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FSF announces Librephone project

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Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#281

Post by fsflover »

cookiengineer wrote: post #265

Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…

Why are all commenters on HN ignoring the only smartphone running an FSF-endorsed [0] operating system, Librem 5, and only list everything else? I just can't get it.

Even the FSF themselves didn't mention it or provided any reasoning for choosing a Google-controlled operating system - despite recommending Librem 5 earlier [1]. What am I missing?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25504641

[1] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#282

Post by haltcatchfire »

bebna wrote: post #280
cookiengineer wrote: post #265

Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…

I got an FP5, would not buy again.

Could you elaborate on why? This type of comment doesn't add any value.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#283

Post by dddw »

bebna wrote: post #280
cookiengineer wrote: post #265

Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…

I got an FP5, would not buy again.

Can you elaborate?

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#284

Post by sunshine-o »

cookiengineer wrote: post #265

Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…

[flagged]

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#285

Post by mixedbit »

With phone hardware lifetime so short, would it be possible to catch-up with hardware update cycle? I guess each new version of a phone can ship with new versions of binary blob drivers. As mentioned in the announcement, reverse engineering the blobs is a huge effort, when it is done, hardware may already be out of sale and the effort would need to be repeated for new versions.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#286

Post by closeneough »

cookiengineer wrote: post #265

Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…

This project is about reverse engineering the firmware blobs. It states that they do not want to create a distribution like postmarketOS or other projects do.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#287

Post by praptak »

kovac wrote: post #49
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #4

Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…

I think this is the right place to start. A free OS will empower developers to implement technical workarounds that could trick these apps into working there. If the OS is tightly controlled, we have no recourse. Even in the worst case scenario, we could use a cheap big-tech-approved phone for these applications (a glorified digital token) and use the free phone for everything else. When there's enough adoption and t…

Having a separate phone as a "glorified digital token" is probably within the top 3 things you want to do anyway if you are serious about digital security.

See the recent discussion about pixnapping: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45574613

Also, if your bank uses SMS for verification then the phone should have its own phone number which you keep secret. Otherwise it's one data leak and one sim swap attack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_swap_scam) from breaking your SMS verification.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#288

Post by MYEUHD »

sunshine-o wrote: post #284
cookiengineer wrote: post #265

Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…

[flagged]

> the FSF is at least 15 years late to really launch something in that space

Not really. https://replicant.us is an FSF-supported project. But it kind of died due to the lack of contributors.

IMHO, postmarketOS is better than Replicant or any other Android Rom, because it doesn't depend on Android.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#289

Post by padjo »

sunshine-o wrote: post #284
cookiengineer wrote: post #265

Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#290

Post by mrsssnake »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #4

Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…

The mere fact such phone exist could be enough argument for pushing back, for ex. hurtful legislations.

People tend to see current world as carved in stone, like it is not going to change. It is, still not easy but, much easier to ask government not to mandate Windows/MacOS only program for essential task, because of couple of users of other systems, rather than asking to imagine that in future there might be other systems.

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