I've been using Android phones since the OG Droid (2009) because I could install software on it. My next phone will be an iPhone if this doesn't change.
Keep Android Open
441–450 of 907 posts
Re: Keep Android Open
#442I'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 ou…
> Mozilla's Mobile OS that had OEM partners making real phones spluttered out, and nor for the lack of trying.
Firefox OS had serious issues.
* Web standards 2013-2017 weren't ready enough.
* 2013-2017 phones still weren't powerful enough for complex JS apps to feel fast.
* asm.js was de-facto proprietary (a new FFOS with wasm would be be another story)
* The UI wasn't so great.
* Their launch devices were slow, cheap, and sucked.
* Their launch devices weren't readily available to developers.
* Their OS provided no real advantages over iOS or Android
The OS is still around as KaiOS (with a couple hundred million devices shipped IIRC) and I believe it still powers Panasonic TVs.
Interestingly, I think a FirefoxOS of today with good React Native and Flutter integration and cutting-edge WASM support could have a shot at success if not completely mis-managed.
Re: Keep Android Open
#443I'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…
> A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from Google
After many many years and many forks, yes. This is still clearly the right answer. Google didn't succumb to Apple and just accept things, they acquired Android and invested heavily in it. We are all grateful for that. BUT, we must also acknowledge that the time of the two horse race is over. And while OpenAI and many others are attempting to do various things, we can continue to invest and back alternatives that create a more fragmented market. Maybe they will not replace Android, that's fine, but you're not going to fix Android's problems without suing Google, which people are doing, or actively working on alternatives, which again people are doing. Change is coming.
Re: Keep Android Open
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
The hope is lost for Android, there is no moving forward with google antagonizing its foss roots. Libre phone it is. We have to forcibly remove the bandage.
I wish you were wrong, but I don't disagree with assessment. I am on grapheneos ( edit: on pixel ) now, but even that should only be a pitstop now since google has decided to show its hand in such a nasty ( if not that unexpected ) manner.
Everyone is quick to ascribe malice without understanding why changes are made. It's never done for the reasons you think. Without a formal relationship between Graphene and Pixel, things were operating out of luck. This is why the next target hardware is starting with a business relationship. Even desktop Linux is most successful when business relationship between a vendor and the distro maker. Everything else is ripe for random breakage in support.
Re: Keep Android Open
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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.
the people saying gpl cannot sell software is always bsd users, who always work for some company contracting with Boz allen Hamilton and such. It's never an honest opinion.
Re: Keep Android Open
#446Earlier 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…
Webapps solve this completely. You login to a service as we have been doing forever. And the control is still on their side when you use a webapp. Almost every single app that is on my phone can be a webapp.
But, it doesn't. The browser is unsupported for many of the above-mentioned applications.
Re: Keep Android Open
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Because Google and Apple have put themselves between us and everything else. Until we manage to replace them (by lobbying to everything including governments against them, and by working towards making the alternatives usable), we unfortunately have to resort to this. I'd even say we are entitled to this because we never asked for Google and Apple to become compuls…
Did you consider Librem 5? The hardware is much better, calls etc work fine. > I've daily-driven the PinePhone for a year. Which OS? Did you try SXMo?
The Librem 5 is awfully outdated now (and so I won't buy it today because I'd worry about it becoming e-waste fast), doesn't have a good battery life, is very pricey, and I'd worry about call reliability (I have no doubt it can be made to work, but reliably, from sleep?).
I'm sure it's way better than the PinePhone, but the Librem 5 is definitely not suitable for the general public, even without considering the Linux mobile part.
> Which OS?
Mobian and postmarketOS
> Did you try SXMo?
Yes, not my cup of tea. I'm happy with a stable Plasma or Phosh; at this point, the GUI is not a concern at all for me. SXMO is a nice project but it will never target the general public, and I think we need to target the general public because I wish the general public's computing were free. It's nice that nerds can be free but it's also not good enough.
Re: Keep Android Open
#448reminder that stallman was cancelled from the eff with adhominem attacks. and we are back to calling free software (which would prevent things like the article) as Open-Source (which ia just donations to google and meta)
Re: Keep Android Open
#449I'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.
Most if not all large, successful open source projects are funded by commercial interests, not just consumers. The resources it takes to maintain something like Android far exceeds what can be funded solely by donations and volunteers.
Re: Keep Android Open
#450Back in the 2007 or when it came out in Sweden I bought the iPhone and started developing for it. This was cool, new and exciting and it was fine as long as my company was paying the $100 fee every year. But then I switched jobs and worked at a company which produced mostly open source code. Suddenly I would have to pay $100 every year just to be able to put my own software on the phone ... This is why I switched to…
Yeah, I don't understand why people put up with Apple for this. I would love to write small personal apps for my iPhone. But, I don't want to use a mac, I don't want to pay a fee every year and I don't want to use the apple store (yes there are convoluted work-rounds for the last one).