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The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

blog.emacsen.net

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Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#41

Post by kgarten »

chairhairair wrote: post #28
kgarten wrote: post #26

Switched to GrapheneOS with the Pixel 5. Email/Calendar integration works fine (K-9 Mail). Signal as instant messenger. Organic Maps as Map application. Replaced Apple Watch with GadgetBridge and a Mi 6 band (cheaper and I have easy access to all data, you need to sync once with their app after you get the key you can delete it ... did the setup on the iphone and copied out the key with a commandline python script fr…

Sorry, what does Flutter have to do with the rest of your comment?

Sorry, this was a bit out of context. As the other commenter assumed, it is for replacing/extending the functionality of the phone. For example, I wanted to access the heartrate and other mi band data and it's quite easy with gadgetbridge and my own flutter app.

I tried similar apps before with SwiftUI and the Apple Watch and it was pretty much a disaster (although I have working knowledge of objective C ...). Dart came easy and flutter seems super powerful to me ( I just re-implemented my first very simple ios game in just a day. that's the objective c version https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blanks/id286883373 ). Will publish/open-source the other one, when it's polished.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#42

Post by mmcallister »

yyyk wrote: post #38

>It does come with a catch... Using Aurora Store could be considered a violation of the Google Terms of Service and Google could terminate your account for it. Aurora has the option of logging in using an anonymous profile instead of your 'true' account. Why not use that and avoid any risk?

What if you have a paid application?

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#43

Post by yyyk »

mmcallister wrote: post #42
yyyk wrote: post #38

>It does come with a catch... Using Aurora Store could be considered a violation of the Google Terms of Service and Google could terminate your account for it. Aurora has the option of logging in using an anonymous profile instead of your 'true' account. Why not use that and avoid any risk?

What if you have a paid application?

You're right, Aurora doesn't allow that with an anonymous profile (not sure if it allows that even with a true profile).

However, an anonymous profile is enough to download banking apps which are a major blocker to switching to Free OSs.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#44

Post by ptidhomme »

kgarten wrote: post #26

Switched to GrapheneOS with the Pixel 5. Email/Calendar integration works fine (K-9 Mail). Signal as instant messenger. Organic Maps as Map application. Replaced Apple Watch with GadgetBridge and a Mi 6 band (cheaper and I have easy access to all data, you need to sync once with their app after you get the key you can delete it ... did the setup on the iphone and copied out the key with a commandline python script fr…

2. a replacement of Reeder as an RSS reader (so far have not found a solution that works for me).

Have you tried Feeder ? I'm having no problems with it so far on my GrapheneOS Pixel 4a.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#45

Post by akc3n »

Might want to check out GrapheneOS's latest developments regarding it's Sandboxed Play Services https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-play-services

GrapheneOS has support for installing the official releases of com.android.vending (Google Play Store), com.google.android.gms (Google Play services), com.google.android.gsf (Google Services Framework) as regular sandboxed apps in a specific profile. These receive no special privileges and the OS itself doesn't use them for anything. They run as unprivileged, sandboxed apps like any others. GrapheneOS simply provides fallback code teaching them how to run without any of the special privileged permissions and SELinux policy they depend on having. Even within the same profile, apps not explicitly choosing to use Google services won't use them because the OS doesn't integrate support for it or use it as the backend for APIs in the OS like the stock OS.

Also, this was tweeted recently explaining the up and coming improvements, how they were made and an insightful look at how the sandboxed play services compatibility layer works.

https://twitter.com/GrapheneOS/status/1430362107875401732

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#46

Post by tadfisher »

Apocryphon wrote: post #27
chrisseaton wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sailfish OS? Tizen? Those projects were a bizarre affair. There was I think Maemo, Moblin, LImo, SLP, Bada, Leste, MeeGo, Mer, Tizen, Sailfish, Nemo... all forks, merges, reforks of the same thing. They seemed to spend all their time and energy continually rebranding, forming and disbanding consortiums, creating new websites and logos. They never just got on with it. Ridiculous wasted effort when the market was pos…

Well, Nokia finally got it together with MeeGo, but then Elop had to sell the farm and hitch their horse to Windows. Tizen is reputedly of bad code quality, especially security-wise. Sailfish is still out there as Jolla scraps away. It’s a pity, as those projects did attract some powerful backers, who just weren’t very committed to them.

My favorite Daily WTF thread is about Samsung's adventures with the Enlightenment toolkit in Tizen: https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#47

Post by john61 »

The more people, especially geeks and programmers, use and improve completely free systems, even if they have deficiencies now, the sooner we as a society are free. There is a responsibility for knowledgeable and competent people that goes far beyond the selfish need. It also makes fun and appreciation to do the right thing, more than any convenience can ever give.

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#48

Post by dntbrsnbl »

kgarten wrote: post #26

Switched to GrapheneOS with the Pixel 5. Email/Calendar integration works fine (K-9 Mail). Signal as instant messenger. Organic Maps as Map application. Replaced Apple Watch with GadgetBridge and a Mi 6 band (cheaper and I have easy access to all data, you need to sync once with their app after you get the key you can delete it ... did the setup on the iphone and copied out the key with a commandline python script fr…

I wrote a PWA for reading RSS feeds. It works fully offline and should be installable in Chromium based browsers (I develop in Firefox, but Chromium definitely has better PWA support).

https://readr.nz

Re: The Search for a Free/Open Source Mobile Operating System

#50

Post by emacsen »

john61 wrote: post #47

The more people, especially geeks and programmers, use and improve completely free systems, even if they have deficiencies now, the sooner we as a society are free. There is a responsibility for knowledgeable and competent people that goes far beyond the selfish need. It also makes fun and appreciation to do the right thing, more than any convenience can ever give.

This is a difference of opinion, but I've been using and promoting Free Software since 1997. I've used entirely 100% Free operating systems.

There's nothing wrong with taking this position for oneself. You can certainly restrict yourself to a 100% Free stack, but there are two big problems with this position:

1. We have an existing threat right now that is not theoretical but entirely practical and immediate, and that is the surveillance system built into every smart phone that runs a proprietary OS- or roughly 3.5 billion devices. In 2020, 2.8 billion phones ran Google's Android operating system and thus were subject to the ways that Google surveils them.

The ultimate goal should be Freedom, complete Freedom, but the position of "Wait until it's 100% Free" isn't going to work for many people. If we can get even 1% of people to de-Google their device and run a Free OS with Free apps, even if there are some binary blobs, just 1%, we'd be at 35 million people. That's almost the entire population of Canada (38 million).

I'd rather move 38 million people into the FLOSS world, using Free Software, understanding our ethos and supporting our community- and most importantly, out of the hands of companies who harm them, rather than tell them "Wait until we can give you a 100% Free experience." These people need our help now.

2. If you take this position to its logical conclusion, you will demand a 100% Free physical computer as well. This is possible now, or at least partially possible though not yet 100% practical.

With phones, the radio itself is proprietary, and that's by design. There are requirements of the device by the FCC (in the US) that allow the phone to take over the functions of the primary CPU and memory, even.

Using a mobile phone is a compromise on its own and thus we return to the first problem- do we tell people "Don't use a mobile phone?" because at that point we're simply seen as Luddites in the eyes of most people and we lose the opportunity to help others.

The threat of surveillance is real, and I'd rather take a measured approach than tell people to just get rid of their devices altogether.

When I started using Free Software in 1997, it started out as a pragmatism thing. It's only later that I learned about the ethics. Let's give people real alternatives today!

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