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Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

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Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#101

Post by mft_ »

ClikeX wrote: post #70
mft_ wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was denied because there are keys on the device that would leak if meta opened it up. (I'm not an android dev so I don't know the ins and outs of that) Any idea what changed? > neglect and stupidity from zuck meant that the portal was killed Is Facebook really set up such that one person's whim is the single point of failure? Is there really no way for teams to progress projects with value somewhat independently…

> Is Facebook really set up such that one person's whim is the single point of failure? It doesn't sound that surprising, does it?

To me, with experience of numerous organisations of different sizes outside tech, it is pretty surprising.

(I'm not arguing that this is right but) the typical progression of an organisation as it scales is to move away from the 'scrappy startup with a CEO-dictator' and towards something more mature. Obviously, there are reams of business literature written about growing pains and then stagnation in large companies, but the single-personality-driven model seems hugely flawed - look at Tesla, for example. And I'd certainly expect a public company of the size, resource, and maturity (in years, if not structure) of Meta to have developed beyond this point.

Honestly, that a number of people seem to not grok my questioning this, is possibly quite revealing about the monoculture of the tech world.

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#102

Post by swiftcoder »

mft_ wrote: post #60
KaiserPro wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is sad that it takes a Meta developer having some fun to realize they should open up ADB. Former facebook research lab twat here. It wasn't one dev. We asked when they shitcanned portal (which was a great product, badly managed) to open it up. Infact one of the kernel devs made a very direct plea to allow the community to adopt the hardware so that we could avoid Ewaste. It was denied because there are keys on t…

> It was denied because there are keys on the device that would leak if meta opened it up. (I'm not an android dev so I don't know the ins and outs of that) Any idea what changed? > neglect and stupidity from zuck meant that the portal was killed Is Facebook really set up such that one person's whim is the single point of failure? Is there really no way for teams to progress projects with value somewhat independently…

> Is Facebook really set up such that one person's whim is the single point of failure?

When I was there (pre-Covid) it was sort of a worst-of-all-worlds situation, compared to other firms.

On the one hand, Zuck maintains an absolute majority of voting shares, so what he say literally goes, with the board having no real authority to rein him in. If your project is something he takes a direct interest in, you are automatically subject to his whims.

On the other, Meta highly values the idea that they are a pretty flat org with no centralised command and control structure. So if your project is not under the baleful gaze of Zuck, there's a good chance that nobody in the executive suite has any fucking idea what is going on in your part of the company.

Contrast this to Bezos-era Amazon, where Bezos would sometimes directly intervene in pet projects like the FirePhone, but the entire company has a strong reporting hierarchy, and executives are expected to maintain direct command-and-control at all times over their reports (i.e. when Bezos sent one of the dreaded question-mark emails, the entire management chain damn well better be able to get their story straight top-to-bottom by the end of day)

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#103

Post by swiftcoder »

ymolodtsov wrote: post #94
mft_ wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was denied because there are keys on the device that would leak if meta opened it up. (I'm not an android dev so I don't know the ins and outs of that) Any idea what changed? > neglect and stupidity from zuck meant that the portal was killed Is Facebook really set up such that one person's whim is the single point of failure? Is there really no way for teams to progress projects with value somewhat independently…

I think it'd be pretty weird if people and teams inside a company go just go rogue against the CEO.

It's not that you want teams to be able to go rogue - you want teams to be able to work against a stable mission statement, that doesn't change every 5 minutes as the CEO changes mood

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#104

Post by HatchedLake721 »

venzaspa wrote: post #79
HatchedLake721 wrote: post #68

Makes my blood boil that I have to open ChatGPT, paste the link and ask what the hell is ADB.

Perhaps you're not the target audience for this announcement.

Or perhaps it's laziness and bad writing not to give courtesy and spell out acronyms the first time it's used.

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#106

Post by utopiah »

davidedicillo wrote: post #35

I had a couple of old Meta Portals sitting around the house. I always liked the hardware, but after Meta moved away from Portal, they mostly became devices collecting dust. So I turned them into a routine board for our kids. It helps our kids stay on track without us having to repeat the same reminders over and over. And they are both pretty competitive, so nobody wants to finish their tasks second https://github.com…

Nice, that's a great use of it.

What does it do that a paper version with magnets can't though? Does it track time? Rank? Something else?

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#107

Post by nar001 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #53
nar001 wrote: post #9

Interesting, does that mean we might get root support on the old unsupported Quest devices too? The Q1 is already discontinued and no more updates yet still locked down, and they did something similar for the Ofulus go, providing a rooted boot image for it Next would be recovery tools too, so they're not paperweights

Pretty sure Carmack had to fall on his own sword to get the Go unlocked. Not sure anyone still there is as passionate about unlocking old devices, but maybe this is a sign of changing times...

That's true, it sucks only the Go got unlocked, I hope they let the older Quests do so too in the future, especially since I think the Q2 is going to be deprecated soon-ish too, that'd certainly be nice

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#108

Post by denysvitali »

realusername wrote: post #96
norman784 wrote: post #95

I was thinking that this or opening the bootloader should be required (by governments) for deprecated devices. Imagine all the Android and Apple devices you could give a second life by installing in them linux with some lightweight window manager (with touch support), or even Ubuntu Touch, etc.

While I totally support such legislation (even for current sold devices, not just deprecated), there's a massive pile of android devices with open bootloader which never got any decent second life support.

That shouldn't stop the regulation from existing, but yes, maybe another regulation in a similar way for forcing companies to open source drivers and bringup code after N years of the release?

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#109

Post by realusername »

denysvitali wrote: post #108
realusername wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I totally support such legislation (even for current sold devices, not just deprecated), there's a massive pile of android devices with open bootloader which never got any decent second life support.

That shouldn't stop the regulation from existing, but yes, maybe another regulation in a similar way for forcing companies to open source drivers and bringup code after N years of the release?

Even when the drivers are open source, it's far from easy. I'm thinking about these old Linux 4.2 touch screen drivers, they are there, fully open-source and despite that, almost none of them are in modern mainline.

Re: Meta enables ADB on deprecated Portal devices [video]

#110

Post by signatoremo »

sham1 wrote: post #67
gnfargbl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the leadership of a company aren't the right people to make decisions about what that company does, who is? Are you advocating for legislation? How would that work?

Ideally the workers. But failing that, legislation would probably be a good thing to at least try to reduce e-waste from closed, discarded devices. Like, if a device line is at its end of line from the company, then they might as well make it open for the community. They're not supporting it anymore, after all, but someone might want to. Would such legislation be perfect for dealing with these kinds of things? Of cou…

Who are these workers? Who should be listened to if there are opposite views?

What if recycle these devices causes more waste elsewhere? says the devices have to be heavier, using more materials. Also, more legislation mean more bureaucracy, less efficiency in general. Who is to say there is no waste in that?

I'm not against legislation when it makes sense. But "..Of course not, but it would be better"? It's always easy to speak from the comfort of HN.

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