Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pebble Watch software is now open source

ericmigi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 236 posts

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#161

Post by ls-a »

tomhow wrote: post #145
ls-a wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok Rumi. It's my opinion if you don't agree just say I don't agree. Im doing you a favor by giving you an alternative more truthful reality. If you prefer to be in bliss then that's fine but stop acting so sleazy.

We don't need a mini-sermon. We just need you, like everyone, to follow the guidelines. Criticism is fine. Emptiness and thoughtlessness is not. You're welcome not to participate here if you're unwilling to put a little effort and substance into what you post.

Why didn't you update the title. It's not 100% open source. What's the point of the wrong percentage if it's not to exaggerate a false claim?

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#162

Post by pjmlp »

Larrikin wrote: post #118

A little surprised there has been no mention of the app being Kotlin multiplatform. https://github.com/coredevices/mobileapp I had heard of many smaller apps using Kotlin for their iOS app, but this may be the biggest all in multiplatform app I've seen. It would be awesome if there may eventually be support for writing Pebble apps in Kotlin.

This doesn't make sense from Pebble hardware point of view.

Now it would be great if we could move on to C++, Zig or Rust, instead of coding C like I did in the MS-DOS days, where I was already able to develop C++ applications within 640 KB limitations.

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#163

Post by asdefghyk »

gf000 wrote: post #147
paxcoder wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So not 100% open source. Thanks for the info

Above a certain complexity, there is basically no 100% open-source hardware out there. Like none of the Pinephone, Librem, Framework laptops are "open-source" to the bone.

The framework laptop , any hard drive ( meaning the hard drives , internal system software ) would not be open source. the embedded software in a SSD , possibly, but the chips could have backdoors etc

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#164

Post by f1refly »

gf000 wrote: post #158
cncjchsue7 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So don't say 100%? Not hard.

Human speech is not mathematical formalism. What would even "open-source" mean in case of hardware, is there a consensus on it to begin with? Is it only 'every firmware is open-source and available', or would you want the whole floorplan of the chip? So given that the word doesn't really apply to hardware, I believe they used it correctly (100% means the set of things where it makes sense to be used) and are not misl…

"Not needing binary blobs" would be a start, wouldn't it?

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#165

Post by gf000 »

f1refly wrote: post #164
gf000 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human speech is not mathematical formalism. What would even "open-source" mean in case of hardware, is there a consensus on it to begin with? Is it only 'every firmware is open-source and available', or would you want the whole floorplan of the chip? So given that the word doesn't really apply to hardware, I believe they used it correctly (100% means the set of things where it makes sense to be used) and are not misl…

"Not needing binary blobs" would be a start, wouldn't it?

I don't know, depends on a lot of stuff. If you are interested in this property from a security perspective, then no -- it's trivial to have hardware backdoors without any binary blobs.

This likely would also mean that it can't be flashed, so if you care about future maintainability, this is also a negative -- it can not be updated/fixed in the future, which may or may not make sense depending on what part we are talking about.

But if there are some kind of signature validation then it gets even more complicated (like e.g. iphone screens knowing if they are from apple or not).

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#166

Post by RobotToaster »

squarefoot wrote: post #151
gf000 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Above a certain complexity, there is basically no 100% open-source hardware out there. Like none of the Pinephone, Librem, Framework laptops are "open-source" to the bone.

Given how easy is to put and keep hidden malware into devices, governments should demand openness in that field as well. By "putting malware" I don't mean script kiddies in their moms basement but malware/spyware planted by design, which is extremely easy to do if you're the manufacturer, extremely easy to demand/force if you're the government above that manufacturer, and extremely hard to detect if you're a differen…

Every intel processor has a closed source IME, which is probably a NSA backdoor.

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#167

Post by fsflover »

gf000 wrote: post #147
paxcoder wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So not 100% open source. Thanks for the info

Above a certain complexity, there is basically no 100% open-source hardware out there. Like none of the Pinephone, Librem, Framework laptops are "open-source" to the bone.

Precursor is fully open though, https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#168

Post by trueno »

user_7832 wrote: post #128
niwtsol wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for posting this, it really gave me an answer to the "huh, how did all that drama from last week play out." IMO rebble jumped to some conclusions and felt robbed/cheated by what Eric was doing. With Eric going above and beyond to open source everything, I really feel he is trying to live up to what the original promise of pebble was. It is cool what rebble did to keep the pebble community alive, and I get t…

> Eric is doing is like the best possible outcome Slight correction, apparently Eric posting one of those WhatsApp screenshots was not okay with the person on the other side (who iirc is a rebble guy), who added that those grievances he had were taken out of context in the screenshot. The pebble (or rebble?) subreddit had this in the comments if anyone wants to read more. As always, the truth appears to lie somewhere…

I see it as the melodramatic theater that goes hand in hand with the development of tech we love. Linux lore is by all measures filled with these types of moments, and as time goes on there are moments of peace and moments of chaos. With any luck the end users live to see another day of tech or software they enjoy. It’s part of our story as humans.

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#169

Post by pjc50 »

paxcoder wrote: post #100
mid-kid wrote: post #99

For some of us software freedom enthusiasts it is worth noting that PebbleOS contains some proprietary blobs for some peripherals in the watch[1]. This is not just firmware you upload to the peripheral but also properietary .a libraries that run on the main core. Though to be fair to OpenDevices, this is source code they don't have acces to either. [1]: https://github.com/coredevices/pebbleos-nonfree/tree/57a94e2...

So not 100% open source. Thanks for the info

Incidentally, this is one reason why there's not so much open source hardware out there: people get pedantic about it and apply gradually more unreasonable levels of requirement, rather than accepting partially or substantially open source solutions.

Re: Pebble Watch software is now open source

#170

Post by philipallstar »

gf000 wrote: post #165
f1refly wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not needing binary blobs" would be a start, wouldn't it?

I don't know, depends on a lot of stuff. If you are interested in this property from a security perspective, then no -- it's trivial to have hardware backdoors without any binary blobs. This likely would also mean that it can't be flashed, so if you care about future maintainability, this is also a negative -- it can not be updated/fixed in the future, which may or may not make sense depending on what part we are tal…

> I don't know, depends on a lot of stuff. If you are interested in this property from a security perspective, then no -- it's trivial to have hardware backdoors without any binary blobs.

This is a "necessary but not sufficient" thing.

Post reply on HN