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Keep Android Open

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Re: Keep Android Open

#801

Post by dns_snek »

MarsIronPI wrote: post #728
dns_snek wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but notice how all of those are B2B? I was responding in the context of B2C, on one hand we know that people are willing to pay for convenience - Steam has largely beaten piracy by simply offering a better service. But that wouldn't hold up if games were released under a FOSS license. There would be nothing stopping me (maybe trademark law? I'm sure there are workarounds) from setting up "SteamForFree", rehosting…

I still think you'd get the part of the market that cares about creators. The part that doesn't would pirate anyway. Now, this is assuming they can determine that you are the original creator, but IMO this is what trademarks are for.

Sure, some would. But in the general case that's going to be a tiny fraction of the market. Why would I ever do that when I can simply not set myself up to be screwed and instead use a license that aligns with my definition of fairness?

Remember that people regularly walk into small businesses and spend 15 minutes talking to an expert asking questions about the products they sell. As soon as they get quoted a price of $120 they scoff and order it from Amazon because it's $20 cheaper. Consumer price sensitivity is... extreme.

Re: Keep Android Open

#802

Post by poulpy123 »

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…

> 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.

It didn't ran on computer of people that wanted Excel/Word/Powerpoint or most games. I don't think the market of people wanting to use their phone only as a server is big enough for a competitive OS to arise, but I may be mistaken

Re: Keep Android Open

#803

Post by hparadiz »

fsflover wrote: post #791
TeMPOraL wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying already existed. Linux on a smartphone was called Android. It ended up where it is today. If you were to somehow make another Linux on a smartphone competitor, it too would end up where Android is today, for the same reasons.

This is just not true. Google has been directing the development of Android to maximize their profits. without such incentive, it won't be repeated. Also, please stop with security nihilism, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975

The current cyber security zeitgeist is to only allow "trusted" devices in your SSO flow and to also shove your VPN authentication on that SSO flow which includes even third party browsers not working. Only Chrome with a managed profile is even allowed to login. That pretty much means if you're not using a most recent version of iOS or Android you're SOL for using it for work.

And good luck spoofing it these days cause they are usually backed by hardware backed tpm encryption. Which is why windows 11 only installs if there's a tpm 2.0 device detected.

It's become super dystopian in the past 10 years and I don't see it changing.

Always thankful that I got to live through the wild West days because that's going away.

Re: Keep Android Open

#804

Post by fsflover »

strcat wrote: post #746
fsflover wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a different approach to security. There are no malicious apps in GNU/Linux repositories. (And yes, Linux security should be improved; I run Qubes on desktop) https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/docs/community-wiki/-/wikis/F...

> There are no malicious apps in GNU/Linux repositories. That's definitely not the case. There have been repeated cases of developers shipping malicious code which ended up in distribution package repositories. Defining malicious is difficult and incredibly privacy invasive behavior is often not considered to be malicious. That software is also generally being used without a mandatory app sandbox with a proper permis…

> incredibly privacy invasive behavior is often not considered to be malicious

This is not true for Debian, which is the upstream of PureOS.

> therefore not actually significantly reducing trust in the upstream projects

And yet, it has practically negligible number of malicious apps, especially compared with Google Play. It's far from perfect, and you are right that the sandboxing should be further improved. Nevertheless, it is a security model working in practice for a large userbase of Debian. It works especially well for technical users.

Re: Keep Android Open

#805

Post by fsflover »

charcircuit wrote: post #592
fsflover wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a different approach to security. There are no malicious apps in GNU/Linux repositories. (And yes, Linux security should be improved; I run Qubes on desktop) https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/docs/community-wiki/-/wikis/F...

>It's a different approach to security That's like saying using a hole in a wall is a different approach to security than putting a lockable door in a wall. Sure no security is s different approach to security, but it's not an effective one. >There are no malicious apps in GNU/Linux repositories Maybe not intentionally malicous, but there have been bugs that can cause applications to act maliciously such as deleting…

I hope you consider strict threat modeling when deciding which approach to security is preferred. How about a threat of Google removing your control of the OS [this thread] and [0]? Or Google delaying security patches [1]?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45208925

Re: Keep Android Open

#806

Post by fsflover »

hparadiz wrote: post #803
fsflover wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just not true. Google has been directing the development of Android to maximize their profits. without such incentive, it won't be repeated. Also, please stop with security nihilism, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975

The current cyber security zeitgeist is to only allow "trusted" devices in your SSO flow and to also shove your VPN authentication on that SSO flow which includes even third party browsers not working. Only Chrome with a managed profile is even allowed to login. That pretty much means if you're not using a most recent version of iOS or Android you're SOL for using it for work. And good luck spoofing it these days cau…

I don't argue that the problem isn't serious. I just want to tell that giving up is not the solution. I use a GNU/Linux phone and refuse any banks or services that don't work there. Yes, it's challenging and I have to make compromises because of it. Such is life.

Re: Keep Android Open

#807

Post by markus_zhang »

rjdj377dhabsn wrote: post #600
markus_zhang wrote: post #397

How about linuxonphone.org and just dump all your financial/auth related apps to an old Android phone? Actually, better, dumbphone.org and dump all financial/auth/chat apps to an old Android phone that costs some $200.

That's doable for now in some places. But in an increasing number of countries, payments for just about everything are done directly from an Android or iOS app, so you'd always have to carry around this locked-down phone as well your Linux phone.

Yeah I do carry two phones with me. I agree it’s inconvenient.

Re: Keep Android Open

#808

Post by imcritic »

ashirviskas wrote: post #743
imcritic wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is not a HN worthy comment, be nice.

I am nice, it was an illustration of what a logical position/reply would be towards their position "I am a social outcasts". It's a poor argument "it works for me as a social outcast". It's not normal to be one.

Re: Keep Android Open

#809

Post by oytis »

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…

Yeah, I would absolutely get rid of my smartphone if I could do banking and all the numerous authentication processes without it. While I sympathise with all the Linux phone projects, I just don't have a use case for a Linux phone.

Re: Keep Android Open

#810

Post by graemep »

Arainach wrote: post #606
bluGill wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why we need to ban together. Libreoffice isn't dominate, but it has enough market share that it can't be completely ignored. Also if you are using it you are not alone - you are an annoying deviation, but there are enough of you that many cannot ignore you. The more people who also use libreoffice the more power we have. If we can get to just 5% market share we cannot be ignored. (it need not be libreoffice,…

>but it has enough market share that it can't be completely ignored. This is the Hacker News bubble in action. Most of the world, most of America, most of China, India, etc. haven't even heard of it. They ignore it and they thrive. Maybe you need to pay attention if you're dealing with certain European governments these days - I'm not sure because I completely ignore it and haven't paid attention since there was just…

> Maybe you need to pay attention if you're dealing with certain European governments these day

Open document formats have been the UK standard for things like .gov.uk for many years. About a decade IIRC. Ignored by some people (notably the Office of National Statistics, of whatever its called these days).

> Most of the world, most of America, most of China, India, etc. haven't even heard of it.

I have come across quite a few non-tech people who use Libre Office.

It has great (some people say better than MS Word with itself between version) compatibility with MS office formats.

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