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FSF announces Librephone project

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Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#331

Post by saagarjha »

rgrs wrote: post #322
saagarjha wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Stallman had quite the impact on you. Is it really so foreign to you that putting someone in a leadership position that can broaden that reach to people who are unlike you might be worth doing?

How would you quantify reach? The PR or number of projects delivered?

I value effectiveness in manifesting change in the world. This takes many forms. I think one of the most depressing and myopic views that hackers have is that code rules everything, when in fact social movements live and die upon their accessibility and impact. If you think that laboring in a cave and writing the next Free text editor is going to bring about free software, the reality is that three proprietary editors have already eaten its lunch, the latter two of which are VC backed and soon to require cloud registration, and the last which was written using AI trained on your code that you very carefully structured to be unusable to build non-free software on top of.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#332

Post by mcny »

pjmlp wrote: post #255
torben-friis wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would hope that enough things stay similar between devices that replacing, say, the galaxy s25 paves the way for a far easier implementation of the s26, particularly now that the market is stagnating a bit. And I’m not knowledgeable about this at all, but intuitively I’d expect apple stuff to be much more customized than the average android phone - they’re famous for vertical integration and owning the end to end…

Phones aren't x86, each is own snowflake, and on Android the nature of being a managed userspace, means there is a certain freedom regarding which ARM designs that Samsung, Qualcomm, Mediatek, and whatever else is out there comes up with. Then there is everything else that happens to be on the motherboard.

The camera is also surprisingly software dependent. Using the pixel camera vs using default configuration with an app called open camera, the difference is so clear. The camera is basically all software — the images are pure trash before processing.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#333

Post by j45 »

sunshine-o wrote: post #320
saagarjha wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Stallman had quite the impact on you. Is it really so foreign to you that putting someone in a leadership position that can broaden that reach to people who are unlike you might be worth doing?

I only saw him once and I immediately understood how he could lead such a revolution. It is not about being "like him", he was just some fat old man with a big beard and I remember thinking he probably smells pretty bad. What was broad and inspiring was his vision and leadership as an human.

Everyone can develop their own personal leadership too instead of looking to others and judging leadership.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#334

Post by sznio »

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…

From my understanding of the article, Postmarket or Lineage or any other mobile operating system will be able to make use of this project. The goal is to provide FOSS drivers, so that you can run Lineage without proprietary blobs copied from the distribution of Android provided by the device manufacturer.

It's mainly a libre purity project. A Lineage user won't be able to tell a thing, but the system will be "ethically pure"

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#335

Post by zevon »

mike_d wrote: post #276
onli wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is going sue the fsf into oblivion. The movement has decades of legal experience, if a company would be dumb enough that company would just burn money and lose. Especially about reverse engineering software, as if patents had any power there. Apple, the end boss in that regard, not fighting on that level against the m1 project is proof enough. Second, fuck the carriers. Certifications will not persist as soon…

I understand it might seem confusing if you are not familiar with the requirements, but they are not trivial to bypass. Cell phones operate in licensed radio spectrum, so they need to have proper testing and certification ( https://www.fcc.gov/oet/ea/rfdevice ). Any device not properly certified would be illegal to manufacture or import into the US. Separately cellular networks require PTCRB certification of the devi…

I think all your concerns are valid but they are not necessarily insurmountable. The FSF or whatever other entity could do just what you suggest and seek certification within the current legal frameworks. They could also talk to the carriers and negotiate individually which is probably going to be quite annoying and slow but it's not impossible and it's not like that's not done in the commercial space. The could build mechanisms into the hard-/firmware that takes your device off whatever regulated spectrum/provider if you modify anything that is in regulated territory (as watched over by some form of maintainer-quorum-signing-negotiation-structure). I'm sure there are many mechanisms and processes one could come up with that could keep with regulatory or other control aspects while still keeping things open.

All that patent and legal business is probably a more important/existential concern and a go/nogo-factor if you want to be a commercial player in a market-driven environment and less so for an entity like the FSF.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#336

Post by j45 »

notrealyme123 wrote: post #321
wolvesechoes wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we have to have million Linux distros? Why do we have to have dozen desktop environments? Because in FOSS world every single actor is a snowflake with unique vision. Any form of cooperation ends up in drama and moral accusations.

So what exactly is the problem? To many options?

The options thinking they're an island retreat only for those who agree with their way while standing on the same continent.

What's missing is building something that resonates with the user/consumer's experience backwards, not just personal preferences or interpretations, which is fine, but at that point it's a personal project, not a product, or much larger unless it really captivates both people who can contribute to creating it and also it is adopted quite easily.

Creating beginners can seem like something too many OSS projects can be allergic to. It's the greatest sin of too many projects, and they ultimately can't be freed of it.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#337

Post by kennywinker »

goodpoint wrote: post #313
kennywinker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That… seems reasonable? My bank does that with their website and their mobile app. I was able to setup 2fa using a totp app, so i don’t rely on sms for that part

It's not reasonable at all.

Could you elaborate on what part you find un-reasonable, and why?

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#338

Post by 1718627440 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #60
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…

Well you're partially right. After all, the "big tech approved phone OS" is actually Linux , so just having a free OS isn't enough to prevent it from being co-opted and turned into a locked-down platform. But the partially wrong part is, we can make our own platform. PCs let you install and run any software you want, because it's an open platform. If we make an open platform smartphone that can compete on features wi…

> so just having a free OS isn't enough to prevent it

They have a free kernel not a free OS. Them not having a free OS is precisely what is the issue here.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#339

Post by saagarjha »

sunshine-o wrote: post #320
saagarjha wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like Stallman had quite the impact on you. Is it really so foreign to you that putting someone in a leadership position that can broaden that reach to people who are unlike you might be worth doing?

I only saw him once and I immediately understood how he could lead such a revolution. It is not about being "like him", he was just some fat old man with a big beard and I remember thinking he probably smells pretty bad. What was broad and inspiring was his vision and leadership as an human.

Again, I appreciate that you found him inspiring. The point is that not everyone does.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#340

Post by BaudouinVH »

dear FSF, let's discuss your https://librephone.fsf.org/ web site.

It does the job but it's not easy on the eye.

Full-width line of text. Readability nightmare. Here is how it looks with just a link to a CSS (I closed my eyes on the cssbed.com and picked one at random).

https://librephone.surge.sh/librephone-website.html

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