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I can't see this being a pleasurable user-experience. Ever. I think this highlights the fact that it would be much easier to start with open hardware and insta

I can't see this being a pleasurable user-experience. Ever. I think this highlights the fact that it would be much easier to start with open hardware and install something intended to be fully open like Ubuntu Touch on it. Unless you do that, you're going to need to reverse engineer every device driver for every piece of phone hardware – you'll never finish and the user will always be cut off from some percent of their phones features and the rest might not work correctly. I guess that a pleasurable user-experience might not be the end-goal and maybe this is fun because hacking.

foley 13y ago
Absolutely, I had great fun running all kinds of custom ROMs on my Galaxy s and One X but at no point did either of them function 100%.
aray 13y ago
It seems very analagous to a FLOSS-only desktop experience (for a while I think Fedora Linux was one). It was not a polished user experience, and certainly some things were lacking, but when I used it I was able to accomplish all the things I needed done (and face it, most of those can be done by the web browser anyways). The other reason I have hope for this is most of the non-FLOSS functionality is available at least in some form in web apps, or in a F-Droid application. Google Maps, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, etc all have pretty good (capable, functional) mobile web applications, and all you need FLOSS for is the web browser.
- micampe 13y ago
  What is the difference then if you are still using proprietary services that run proprietary code, just on a different CPU? You are not gaining anything from the change other than the inconvenience of "pretty good" web applications instead of local native applications: you still can't modify them or verify their behavior.
  - aray 13y ago
    It depends on what your goals are. If you want a system that's only running open-source-built code on your device, but are willing to have your device interact with devices running proprietary software, then mobile web applications are fine. If you only want to interact with devices and services that are using open source software, then you're likely not to miss e.g. Google Maps application in the first place.
    - micampe 13y ago
      Yes, of course, but that’s a tautology. What would the first goal achieve over running the Twitter app on my phone?
  - IgorPartola 13y ago
    Security, for one. It is much harder for a web app to key log your phone than to a native app.
fosap 13y ago
Freedom and convenience are virtually always antagonists.
- nilved 13y ago
  That isn't true, and it's dangerous to say it is.
  - fosap 13y ago
    Slavery always requires less thinking.
    - Zuider 13y ago
      The road to slavery requires less thinking. Once you get there you need all of your wits just to survive.
    - eevilspock 13y ago
      Responses such as yours require less thinking. Slavery requires less thinking. Therefore you are a slave. /s
  - Angostura 13y ago
    I think it's an interesting suggestion. If you believe it's false and dangerous it may be helpful to provide some reasoning.
    - zanny 13y ago
      A lot of the free software I use is much more convenient than the commercial alternatives. See Firefox at the least for the largest most well recognized project with open contributions that is also usually much more convenient and free than commercial alternatives. Nothing about releasing source or having a collaborative contribution model suggests the software can't be convenient. A better terminology is that security and convenience conflict one another, because to be secure requires you to sacrifice your own convenience to limit foreign entities convenience in accessing your data.
crististm 13y ago
You describe exactly how Linux became what it is. And the goal was not to support all the hardware there was - just 386. In light of existing examples, your argument has little value. I'm in the Replicant market. I don't give a shit about convenience if I can find a free software version somewhere :)...
- nailer 13y ago
  > > I can't see this being a pleasurable user-experience. > You describe exactly how Linux became what it is. The main server OS (UX not quite relevant for servers) or an OSS kernel primarily used by consumers with a semi-closed (Android) userspace?
  - nilliams 13y ago
    You're quite right. UX was never a factor with Linux, and OSS (in the large, excluding things like Basecamp, sorry) has never succeeded to create good, consumer UX. Unfortunately UX is absolutely critical with mobile. Here's a talk by Aral Balkan (that I couldn't recommend more) that covers this topic amazingly (jump to about 32m30s for the meat): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QCBzQ0aNc&t=00h32m30s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QCBzQ0aNc&t=00h32m30s
    - likeclockwork 13y ago
      Basecamp is not open source.
      - nilliams 13y ago
        Oops, good point! (It was very late when I wrote that).
pingswept 13y ago
Does an open hardware phone exist? I'm not aware of one that I can actually buy today. The closest I know of is the OpenMoko GTA04, but it's not clear to me that the project is still living.
- ktosiek 13y ago
  There's a continuation to GTA04 in the works: http://neo900.org/ http://neo900.org/
- ajb 13y ago
  Apparently the fairphone will be: http://www.fairphone.com http://www.fairphone.com
  - pingswept 13y ago
    This looks cool, but doesn't appear to be open hardware.
da_n 13y ago
Pleasurable? Depends in what sense but in general and framed with the average user in mind I would agree with you there. I have been doing a self-experiment for the last few months to use FOSS app(lication)s as much as possible on my Note II running CyanogenMod 10.1 or instead use actual websites instead of apps. I am using F-Droid as a repo, it has been great. To say it is really easy or convenient would be a lie though, I am also missing some (mostly cloud) features I really liked when I was inside the GOOG garden, but living without Google's and other closed-source apps has actually been relatively painless for me and my data is inside my own control. Firefox, K-9, AntennaPod, Focal, RedReader, FeedEx are a few of the great FOSS apps (just need K-9 to get a decent icon).
- tolle 13y ago
  K-9 is awesome, but I really do hate the icon.
ximeng 13y ago
That's why Bunnie's open source laptop is exciting. http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3265 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3265

foley 13y ago

Absolutely, I had great fun running all kinds of custom ROMs on my Galaxy s and One X but at no point did either of them function 100%.

aray 13y ago

It seems very analagous to a FLOSS-only desktop experience (for a while I think Fedora Linux was one). It was not a polished user experience, and certainly some things were lacking, but when I used it I was able to accomplish all the things I needed done (and face it, most of those can be done by the web browser anyways). The other reason I have hope for this is most of the non-FLOSS functionality is available at least in some form in web apps, or in a F-Droid application. Google Maps, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, etc all have pretty good (capable, functional) mobile web applications, and all you need FLOSS for is the web browser.

micampe 13y ago
What is the difference then if you are still using proprietary services that run proprietary code, just on a different CPU? You are not gaining anything from the change other than the inconvenience of "pretty good" web applications instead of local native applications: you still can't modify them or verify their behavior.
- aray 13y ago
  It depends on what your goals are. If you want a system that's only running open-source-built code on your device, but are willing to have your device interact with devices running proprietary software, then mobile web applications are fine. If you only want to interact with devices and services that are using open source software, then you're likely not to miss e.g. Google Maps application in the first place.
  - micampe 13y ago
    Yes, of course, but that’s a tautology. What would the first goal achieve over running the Twitter app on my phone?
- IgorPartola 13y ago
  Security, for one. It is much harder for a web app to key log your phone than to a native app.

fosap 13y ago

Freedom and convenience are virtually always antagonists.

nilved 13y ago
That isn't true, and it's dangerous to say it is.
- fosap 13y ago
  Slavery always requires less thinking.
  - Zuider 13y ago
    The road to slavery requires less thinking. Once you get there you need all of your wits just to survive.
  - eevilspock 13y ago
    Responses such as yours require less thinking. Slavery requires less thinking. Therefore you are a slave. /s
- Angostura 13y ago
  I think it's an interesting suggestion. If you believe it's false and dangerous it may be helpful to provide some reasoning.
  - zanny 13y ago
    A lot of the free software I use is much more convenient than the commercial alternatives. See Firefox at the least for the largest most well recognized project with open contributions that is also usually much more convenient and free than commercial alternatives. Nothing about releasing source or having a collaborative contribution model suggests the software can't be convenient. A better terminology is that security and convenience conflict one another, because to be secure requires you to sacrifice your own convenience to limit foreign entities convenience in accessing your data.

crististm 13y ago

You describe exactly how Linux became what it is. And the goal was not to support all the hardware there was - just 386. In light of existing examples, your argument has little value. I'm in the Replicant market. I don't give a shit about convenience if I can find a free software version somewhere :)...

nailer 13y ago
> > I can't see this being a pleasurable user-experience. > You describe exactly how Linux became what it is. The main server OS (UX not quite relevant for servers) or an OSS kernel primarily used by consumers with a semi-closed (Android) userspace?
- nilliams 13y ago
  You're quite right. UX was never a factor with Linux, and OSS (in the large, excluding things like Basecamp, sorry) has never succeeded to create good, consumer UX. Unfortunately UX is absolutely critical with mobile. Here's a talk by Aral Balkan (that I couldn't recommend more) that covers this topic amazingly (jump to about 32m30s for the meat): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QCBzQ0aNc&t=00h32m30s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QCBzQ0aNc&t=00h32m30s
  - likeclockwork 13y ago
    Basecamp is not open source.
    - nilliams 13y ago
      Oops, good point! (It was very late when I wrote that).

pingswept 13y ago

Does an open hardware phone exist? I'm not aware of one that I can actually buy today. The closest I know of is the OpenMoko GTA04, but it's not clear to me that the project is still living.

ktosiek 13y ago
There's a continuation to GTA04 in the works: http://neo900.org/ http://neo900.org/
ajb 13y ago
Apparently the fairphone will be: http://www.fairphone.com http://www.fairphone.com
- pingswept 13y ago
  This looks cool, but doesn't appear to be open hardware.

da_n 13y ago

Pleasurable? Depends in what sense but in general and framed with the average user in mind I would agree with you there. I have been doing a self-experiment for the last few months to use FOSS app(lication)s as much as possible on my Note II running CyanogenMod 10.1 or instead use actual websites instead of apps. I am using F-Droid as a repo, it has been great. To say it is really easy or convenient would be a lie though, I am also missing some (mostly cloud) features I really liked when I was inside the GOOG garden, but living without Google's and other closed-source apps has actually been relatively painless for me and my data is inside my own control. Firefox, K-9, AntennaPod, Focal, RedReader, FeedEx are a few of the great FOSS apps (just need K-9 to get a decent icon).

tolle 13y ago
K-9 is awesome, but I really do hate the icon.

ximeng 13y ago

That's why Bunnie's open source laptop is exciting. http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3265 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3265