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Keep Android Open

keepandroidopen.org

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Re: Keep Android Open

#411

Post by pyeri »

dns_snek wrote: post #366
MarsIronPI wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The era when people paid an affordable fee for software they could use however they wanted was much better. But it got squeezed out by free software on the one side and serf-ware on the other. Charging for free and open-source software is not only possible, but encouraged Stallman himself.

Yes but how do you build a consumer software business on top of a licensing scheme that legally allows anyone to share their copy of the software with anyone else, and allows other businesses to resell your software at half the price?

Few companies have done it successfully like Red Hat, Odoo ERP and Sensio Labs (the company that builds Symfony framework).

Re: Keep Android Open

#412

Post by fluidcruft »

Chipshuffle wrote: post #380
TeMPOraL wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government apps and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...). Those are the players that demand excessive control over end-user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the problem we're discussing. It's not that a new mobile platform couldn't possibly succeed. It's an open platform that cannot, because aforementioned players don't want it, and without them…

I wonder, if there were an open platform to exist that people use increasingly, maybe that would be incentive enough for at least one bank/financial app to permit that platform just to get a competitive advantage. In the meantime probably the best that can be done is having a regular phone and a banking phone.

Maybe the answer is to put whatever the banks etc need on something like a smartwatch. Smartwatch + phone is better than two phones IMHO and they're so tedious to use/install anything on that it reduces the attack surface for hackers etc. Tap to pay or digital signatures or identity, passkeys etc via a smartwatch interaction seems like a good use case. Sort of a souped up yubikey. I don't know how good biometrics is on watches nowadays but my Pixel phone has some sort of camera behind the screen to read fingerprints so I can't imagine its impossible. Even adding a capacitive pad on a band seems plausible. Who knows, I don't feel like biometrics have been a real focus of design in the smartwatches I've used.

Personally, I have found smartwatches fairly useless (I do enjoy the activity tracking and notifications but that's not much really) so freeing my phone from bullshit by moving some functions to a watch could increase the value/utility of a some sort of smartwatch. Ultimately, it doesn't need to be that "smart" even.

Re: Keep Android Open

#413

Post by bayindirh »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #406
bayindirh wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Feel free to complain, but don't forget you can make choices. Of course. I can make a choice. When the choice is between being able to login to secure services with my SIM embedded e-signature, use mobile banking and conduct official business and not being able to do any of these things, making choices are easy. Running Linux on desktop is easy mode when compared to phones, and yes, I started using Linux on desktop…

What about when your smartphone is required to verify your identity so you can work / earn a paycheck? What about when it's required in order for you to engage in commerce? We're headed down a very slippery slope and the destination is a very dystopian reality where those in power can prevent someone from participating in society on a whim. I believe the destination has previously been described as the beast system o…

We're already there. Attestation is not in your phone, but in your ID card. European passports and ID cards carry biometric data of your face, so you can be computationally verified.

I'm aware of this slippery slope for a very long time, esp. with AI (check my comments if you prefer). On the other hand, I believe that we need to choose our battles wisely.

We believe that technology is the cause of these things, it's not. Remember:

    Necessity is the mother of invention.
The governments believe that this is the "necessity", so the technologies are developed and deployed. We need to change the beliefs, not the technology.

The same dystopian digital ID allows me to verify my identity to my bank while I'm having my breakfast saving everyone time. That e-sig allows me to have a practical PKI based security in my phone for sensitive things.

Nothing prevents these things from turning against me, except the ideas and beliefs of the people managing these things.

We need to change minds. Not the technology.

Re: Keep Android Open

#414

Post by overfeed »

liendolucas wrote: post #283

I'm going to say something that probably will get me down votes: Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Seriously. So many open source projects have risen out of real and concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every day lives. A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from Google. I've given PostmarketOS a go (with a PinePhone) and while today I can't say it isn't a daily dr…

> Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open?

We don't! Instead, we go to regulators. Though I suspect your question really is "Why bother with salvaging Android at all?"

Mobile platforms are hard - famously, Microsoft failed to make Windows phone a viable platform, and John Carmack successfully argued that Meta didn't need a custom OS. Mozilla's Mobile OS that had OEM partners making real phones spluttered out, and nor for the lack of trying. Both Firefox OS and Postmarket rely on an Android foundation for HAL/drivers, IIRC. Device bring-up is hard, and negotiating with OEMs is harder still, and that comes "free" with Android-supporting devices.

Logistically, the vast majority of people who install apps from non-Play-Store sources do so ok their daily-driver phone, which is running the stock operating system. They are not tech savvy at all

Re: Keep Android Open

#415

Post by MisterTea »

liendolucas wrote: post #283

I'm going to say something that probably will get me down votes: Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Seriously. So many open source projects have risen out of real and concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every day lives. A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from Google. I've given PostmarketOS a go (with a PinePhone) and while today I can't say it isn't a daily dr…

> So many open source projects have risen out of real and concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every day lives.

Ironic because the foundation of Android itself is built on open source.

Re: Keep Android Open

#416

Post by yohbho »

The nice thing about laws in the EU is: if Google locks it down, like iOS, we just enforce that it needs to be more open again.

But for iOS, that did not work well so far, as I have zero apps installed via AltStore PAL (iOS), yet some apps via F-Droid (Android).

Re: Keep Android Open

#417

Post by jaltekruse »

hyghjiyhu wrote: post #300
pyeri wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This situation would have been avoided if we, as community of engineers, had insisted on full and uncompromised open source (Stallmanist or GPL way) right from the start instead of going the ESR way of half-hearted open source where it's technically open but corporates get to have a free lunch and make abuses. Like most coders, I also prefer the permissive MIT/Apache/BSD licensing for most software projects but incid…

I have a "weakly held strong opinion" on this subject. I think open source has been a disaster for the state of software for normal people. On the one hand exploited developers making peanuts or nothing for their hard work. On the other hand exploited users losing control of their devices and social networks. The era when people paid an affordable fee for software they could use however they wanted was much better. B…

I have been involved in open source projects with various structures and sustainability models. Open-core Enterprise software startups, unfunded or underfunded middleware/libraries and underfunded end-consumer software/apps. A real problem that I have with lots of open source is a mismatch between technical talent to produce software, an open ethos/philosophy (finding true believers in a much more open future), AND the most important often missing piece, a product mindset and willingness to do work that isn't just software dev. So many FOSS projects I have seen, with capable engineers spending years of their lives working on them, are lacking product management, a willingness to let users actually push the project in a direction that is more approachable to a mass audience, and the willingness to do the hard boring work of making software run everywhere. Lots of stuff falls into this general gripe, and a bunch of it isn't news to anyone. Lots of open source has shitty design/UX, every damn one of us that lives with desktop Linux knows exactly why it's not the year of the Linux desktop. The sleep function on the laptop I am writing this comment on doesn't work right (when booted into Linux), and every few months you have to find terminal wizardry to fix normal shit that should have a GUI config interface to un-fuck it, but "real software people don't touch their mouse unless they absolutely must". This comment got a bit off the rails, anyway, long live FOSS!

Re: Keep Android Open

#418

Post by TeMPOraL »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #406
bayindirh wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Feel free to complain, but don't forget you can make choices. Of course. I can make a choice. When the choice is between being able to login to secure services with my SIM embedded e-signature, use mobile banking and conduct official business and not being able to do any of these things, making choices are easy. Running Linux on desktop is easy mode when compared to phones, and yes, I started using Linux on desktop…

What about when your smartphone is required to verify your identity so you can work / earn a paycheck? What about when it's required in order for you to engage in commerce? We're headed down a very slippery slope and the destination is a very dystopian reality where those in power can prevent someone from participating in society on a whim. I believe the destination has previously been described as the beast system o…

> What about when your smartphone is required to verify your identity so you can work / earn a paycheck? What about when it's required in order for you to engage in commerce?

In some cases, it already is.

We're already far on the path you described, and there is no choice to make on it, not for individuals. To stop this, we need to somehow make these technologies socially unacceptable. We need to walk back on cybersecurity quite a bit, and it starts with population-wide understanding that there is such thing as too much security, especially when the questions of who is being secured and who is the threat remain conveniently unanswered.

Re: Keep Android Open

#419

Post by dangus »

state_less wrote: post #356
TeMPOraL wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government apps and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...). Those are the players that demand excessive control over end-user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the problem we're discussing. It's not that a new mobile platform couldn't possibly succeed. It's an open platform that cannot, because aforementioned players don't want it, and without them…

Back in '99 Linux didn't run Excel/Word/Powerpoint or most games, but I ran it anyway. What others call showstoppers are for me inconveniences. I have a motorolla edge 2024 that I'll load whatever open source phone OS will work well enough to place calls and browse the web. I'll keep another phone for the rare times some corporate/government overlord requires it. Many folks who refuse to use smartphones, similarly ow…

Bingo, this right here. Linux desktop wasn’t a daily driver until one day it was.

Although the only problem with this strategy is that Linux got that way because of a lot of private companies that actually wanted that. Valve didn’t want to be locked in with Microsoft. Many of Microsoft’s direct competitors also don’t want to be locked in. IBM famously switched to Mac, Google has been using Mac and Linux workstations for a long time as well.

Also, web technologies like Electron made porting applications to small user bases Linux easier. If that never happened, I wouldn’t be able to use my commercial apps on Linux. This concept might be a little more of a challenge for the mobile app ecosystem, which is a mix of native wrappers like react native and native apps, and there is a high amount of dependency on native APIs for the extra sensors and hardware features phones have the laptops and desktops don’t have.

E.g., For Linux on mobile to work react native can’t be an incomplete implementation like the status quo.

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