261–270 of 669 posts
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It becomes much harder to force attestation on people if there's a significant user base that runs alternative operating systems.
Do you really NEED to be forced to attest if you can make your phone look like any damn PC using a browser?
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USB modems exist and work on Linux[0]. The Steam Deck is a Linux computer with a USB port. You could be living this reality today. [0] https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/usb-4g-lte-advanced-m...
They work fine for data and SMS, but it gets complicated once you need audio routing (it's rare for a modem to expose audio over USB) or waking up from low power mode to answer the incoming call. Could be done with M.2 USB modules and some dedicated controller in-between though.
Also i dont think routing audio is problem, the dongle could represent itself as external audio device, like those external usb dac.
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I use Safari as my daily driver and I'm still routinely shocked at just how terrible certain aspects of the experience is compared to Chrome. For example, the UI seems to completely block for most of the website loading process, rather than streaming as Chrome does. Also, rather than restore the previous state when I swipe to go back, it has to reload the page from scratch. Little things like this continue to annoy m…
Also, rather than restore the previous state when I swipe to go back, it has to reload the page from scratch I've encountered cases when both behaviours would've been desired (either use the cached version, or the latest version), so I think that's neither a point in favour nor against.
I think real caching is superior because you can manually reload if you actually needed that, but you can't go in the other direction.
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They work fine for data and SMS, but it gets complicated once you need audio routing (it's rare for a modem to expose audio over USB) or waking up from low power mode to answer the incoming call. Could be done with M.2 USB modules and some dedicated controller in-between though.
HID USB devices can already wake up computer from sleep, so i dont think we need M2 here. Also i dont think routing audio is problem, the dongle could represent itself as external audio device, like those external usb dac.
Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways?
Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people?
Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmarketOS.
LineageOS has huge problems since the mandatory eBPF requirements of late Android versions, which postmarketOS and its upstreamed kernel drivers could fix. GrapheneOS has huge problems because of Pixel devices, which LineageOS could help with.
We need a unification of this ecosystem because each on their own is hardly surviving on their own against the megacorporations.
But from scanning through this press release, this seems nothing more than the FSF doubling down on their failed RYF approach, which does absolutely nothing for user freedom. In fact it's a big negative for freedom, as it ties down resources that could be spent doing something useful in doing something completely pointless like putting firmwares in ROM and adding another chip to load the firmware.
The thing is, firmwares are here to stay. And firmwares that can be stored on the filesystem and loaded by the OS during driver initialization increases flexibility and reduces BOM cost. So that's what device manufacturers are going to do, and RYF will not have any effect on that.
Well… mixed feelings here. I spent a lot of time dealing with early smartphones and hacking away at Android, Tizen, FirefoxOS (remember that?) and several variations on that theme back when manufacturers were vying for differentiation, and I get that the FSF has a mission, but I don’t see this panning out. Like many folk who’ve been watching Google’s gradual shutdown of AOSP and alignment with Apple in terms of platf…
However, I still stand by the idea of having options. Many of us in developed Countries are likely to remain on our IPhones or Androids, but there is still a chance for FSF to shine in other areas.
Also, as someone who was a FirefoxOS user (I think around 2011-2016) I am always open to replacing my Android with FREE (as in freedom) alternatives.
As I mentions in previous comments - the main "fight" is convenience vs freedom.
Either we have the convenience of being able to do things on our devices with little effort of all (with variations of lockdowns and/or less control)... or we run something that respects your freedoms but some things require a few more seconds/minutes to do.
Personally, I would choose the latter. However, I know I am the minority in the world of phones.
Don't get me wrong. I am not some freedom(software) fighter. I accept that there is a convenience I need on phones today. In the workplace, I need MS Teams. If I don't have this, my Company will have to offer me a Work phone. Other than this, I do use it for banking, map navigation, etc. However, these are not deal breakers for me.
Also, we have the convenience with AI, which more and more will adapt like a special friend, will make things ever harder in the freedom world. Be interesting to see how this evolves.
At the end of the day - things change. It's hard to think like this but we don't know what we will be using in the next 10 years. Maybe in this universe, Microsoft Windows might still be king in the OS world. However, in another Universe Microsoft ends up making too many poor decisions even businesses are open to alternatives.
It's the same thing for smart devices. Apple might make a STUPID decision in the next 10 years. Although we still have Android variants on the market, the Librephone might get a big push by ex-Apple users.
We shall see. If this project does well and can do certain types of "convenience" then I would be willing to try it!
It is always a pleasure to have something with convenience but does not cost my freedom.
Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here? Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways? Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people? Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmark…