the project? Curious what the latest status is.
- stoltzmann 1y ago
  He didn't step away. He made a post where he "stepped down" as the project lead and instead got replaced by a "GrapheneOS Foundation director", of which there are 3 including him. That post has been deleted. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than obscuring the leadership of the project a tiny bit. strcat is still active here in the comments.
  - matheusmoreira 1y ago
    Is strcat the person who supposedly stepped down? If so, I'm glad he's still project lead. I would have immediately written off GrapheneOS as a lost cause if he wasn't. I have spent many hours browsing his comment history and reading his extremely detailed posts on Android and smartphone security. He obviously knows what he's doing. Not only is he competent, it's also clear that he cares way too much about GrapheneOS and is personally invested in it. Competence and actually giving a shit are the two attributes I respect most in a person. I wouldn't want anyone else making decisions. And that's coming from a guy who publicly disagreed with him on some ideological issue literally three days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45214818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45214818
    - strcat 1y ago
      > Is strcat the person who supposedly stepped down? They're misrepresenting our announcement. It's unsurprising since it's in the context of supporting harassment towards me based on fabrications. Unfortunately, Hacker News consistently permits baselessly calling people insane, schizophrenic, etc. and pushing fabricated stories about them.
      - Axmr21 1y ago
        [dead]
scheeseman486 1y ago
Why is it that whenever someone makes an accusation of bad behaviour from GrapeheneOS devs, they always end the posts with citations that lead to absolutely nowhere? Where, specifically in that first link as I don't consider a Louis Rossmann video a credible source, are these indications of "unresolved mental issues"? Don't post another link or quote from anywhere else. You provided that link as evidence and I want to see specifically what it is you expect people to take from it.
- cjonas 1y ago
  Do you think Louiss fabricated that chat he was showing in realtime? Seemed pretty unhinged to me...
  - scheeseman486 1y ago
    Strcat gets harassed based on frivolties, manufactured outrage. There have been repeated accusations of mental health issues without any substantive evidence, including from the person I was just replying to. The evidence they do give is usually of the developer expressing frustration at dealing with those accusations, which is ironic given that those accusations are self evidently true given that the people making those posts are usually accusing them! All I see in Rossman's video is someone frustrated by a influential person giving a platform to an organisation that, to be frank, has shown themselves to be considerably less trustworthy than GrapheneOS. I believe strcat has been the target of harassment, I believe them because I've seen it happen and given the sensitive nature of GrapheneOS I also think it's not terribly unlikely there was an organized disinfo effort. That I've seen "This is informative and unfortunate." come up over and over again as if it were some mantra, I guess is sorta telling. People aren't thinking for themselves, they're just uncritically absorbing the opinions of the charming people they're watching on youtube.
    - cjonas 1y ago
      Idk anything about this drama, but "frustrated" is generous interpretation. Dude left an comment on a YouTube video and the guy freaked out on him. Seems like exactly the type of behavior he's claiming isn't real. I just want to know the OS I'm installing on my phone isn't at the whims of anyone who could pull a "colours/faker" stunt. But hopefully the project has governance and control that no single person could that that anyways (otherwise it'd be hard to calm it's a "secure" alternative)
ignoramous 1y ago
> Then I watched Louis Rossmann’s video [1] about him, and that sealed it. fwiw, Louis Rossmann's employer/key supporter has disbursed grants to GrapheneOS and associated projects. > Plenty of people have asked for this feature on GitHub The issue has been deleted, but from the archive, (assuming the "lead developer" jab is aimed at Daniel) Micay says, "This is an issue that's going to be fixed and not a reason to change this." Then goes, "Please use reactions on the top level issue instead of adding comments expressing support for a change. You're sending unnecessary emails to the project developers." As someone who maintains rather unremarkable FOSS projects, saying NO to feature requests is not at all easy in that it irks the community to no end, let alone one as large as Graphene's. Everyone is quick to reach all sorts of conclusions and pass judgements. > ... the way the lead developer responds makes it look like there are some serious unresolved mental issues at play afaik, there's 3 directors (also developers, from what I can tell) who steward GrapheneOS. Don't suppose they are all "mental"? https://www.canadacompanyregistry.com/companies/grapheneos-foundation/ https://www.canadacompanyregistry.com/companies/grapheneos-f...
- tricked 1y ago
  they actually don't want futo grants anymore > FUTO made a $40k donation to GrapheneOS supposedly with no strings attached. They ended up being unhappy with us not making content with them and promoting them. https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1854611673711353902 https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1854611673711353902
gtsop 1y ago
I am sick of people raising this developer's mental issues. This is 2025, we should be sympathetic and encouranging to any human being struggling with mental issues, helping them get through or at least not trip them or sideline them. GrapheneOS is undeniably a project of great value, if you don't like something about it's development raise it and stop there as you would do with any project. Stop the "Graphene doesn't have X feature but the lead dev is nuts so I don't touch it" meme.
- stoltzmann 1y ago
  This is besides the point. The lead dev started going on a rant when facing a comment as simple as "this is informative, and unfortunate" on a video that he didn't like, and is unable to parse that statement as anything else but a personal attack at him. He threatened banning Louis over that unless he completely gave in. You can see the whole discussion in the video linked in the post above. It's a communication issue at the core, and always doubling down is not making it any better. It portrays the whole project as being unreliable.
  - scheeseman486 1y ago
    Posting "this is informative, and unfortunate" as a comment to a video with a bunch of inflammatory accusations is giving credence to and expressing approval at the substance of it's content. So no, it isn't as "simple" as the issue being only the literal content of that comment. The context matters.
  - gtsop 1y ago
    I know the whole story in depth and you keep iterating over the same thing. If this person has indeed mental issues, to publicly expose it in a degrading light does not help him, or anyone else really. If he doesn't have mental issues then all this discussion is unjustly defaming a person and damaging perception around mental issues. Either way this discussion is bad. You are the one portraying the project as unreliable. I only judge GrapheneOS by the actual output being delivered, the code and and the binary that is. And if you go down the route of validating the output based on his behaviour then i would flip it on you. I would much rather use an OS developed by a paranoid guy who thinks everyone hunts them. I'd bet it's more secure. But this is silly-talk. What matters is the deliverable. Has the project given any evidence of being unreliable or not teustworthy?
Iolaum 1y ago
Couldn't that be achieved by a separate app? Why would the OS need to do it?
sandworm101 1y ago
Automatic recording may be illegal in jurisdictions that mandate permission from both parties. I can see why gos might not want to include it in a base operating system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws
- strcat 1y ago
  We never said we wouldn't implement it. We said the current pull request is inadequate because it doesn't show users that it's enabled so people can end up accidentally recording a bunch of calls if they toggle it on and forget about it or toggle it by accident.
- whatsupdog 1y ago
  Samsung phones have it. I have verified from at least one source who lives in one of such jurisdictions (India), a Samsung phone they bought has this feature. So, it doesn't have anything to do with the law.
ohdeargodno 1y ago
[dead]
commandersaki 1y ago
Getting to the meat of why they didn't implement automatic call recording is that storage could fill up and they didn't want to implement managing user storage? I mean sounds like a fair call.
- strcat 1y ago
  We never said we wouldn't implement it. We said the current pull request is inadequate because it doesn't show users that it's enabled so people can end up accidentally recording a bunch of calls if they toggle it on and forget about it or toggle it by accident.
other8026 1y ago
I'm one of GrapheneOS's moderators and just saw this. What I see here is someone who wants a feature, a feature that many people want, but it hasn't been added for reasons listed in the GrapheneOS issue tracker. No one was rude or anything there in that link you shared that I can see. > the lead developer responds makes it look like there are some serious unresolved mental issues To say something like this is extremely out of line. > Louis Rossmann’s video What you fail to mention here is incredibly important context, but leaving that out conveniently supports the narrative that Daniel is crazy. Biggest fact there is that he had just been swatted multiple times. Louis commented on another harassment video and Daniel was understandably upset. By the way, the swatter had been in contact and even told GrapheneOS project members that they were a fan of the YouTuber who made the first video. So, attempted murder by some other person, a "friend" was supporting harassment content making him out to be "crazy" and comments on that video showing support for it, then, knowing that, Louis records a video of a private conversation in real time. The video itself was filled with lies and misrepresentations. Even the title was a lie because Rossmann continued to use GrapheneOS for long after that video was released. Not to mention the fact that targeted updates aren't even possible on GrapheneOS considering how updates work and the infrastructure. Louis may not understand these things, but even though we and others have pointed this fact out multiple times, the video remains up. The video is clearly meant to do one thing: damage or destroy GrapheneOS.

fluidcruft 1y ago

This is informative, and unfortunate I don't use call recording and also don't care about some guy I've never heard of ranting for 18min about some pointless comment he made on youtube causing drama (but I do care about NFC payments so that's why I haven't tried GrapheneOS yet).

cjonas 1y ago

From what I can tell sounds like this guy's stepped away from the project? Curious what the latest status is.

stoltzmann 1y ago
He didn't step away. He made a post where he "stepped down" as the project lead and instead got replaced by a "GrapheneOS Foundation director", of which there are 3 including him. That post has been deleted. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than obscuring the leadership of the project a tiny bit. strcat is still active here in the comments.
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  Is strcat the person who supposedly stepped down? If so, I'm glad he's still project lead. I would have immediately written off GrapheneOS as a lost cause if he wasn't. I have spent many hours browsing his comment history and reading his extremely detailed posts on Android and smartphone security. He obviously knows what he's doing. Not only is he competent, it's also clear that he cares way too much about GrapheneOS and is personally invested in it. Competence and actually giving a shit are the two attributes I respect most in a person. I wouldn't want anyone else making decisions. And that's coming from a guy who publicly disagreed with him on some ideological issue literally three days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45214818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45214818
  - strcat 1y ago
    > Is strcat the person who supposedly stepped down? They're misrepresenting our announcement. It's unsurprising since it's in the context of supporting harassment towards me based on fabrications. Unfortunately, Hacker News consistently permits baselessly calling people insane, schizophrenic, etc. and pushing fabricated stories about them.
    - Axmr21 1y ago
      [dead]

scheeseman486 1y ago

Why is it that whenever someone makes an accusation of bad behaviour from GrapeheneOS devs, they always end the posts with citations that lead to absolutely nowhere? Where, specifically in that first link as I don't consider a Louis Rossmann video a credible source, are these indications of "unresolved mental issues"? Don't post another link or quote from anywhere else. You provided that link as evidence and I want to see specifically what it is you expect people to take from it.

cjonas 1y ago
Do you think Louiss fabricated that chat he was showing in realtime? Seemed pretty unhinged to me...
- scheeseman486 1y ago
  Strcat gets harassed based on frivolties, manufactured outrage. There have been repeated accusations of mental health issues without any substantive evidence, including from the person I was just replying to. The evidence they do give is usually of the developer expressing frustration at dealing with those accusations, which is ironic given that those accusations are self evidently true given that the people making those posts are usually accusing them! All I see in Rossman's video is someone frustrated by a influential person giving a platform to an organisation that, to be frank, has shown themselves to be considerably less trustworthy than GrapheneOS. I believe strcat has been the target of harassment, I believe them because I've seen it happen and given the sensitive nature of GrapheneOS I also think it's not terribly unlikely there was an organized disinfo effort. That I've seen "This is informative and unfortunate." come up over and over again as if it were some mantra, I guess is sorta telling. People aren't thinking for themselves, they're just uncritically absorbing the opinions of the charming people they're watching on youtube.
  - cjonas 1y ago
    Idk anything about this drama, but "frustrated" is generous interpretation. Dude left an comment on a YouTube video and the guy freaked out on him. Seems like exactly the type of behavior he's claiming isn't real. I just want to know the OS I'm installing on my phone isn't at the whims of anyone who could pull a "colours/faker" stunt. But hopefully the project has governance and control that no single person could that that anyways (otherwise it'd be hard to calm it's a "secure" alternative)

ignoramous 1y ago

> Then I watched Louis Rossmann’s video [1] about him, and that sealed it. fwiw, Louis Rossmann's employer/key supporter has disbursed grants to GrapheneOS and associated projects. > Plenty of people have asked for this feature on GitHub The issue has been deleted, but from the archive, (assuming the "lead developer" jab is aimed at Daniel) Micay says, "This is an issue that's going to be fixed and not a reason to change this." Then goes, "Please use reactions on the top level issue instead of adding comments expressing support for a change. You're sending unnecessary emails to the project developers." As someone who maintains rather unremarkable FOSS projects, saying NO to feature requests is not at all easy in that it irks the community to no end, let alone one as large as Graphene's. Everyone is quick to reach all sorts of conclusions and pass judgements. > ... the way the lead developer responds makes it look like there are some serious unresolved mental issues at play afaik, there's 3 directors (also developers, from what I can tell) who steward GrapheneOS. Don't suppose they are all "mental"? https://www.canadacompanyregistry.com/companies/grapheneos-foundation/ https://www.canadacompanyregistry.com/companies/grapheneos-f...

tricked 1y ago
they actually don't want futo grants anymore > FUTO made a $40k donation to GrapheneOS supposedly with no strings attached. They ended up being unhappy with us not making content with them and promoting them. https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1854611673711353902 https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1854611673711353902

gtsop 1y ago

I am sick of people raising this developer's mental issues. This is 2025, we should be sympathetic and encouranging to any human being struggling with mental issues, helping them get through or at least not trip them or sideline them. GrapheneOS is undeniably a project of great value, if you don't like something about it's development raise it and stop there as you would do with any project. Stop the "Graphene doesn't have X feature but the lead dev is nuts so I don't touch it" meme.

stoltzmann 1y ago
This is besides the point. The lead dev started going on a rant when facing a comment as simple as "this is informative, and unfortunate" on a video that he didn't like, and is unable to parse that statement as anything else but a personal attack at him. He threatened banning Louis over that unless he completely gave in. You can see the whole discussion in the video linked in the post above. It's a communication issue at the core, and always doubling down is not making it any better. It portrays the whole project as being unreliable.
- scheeseman486 1y ago
  Posting "this is informative, and unfortunate" as a comment to a video with a bunch of inflammatory accusations is giving credence to and expressing approval at the substance of it's content. So no, it isn't as "simple" as the issue being only the literal content of that comment. The context matters.
- gtsop 1y ago
  I know the whole story in depth and you keep iterating over the same thing. If this person has indeed mental issues, to publicly expose it in a degrading light does not help him, or anyone else really. If he doesn't have mental issues then all this discussion is unjustly defaming a person and damaging perception around mental issues. Either way this discussion is bad. You are the one portraying the project as unreliable. I only judge GrapheneOS by the actual output being delivered, the code and and the binary that is. And if you go down the route of validating the output based on his behaviour then i would flip it on you. I would much rather use an OS developed by a paranoid guy who thinks everyone hunts them. I'd bet it's more secure. But this is silly-talk. What matters is the deliverable. Has the project given any evidence of being unreliable or not teustworthy?

Iolaum 1y ago

Couldn't that be achieved by a separate app? Why would the OS need to do it?

sandworm101 1y ago

Automatic recording may be illegal in jurisdictions that mandate permission from both parties. I can see why gos might not want to include it in a base operating system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws

strcat 1y ago
We never said we wouldn't implement it. We said the current pull request is inadequate because it doesn't show users that it's enabled so people can end up accidentally recording a bunch of calls if they toggle it on and forget about it or toggle it by accident.
whatsupdog 1y ago
Samsung phones have it. I have verified from at least one source who lives in one of such jurisdictions (India), a Samsung phone they bought has this feature. So, it doesn't have anything to do with the law.

ohdeargodno 1y ago

[dead]

commandersaki 1y ago

Getting to the meat of why they didn't implement automatic call recording is that storage could fill up and they didn't want to implement managing user storage? I mean sounds like a fair call.

strcat 1y ago
We never said we wouldn't implement it. We said the current pull request is inadequate because it doesn't show users that it's enabled so people can end up accidentally recording a bunch of calls if they toggle it on and forget about it or toggle it by accident.

other8026 1y ago

I'm one of GrapheneOS's moderators and just saw this. What I see here is someone who wants a feature, a feature that many people want, but it hasn't been added for reasons listed in the GrapheneOS issue tracker. No one was rude or anything there in that link you shared that I can see. > the lead developer responds makes it look like there are some serious unresolved mental issues To say something like this is extremely out of line. > Louis Rossmann’s video What you fail to mention here is incredibly important context, but leaving that out conveniently supports the narrative that Daniel is crazy. Biggest fact there is that he had just been swatted multiple times. Louis commented on another harassment video and Daniel was understandably upset. By the way, the swatter had been in contact and even told GrapheneOS project members that they were a fan of the YouTuber who made the first video. So, attempted murder by some other person, a "friend" was supporting harassment content making him out to be "crazy" and comments on that video showing support for it, then, knowing that, Louis records a video of a private conversation in real time. The video itself was filled with lies and misrepresentations. Even the title was a lie because Rossmann continued to use GrapheneOS for long after that video was released. Not to mention the fact that targeted updates aren't even possible on GrapheneOS considering how updates work and the infrastructure. Louis may not understand these things, but even though we and others have pointed this fact out multiple times, the video remains up. The video is clearly meant to do one thing: damage or destroy GrapheneOS.