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Keep Android Open

keepandroidopen.org

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581–590 of 907 posts

Re: Keep Android Open

#581

Post by t_mann »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #323
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…

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…

Stupid question: couldn't we work around that with some VM/container-style solution? They could probably find ways to lock it down with TPM/TEE and similar, but in today's landscape it should be possible if you're willing to accept the performance and battery cost. And if it does get traction, there'll also be more push to keep open alternatives viable. Giving in without a fight is the only way to ensure you'll lose.

Re: Keep Android Open

#582

Post by torben-friis »

takluyver wrote: post #560
torben-friis wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but I disagree that you need direct involvement in the legal process. Companies are moved by money, if your tech is popular enough companies will dance to your tune. Say that you get to a point where 90% of desktop users are on linux. Is there any doubt that banks, messaging platforms and the like would have their own linux apps? no matter how many hoops you make them pass through, they won't let th…

> we give up on the tools that companies use. UX, user research, graphic design, marketing and similar roles are pretty absent from these communities Some of the bigger open source communities, like GNOME, do some amount of these things. But I think very few people are excited enough about user studies or marketing to do them as a hobby, unlike writing code. It's hard to see how you could beat Google/Apple/Microsoft…

You’d be surprised, behance and the like are full of people doing case studies for rebuilding popular apps for example.

There are hobbyists and people trying to get experience eveywhere, but there’s a fundamental disconnect between communities.

Re: Keep Android Open

#583

Post by rlopezcc »

layfellow wrote: post #13

This is doubleplusungood. The war on General Purpose Computing is the death of innovation and a direct attack on digital freedom. If you're in the US, UK or EU, please contact your government.

Profit is a perverse incentive.

Re: Keep Android Open

#584

Post by kuhsaft »

liendolucas wrote: post #336
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…

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.

Being a web app doesn’t mean shit. We already have DRM encrypted web content where the consuming device requires some attestation to decode. I.e. Widevine.

Re: Keep Android Open

#585

Post by t_mann »

liendolucas wrote: post #336
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…

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.

They're working hard on shutting that down as well with Passkeys. It's only a matter of time until the only way to log in will be through de-facto proprietary apps.

Re: Keep Android Open

#586

Post by rewgs »

franga2000 wrote: post #511
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…

Because we can't install that on phones and even if we did, we need to use Android apps to do basic daily things. Phones are not like PCs, you can't "just install a different OS". You also can't just build a phone from parts like you can with a PC, it comes locked in with the OS, with proprietary drivers and advanced cryptographic DRM measures. And even if we did get things to the level of desktop Linux, we can't run…

> Phones are not like PCs, you can’t “just install a different OS.”

This right here is the root of the problem.

Re: Keep Android Open

#587

Post by rewgs »

survirtual wrote: post #156
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…

[flagged]

I hate that you’re being downvoted. You are absolutely right here.

Re: Keep Android Open

#588

Post by tsycho »

jeena wrote: post #58

Back 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…

I totally agree with your sentiment, but can't you still do that with Android?

IIUC, you can still load apps directly via adb. Is that not correct?

Re: Keep Android Open

#589

Post by hueho »

viktorcode wrote: post #539
TeMPOraL wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me again what video quality Netflix gives you when streaming to an open browser on an open OS?

You mean Firefox that refuses to support web standards for encoded video streams for ideological reasons?

Wasn't aware of that, can you send a link explaining?
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