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I really want to insist on this: when someone develops software, you don't get to choose what they develop. That's just life. If they make their software open

by palata 1mo ago

I really want to insist on this: when someone develops software, you don't get to choose what they develop. That's just life. If they make their software open source, you get to fork it (sometimes contribute to it) and this is already very generous. But that's all. I say that as an open source author and maintainer, and my experience is that the vast majority of developers do NOT understand that. I have been criticised, insulted, sometimes bullied by people who wanted me to implement whatever they wanted ON TOP of providing my work for free. You can have your own definition of "free software" that means "the developers have to agree with my personal taste", and say that "Linux is borderline not free software because I want them to officially support Zig and they don't", but it doesn't bring much. What makes Linux free software is that you can fork it. I guess I don't understand the need to have a definition that only serves for complaining about a free project not implementing a feature you want. I get it, you wish GrapheneOS gave you root access. But it is not the choice of the people who do the work and make it available for free. But because it is free software, you can fork it and modify it yourself, and this is great.

Ajedi32 1mo ago
For what it's worth this isn't just my "personal taste". I think Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, at least, would agree with my definition[1]: > Freedom 1 includes the freedom to use your changed version in place of the original. If the program is delivered in a product designed to run someone else's modified versions but refuse to run yours—a practice known as “tivoization” or “lockdown,” or (in its practitioners' perverse terminology) as “secure boot”—freedom 1 becomes an empty pretense rather than a practical reality. These binaries are not free software even if the source code they are compiled from is free. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#make-changes:~:text=If%20the%20program%20is%20delivered%20in%20a%20product%20designed%20to%20run%20someone%20else%27s%20modified%20versions%20but%20refuse%20to%20run%20yours https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#make-changes:~:t... I didn't say anything about what GrapheneOS devs must do. They don't have to do anything. I just think that some of what they are doing comes close to impinging on software freedom in the same way proprietary software does regularly (though again, Graphene doesn't quite cross that line, in my opinion).
- palata 1mo ago
  You misunderstand what Stallman says. The quote agrees with my definition. You can do all that with GrapheneOS today. What you are asking for is root access on the GrapheneOS official builds. Where does Stallman say you should get it?
  - Ajedi32 1mo ago
    I'm not asking for anything, I'm telling you what they are doing, and what they are doing is going right up to (but not quite crossing) the line of blocking you from modifying the software on your phone. To re-iterate: > If the program is delivered in a product designed to run someone else's modified versions but refuse to run yours—a practice known [...] in its practitioners' perverse terminology as “secure boot”—freedom 1 becomes an empty pretense GrapheneOS literally implements secure boot, using a key you do not control. So if you install GrapheneOS, the Graphene devs have the ability to push updates to the code running on your phone but you yourself do not unless you completely uninstall GrapheneOS and wipe all data on the phone. The only thing preventing this from being actually anti-freedom rather than merely borderline anti-freedom is that if you choose to completely un-install Graphene and wipe your phone there's currently nothing that will prevent you from installing another OS built with a different signing key (aside from the inconvenience and technical difficulty of doing so). If there were, then this would be a textbook example of what the FSF explicitly calls "not free software" in that quote.
    - palata 1mo ago
      Again you don't understand Stallman's quote. Let me try: > If the program is delivered in a product designed to run someone else's modified versions but refuse to run yours—a practice known as “tivoization” or “lockdown,” or (in its practitioners' perverse terminology) as “secure boot”—freedom 1 becomes an empty pretense Tivoisation or lockdown or abusively calling it "secure boot" is, according to Stallman, "non free". GrapheneOS does not do that. GrapheneOS does not even own the hardware that could do tivoisation. GrapheneOS is the fork of the original project that has been updated and installed on the original device. That means that not only GrapheneOS is free, but AOSP as well! > is that if you choose to completely un-install Graphene and wipe your phone there's currently nothing that will prevent you from installing another OS built with a different signing key And that's exactly what Stallman calls "free". If it prevents you from doing precisely that, it's not free. But it doesn't, so it's free. Secure boot is a security feature. One that I want. One that makes GrapheneOS more secure than, say, a Linux on mobile (or all the other Android flavours that break secure boot, like it was for /e/OS on my FairPhone 3). The whole point of GrapheneOS is that it is secure, and therefore it is designed around that. Thanks to secure boot, if an app manages to get root access and modify the system, it will be detect on the next boot, and therefore it won't persist. This is a desirable feature. You apparently don't want that, it's your choice. You can use LineageOS, which allows it, or you can fork GrapheneOS and modify that part. This is all free, this is all how it's supposed to work, this is all desirable. GrapheneOS is free to make the product they want, and that product doesn't allow you to have admin access. You seem to misunderstand "owning your device". It does not mean "the software allows you to do everything you want", it means "you can install whatever you want on it". If you install something that does not give you root access (i.e. GrapheneOS), it is your choice.

by palata 1mo ago

Ajedi32 1mo ago

For what it's worth this isn't just my "personal taste". I think Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, at least, would agree with my definition[1]: > Freedom 1 includes the freedom to use your changed version in place of the original. If the program is delivered in a product designed to run someone else's modified versions but refuse to run yours—a practice known as “tivoization” or “lockdown,” or (in its practitioners' perverse terminology) as “secure boot”—freedom 1 becomes an empty pretense rather than a practical reality. These binaries are not free software even if the source code they are compiled from is free. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#make-changes:~:text=If%20the%20program%20is%20delivered%20in%20a%20product%20designed%20to%20run%20someone%20else%27s%20modified%20versions%20but%20refuse%20to%20run%20yours https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#make-changes:~:t... I didn't say anything about what GrapheneOS devs must do. They don't have to do anything. I just think that some of what they are doing comes close to impinging on software freedom in the same way proprietary software does regularly (though again, Graphene doesn't quite cross that line, in my opinion).

palata 1mo ago
You misunderstand what Stallman says. The quote agrees with my definition. You can do all that with GrapheneOS today. What you are asking for is root access on the GrapheneOS official builds. Where does Stallman say you should get it?
- Ajedi32 1mo ago
  I'm not asking for anything, I'm telling you what they are doing, and what they are doing is going right up to (but not quite crossing) the line of blocking you from modifying the software on your phone. To re-iterate: > If the program is delivered in a product designed to run someone else's modified versions but refuse to run yours—a practice known [...] in its practitioners' perverse terminology as “secure boot”—freedom 1 becomes an empty pretense GrapheneOS literally implements secure boot, using a key you do not control. So if you install GrapheneOS, the Graphene devs have the ability to push updates to the code running on your phone but you yourself do not unless you completely uninstall GrapheneOS and wipe all data on the phone. The only thing preventing this from being actually anti-freedom rather than merely borderline anti-freedom is that if you choose to completely un-install Graphene and wipe your phone there's currently nothing that will prevent you from installing another OS built with a different signing key (aside from the inconvenience and technical difficulty of doing so). If there were, then this would be a textbook example of what the FSF explicitly calls "not free software" in that quote.
  - palata 1mo ago
    Again you don't understand Stallman's quote. Let me try: > If the program is delivered in a product designed to run someone else's modified versions but refuse to run yours—a practice known as “tivoization” or “lockdown,” or (in its practitioners' perverse terminology) as “secure boot”—freedom 1 becomes an empty pretense Tivoisation or lockdown or abusively calling it "secure boot" is, according to Stallman, "non free". GrapheneOS does not do that. GrapheneOS does not even own the hardware that could do tivoisation. GrapheneOS is the fork of the original project that has been updated and installed on the original device. That means that not only GrapheneOS is free, but AOSP as well! > is that if you choose to completely un-install Graphene and wipe your phone there's currently nothing that will prevent you from installing another OS built with a different signing key And that's exactly what Stallman calls "free". If it prevents you from doing precisely that, it's not free. But it doesn't, so it's free. Secure boot is a security feature. One that I want. One that makes GrapheneOS more secure than, say, a Linux on mobile (or all the other Android flavours that break secure boot, like it was for /e/OS on my FairPhone 3). The whole point of GrapheneOS is that it is secure, and therefore it is designed around that. Thanks to secure boot, if an app manages to get root access and modify the system, it will be detect on the next boot, and therefore it won't persist. This is a desirable feature. You apparently don't want that, it's your choice. You can use LineageOS, which allows it, or you can fork GrapheneOS and modify that part. This is all free, this is all how it's supposed to work, this is all desirable. GrapheneOS is free to make the product they want, and that product doesn't allow you to have admin access. You seem to misunderstand "owning your device". It does not mean "the software allows you to do everything you want", it means "you can install whatever you want on it". If you install something that does not give you root access (i.e. GrapheneOS), it is your choice.