4 ms·

Very happy to see PostmarketOS take an uncompromising stance and also providing justification for it.

by jonathrg 7mo ago

LaSombra 7mo ago
I wish more projects would take the same stance.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
  [flagged]
GaryBluto 7mo ago
You say "uncompromising stance" with "justification", I say stubborn prejudice. They simply state the same weak, nonsensical complaints that apply to many other technologies that they undoubtedly don't have issues with and are happy with the use of.
fartfeatures 7mo ago
Feels pretty Luddite to me. I remember when people were crying about how much power a google search uses. This is the same thing all over again and it is as pointless now as it was back then. https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/google-says-it-dropped-the-energy-cost-of-ai-queries-by-33x-in-one-year/ https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/google-says-it-dropped-th... > Google says it dropped the energy cost of AI queries by 33x in one year. The company claims that a text query now burns the equivalent of 9 seconds of TV.
- idiotsecant 7mo ago
  No, it's entirely justified when quality of code matters. They don't want a thousand gallons of unreviewable slop. They want a reasonable amount of code that can be sensibility reviewed.
  - fartfeatures 7mo ago
    There are ways to achieve that without a blanket ban, if you read their AI policy it seems more "ethically" motivated. They certainly address this first, with many more words and 7 references. They do go on to address code quality but it is more of an after thought with 0 references, less words and appears lower down the page. The timing is also suspicious, shortly after publication of this report: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-market-set-biggest-ever-decline-2026-memory-price-surge-idc-says-2026-02-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-ma... which forecasts declining smartphone sales meaning less devices for this OS to run on.
    - mftrhu 7mo ago
      > The timing is also suspicious, shortly after publication of this report: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-ma https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-ma... which forecasts declining smartphone sales meaning less devices for this OS to run on. Why would declining sales of new smartphones have anything to do with PostMarketOS, which only supports phones more than half a decade old?
      - zozbot234 7mo ago
        pmOS does support recent phones, provided that they can be bootloader-unlocked - and that's only a few brands these days.
        mftrhu 7mo ago
        Right now, their wiki page on device support [0] lists zero actual devices as "fully supported": > These are the most supported devices, maintained by at least 2 people and have the functions you expect from the device running its normal OS, such as calling on a phone, working audio, and a functional UI. > Besides QEMU devices, this is currently empty. The ports we had here earlier weren't as reliable as we would have liked. We plan to add new devices here with a higher standard. The most recent smartphone in the Community section of that page is the Fairphone 4, released half a decade ago, in 2021. Pixel devices can trivially be bootloader unlocked, but that doesn't make the work that goes into supporting them much easier: the latest device in Testing is the 6a/6 Pro, from 2022, and its device page lists all the features but the most basic (touchscreen, flash, internal storage) as "Untested". [0] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
- kruffalon 7mo ago
  The audacity to call an organisation that works on making mobile phones and other small PCs work with free software Luddite is impressive. That's like calling a person going for seconds a conservative (in the USA political sense).
  - bitwize 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - fruitworks 7mo ago
      I don't think you understand what the job entails, if you think these are the best tools
randusername 7mo ago
Agreed. I would have chosen differently, but I appreciate the policy is unambiguous and explained succinctly with references. Some people enjoy the outcome, others enjoy the process. I find the criticism interesting. It's like one restaurant saying they'll use only electric stoves for the climate, then chefs all over the world calling them stupid naive for it. It's like ethical arguments rationalizing local behavior are automatically interpreted as a global attack that has to be rejected.

Very happy to see PostmarketOS take an uncompromising stance and also providing justification for it.

LaSombra 7mo ago

I wish more projects would take the same stance.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r 7mo ago
[flagged]

GaryBluto 7mo ago

You say "uncompromising stance" with "justification", I say stubborn prejudice. They simply state the same weak, nonsensical complaints that apply to many other technologies that they undoubtedly don't have issues with and are happy with the use of.

fartfeatures 7mo ago

Feels pretty Luddite to me. I remember when people were crying about how much power a google search uses. This is the same thing all over again and it is as pointless now as it was back then. https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/google-says-it-dropped-the-energy-cost-of-ai-queries-by-33x-in-one-year/ https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/google-says-it-dropped-th... > Google says it dropped the energy cost of AI queries by 33x in one year. The company claims that a text query now burns the equivalent of 9 seconds of TV.

idiotsecant 7mo ago
No, it's entirely justified when quality of code matters. They don't want a thousand gallons of unreviewable slop. They want a reasonable amount of code that can be sensibility reviewed.
- fartfeatures 7mo ago
  There are ways to achieve that without a blanket ban, if you read their AI policy it seems more "ethically" motivated. They certainly address this first, with many more words and 7 references. They do go on to address code quality but it is more of an after thought with 0 references, less words and appears lower down the page. The timing is also suspicious, shortly after publication of this report: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-market-set-biggest-ever-decline-2026-memory-price-surge-idc-says-2026-02-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-ma... which forecasts declining smartphone sales meaning less devices for this OS to run on.
  - mftrhu 7mo ago
    > The timing is also suspicious, shortly after publication of this report: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-ma https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/smartphone-ma... which forecasts declining smartphone sales meaning less devices for this OS to run on. Why would declining sales of new smartphones have anything to do with PostMarketOS, which only supports phones more than half a decade old?
    - zozbot234 7mo ago
      pmOS does support recent phones, provided that they can be bootloader-unlocked - and that's only a few brands these days.
      - mftrhu 7mo ago
        Right now, their wiki page on device support [0] lists zero actual devices as "fully supported": > These are the most supported devices, maintained by at least 2 people and have the functions you expect from the device running its normal OS, such as calling on a phone, working audio, and a functional UI. > Besides QEMU devices, this is currently empty. The ports we had here earlier weren't as reliable as we would have liked. We plan to add new devices here with a higher standard. The most recent smartphone in the Community section of that page is the Fairphone 4, released half a decade ago, in 2021. Pixel devices can trivially be bootloader unlocked, but that doesn't make the work that goes into supporting them much easier: the latest device in Testing is the 6a/6 Pro, from 2022, and its device page lists all the features but the most basic (touchscreen, flash, internal storage) as "Untested". [0] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
kruffalon 7mo ago
The audacity to call an organisation that works on making mobile phones and other small PCs work with free software Luddite is impressive. That's like calling a person going for seconds a conservative (in the USA political sense).
- bitwize 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - fruitworks 7mo ago
    I don't think you understand what the job entails, if you think these are the best tools

randusername 7mo ago

Agreed. I would have chosen differently, but I appreciate the policy is unambiguous and explained succinctly with references. Some people enjoy the outcome, others enjoy the process. I find the criticism interesting. It's like one restaurant saying they'll use only electric stoves for the climate, then chefs all over the world calling them stupid naive for it. It's like ethical arguments rationalizing local behavior are automatically interpreted as a global attack that has to be rejected.