4 ms·

it's based on a proprietary os, which includes halium proprietary blobs. imho, linux users should focus on phones well supported by postmarketos

ux266478 10mo ago
All phones end up reliant on proprietary blobs. Not that I disagree in principle, but we have to be realistic. Hardware manufacturers, telcoms and to some degree regulators all do not like user freedom with regards to phones.
- zb3 10mo ago
  But AOSP is open source while Sailfish OS is not. Also "proprietary blobs" != "proprietary blobs" (there's varying level of obfuscation/debug info).
  - mariusor 10mo ago
    Which proprietary blobs in Sailfish OS are worse than the others you were referring to?
    - wiseowise 10mo ago
      Whole OS?
      - m4rtink 10mo ago
        Basically all the middleware in Sailfish OS was always open source and many of the apps as well. They have been also IIRC finally open sourcing the primary apps as there are no longer pesky external investors forcikg them to keep things closed for weird reasons.
      - mariusor 10mo ago
        There are driver blobs for the underlying device which they can't do much about, and then there are the last vestiges of Lipstick (the Sailfish OS UI), which are not released under an open source license. That's hardly "the whole OS", since everything else is a plain linux distribution.
- nebula8804 10mo ago
  Isn't the Librem 5 fully open?
  - ux266478 10mo ago
    No. The touchscreen firmware's source is not distributed[1] for one, and neither is the firmware for the baseband processor. Possibly more aspects. Although "open" doesn't matter as much as "libre" does. Modifying source code is useless if you can't actually replace the running instance. It has all the same problems as closed source software. Baseband processors are legally required to be tivoized, thus the violation of user freedoms is encoded in law. Quite frankly, I think it's a huge mistake on the part of regulators. If somebody wanted to do undesirable things on cellphone bands, they can simply build their own transciever for it and there's effectively no way to stop that. These regulations aren't a real security measure, not even security through obscurity. Making a transmitter for a certain band is trivial if all you're doing is causing interference. If the malicious actor is doing more than just that, it already requires a strong understanding of RF principles such that they already effectively posses the knowledge to make an appropriate transciever. All regulators effectively do here with Tivoization is protect potential back doors and security vulnerabilities from being mitigated. [1] - https://docs.puri.sm/Hardware/Librem_5/advanced/firmware.html https://docs.puri.sm/Hardware/Librem_5/advanced/firmware.htm...
    - nebula8804 10mo ago
      Darn well thats a damn shame. The phone compromises so much "nice to have" features to get to the supposed "privacy respecting" label. Its a shame they didn't actually go all the way. Seems like then all we really have in terms of communication devices is the BeTrusted platform (Precursor communication device)
      - ux266478 10mo ago
        The Precursor greatly interests me. Do you have personal experience with it?
szopin 10mo ago
Libhybris not halium, and those are open, the android driver blobs are closed and it's the same on pmOS with halium? They did start open sourcing a lot of their UI components recently, so hopefully this continues, we'll see
- m4rtink 10mo ago
  Btw, Jolla created libhyris back in the day for the first Jolla phone in ~2013. It has been since used by other phones and comanies for various purposes when the only thing you have is a board with only Android bionic libc compiled blobs available.
aerique 10mo ago
At least SFOS has been a viable daily driver since 2013, so there's that. And SFOS can also run natively like on the PinePhone.

ux266478 10mo ago

All phones end up reliant on proprietary blobs. Not that I disagree in principle, but we have to be realistic. Hardware manufacturers, telcoms and to some degree regulators all do not like user freedom with regards to phones.

zb3 10mo ago
But AOSP is open source while Sailfish OS is not. Also "proprietary blobs" != "proprietary blobs" (there's varying level of obfuscation/debug info).
- mariusor 10mo ago
  Which proprietary blobs in Sailfish OS are worse than the others you were referring to?
  - wiseowise 10mo ago
    Whole OS?
    - m4rtink 10mo ago
      Basically all the middleware in Sailfish OS was always open source and many of the apps as well. They have been also IIRC finally open sourcing the primary apps as there are no longer pesky external investors forcikg them to keep things closed for weird reasons.
    - mariusor 10mo ago
      There are driver blobs for the underlying device which they can't do much about, and then there are the last vestiges of Lipstick (the Sailfish OS UI), which are not released under an open source license. That's hardly "the whole OS", since everything else is a plain linux distribution.
nebula8804 10mo ago
Isn't the Librem 5 fully open?
- ux266478 10mo ago
  No. The touchscreen firmware's source is not distributed[1] for one, and neither is the firmware for the baseband processor. Possibly more aspects. Although "open" doesn't matter as much as "libre" does. Modifying source code is useless if you can't actually replace the running instance. It has all the same problems as closed source software. Baseband processors are legally required to be tivoized, thus the violation of user freedoms is encoded in law. Quite frankly, I think it's a huge mistake on the part of regulators. If somebody wanted to do undesirable things on cellphone bands, they can simply build their own transciever for it and there's effectively no way to stop that. These regulations aren't a real security measure, not even security through obscurity. Making a transmitter for a certain band is trivial if all you're doing is causing interference. If the malicious actor is doing more than just that, it already requires a strong understanding of RF principles such that they already effectively posses the knowledge to make an appropriate transciever. All regulators effectively do here with Tivoization is protect potential back doors and security vulnerabilities from being mitigated. [1] - https://docs.puri.sm/Hardware/Librem_5/advanced/firmware.html https://docs.puri.sm/Hardware/Librem_5/advanced/firmware.htm...
  - nebula8804 10mo ago
    Darn well thats a damn shame. The phone compromises so much "nice to have" features to get to the supposed "privacy respecting" label. Its a shame they didn't actually go all the way. Seems like then all we really have in terms of communication devices is the BeTrusted platform (Precursor communication device)
    - ux266478 10mo ago
      The Precursor greatly interests me. Do you have personal experience with it?

szopin 10mo ago

Libhybris not halium, and those are open, the android driver blobs are closed and it's the same on pmOS with halium? They did start open sourcing a lot of their UI components recently, so hopefully this continues, we'll see

m4rtink 10mo ago
Btw, Jolla created libhyris back in the day for the first Jolla phone in ~2013. It has been since used by other phones and comanies for various purposes when the only thing you have is a board with only Android bionic libc compiled blobs available.

aerique 10mo ago

At least SFOS has been a viable daily driver since 2013, so there's that. And SFOS can also run natively like on the PinePhone.