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A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

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Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#41

Post by chrisxcross »

kevinfanch wrote: post #22
chrisxcross wrote: post #13

I'm a FP3 and /e/ user for about half a year now. And well, it works for me but frankly there are some issues. Nothing I'm not willing to take, but it's different to the premium android device with google services before. The Appstore provides some apps. But not all of them and some are quite outdated. They seem to get their APKs from https://info.cleanapk.org/ . Some apps just don't work or stop reacting to touches.…

I am also a Fairphone 3 user but I don't notice many issues. Are you sure you are updating /e/ ? I am on verions 0.11 now and it is very rare to have a crash or something else. I also believe apps are updated quite frequently now.

I'm on 0.11, too. OS crashes are rare ~2 time, maybe. It's minor things, embedded qr-scanner fails, AntennaPod crashes and needs a restart, some Apps like eBay just crash... But checking the apps I got from /e/'s-Store: They are up-to-date :)

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#42

Post by nelaboras »

simonh wrote: post #30
aiilns wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of F/LOSS. It's a movement for software's freedom and consequently users' freedom. Programmers from all over the world work on their free time on projects, some foundations exist supported by individual donations and companies' funding. Some companies release their code as F/LOSS. There is no single entity that dictates what software is built and moreover people worki…

That's open source, not FLOSS. Open Source is a pragmatic movement that simply believes in open collaboration. FLOSS is a much more activist movement, many of who's proponents believe that proprietary software is inherently wrong and an abuse of users. That's not really a tenable position to take when the FLOSS ecosystem so regularly fails users with assisted needs.

Don't judge a loose movement as a whole against the standards of some members. And it is perfectly fine to advocate for an ambitious position even if it is not yet achieved.

You can be the owner of a publishing house and advocate free speech and still you might not have the resources to publish every worthy book.

If there are more contributors then the accessibility will improve, but unlike a commercial project you can't just oblige/order someone to do it. You have to motivate people - with the right skill set - to donate their private time to this cause over all the other causes (or non-programming activities they could support).

So great to be idealistic but you have to accept your own limitations. Maybe getting something to work for most people is simply a more achievable mid-term goal than addressing each special case, no matter how important.

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#43

Post by izacus »

chrisxcross wrote: post #13

I'm a FP3 and /e/ user for about half a year now. And well, it works for me but frankly there are some issues. Nothing I'm not willing to take, but it's different to the premium android device with google services before. The Appstore provides some apps. But not all of them and some are quite outdated. They seem to get their APKs from https://info.cleanapk.org/ . Some apps just don't work or stop reacting to touches.…

As an Android developer I can't see how an app would stop responding to touches because of lack of Google services. It'll either crash completely because it won't be able to bind to them or just skip the functionality.

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#44

Post by simonh »

nelaboras wrote: post #42
simonh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's open source, not FLOSS. Open Source is a pragmatic movement that simply believes in open collaboration. FLOSS is a much more activist movement, many of who's proponents believe that proprietary software is inherently wrong and an abuse of users. That's not really a tenable position to take when the FLOSS ecosystem so regularly fails users with assisted needs.

Don't judge a loose movement as a whole against the standards of some members. And it is perfectly fine to advocate for an ambitious position even if it is not yet achieved. You can be the owner of a publishing house and advocate free speech and still you might not have the resources to publish every worthy book. If there are more contributors then the accessibility will improve, but unlike a commercial project you c…

>Don't judge a loose movement as a whole against the standards of some members. And it is perfectly fine to advocate for an ambitious position even if it is not yet achieved.

Not just some members, but the founder members and in fact the organisation that they set up to promote free software, the FSF, which campaigns on the basis that non-free software is "An exercise of unjust power".

As for not yet achieved, the free software movement was founded in 1984. Richard Stallman was celebrating the achievements of 15 years of free software back in 1999.

I'm sorry, but your conflation of Open Source with Free Software would appall Stallman and the FSF who go to great lengths to emphasise that FLOSS is quite separate and has had a very specific meaning right from the start.

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#45

Post by takd »

xorcist wrote: post #28

The e.foundation home page caters to users without any technical knowledge, which is great but I'm not sure users of alternative mobile operating systems are quite there yet. It's not even immediately obvious this is Android-based. It would be useful to list some more specifics. Is this built on LineageOS? Does it come with their own cloud services? Can you opt out of that? How close do you track LineageOS? The video…

I have been using /e/OS on a Fairphone 3 for several months now, and I am quite satisfied.

Yes, it is built on LineageOS, though I am not sure how closely it is tracked.

They have their own cloud services, but you can opt out. You can use your own Nextcloud server as well, which I think is pretty neat: you can have a convenient cloud-based experience (contact and calendar sync etc.) with the stock /e/OS installation, while also having ownership of your data in your Nextcloud instance. (Their own servers are also heavily based on Nextcloud.)

Regarding app stores: I think it is the weakest point. F-Droid is nice but not enough, the /e/OS App Store is a bit murky for me; for most of the non-FOSS apps I use the Aurora Store, which seems trustworthy to me so far.

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#46

Post by simonh »

valvar wrote: post #9
mlang23 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If FOSS can not cater to people with special needs per definition, as you seem to imply, I will have to stop advocating it altogether. If advocating for FOSS means supporting a movement that is not willing to bridge the gap and fight against digital divide, we need to stop doing so. Technology is the best chance for people with disabilities to catch up in our society. If we take that aware from them, we are not doing…

FOSS is not a company with a big budget and a CEO. It's a philosophy and a community built around the radical idea that user freedoms matter. If you want something particular to exist, then perhaps you should start building it or donating to those who are. No matter how nice or important it is, someone needs to build it and development requires more than just wishing — it requires money and time.

It's this user blaming by the FLOSS community that really sticks in my craw. On the one had proprietary software is immoral, on the other FLOSS software not living up to the needs of users is, er, the user's fault for not being programmers or personally sponsoring their own development effort.

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#47

Post by john61 »

xorcist wrote: post #28

The e.foundation home page caters to users without any technical knowledge, which is great but I'm not sure users of alternative mobile operating systems are quite there yet. It's not even immediately obvious this is Android-based. It would be useful to list some more specifics. Is this built on LineageOS? Does it come with their own cloud services? Can you opt out of that? How close do you track LineageOS? The video…

As far as I understand it is currently based on LineagaOS but this could change. Main difference in philosophy is that they aim to support the selected official devices longer than LineageOS does. Which is a good thing.

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#48

Post by pelliphant »

Thinking of buying a fairphone and using e on it, but I have a question about apps, and thought hackernews might know:

I don't need that many apps, but the few I do need are very specific, such as the local public transportation app, and bankID from my bank.

Can I just download those from the normal google app store?

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#49

Post by lucideer »

chrisxcross wrote: post #41
kevinfanch wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also a Fairphone 3 user but I don't notice many issues. Are you sure you are updating /e/ ? I am on verions 0.11 now and it is very rare to have a crash or something else. I also believe apps are updated quite frequently now.

I'm on 0.11, too. OS crashes are rare ~2 time, maybe. It's minor things, embedded qr-scanner fails, AntennaPod crashes and needs a restart, some Apps like eBay just crash... But checking the apps I got from /e/'s-Store: They are up-to-date :)

I don't use eBay but AntennaPod crashes occasionally on stock Android. I wonder are these definitely /e/ issues?

Re: A look at /e/OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

#50

Post by chrisMyzel »

I love to see any project that aims to end smartphone duopoly craziness - but seriously, he's trying to end the dependency of a central google account by replacing it with an /e account as the first step? This does not make any sense and is so contradictory to the idea that I did not look any further into the project (some while ago).
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