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FSF announces Librephone project

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Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#371

Post by lambertsimnel »

varispeed wrote: post #101
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #4

Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…

Funny that bank software needs approved phone, but runs absolutely fine in the browser. That to me sounds like collusion - something that regulators should look at. There is absolutely no need for banking app to require "legitimate" Android or other operating system.

Increasingly, browser-based online banking requires authentication with a proprietary smartphone app, where it used to accept other forms of 2FA

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#372

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

sunshine-o wrote: post #284
cookiengineer wrote: post #265

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…

[flagged]

> The FSF is now under the leadership of a "Bachelor of Arts degree in Media and Culture and a Master of Arts in the Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image" who probably hasn't written a line of code.

This is an exceptionally poor argument.

1. Coders are biased and often not aligned with users whose rights FSF is there to protect. Just look at any OSS vs FS discussion on this site to see examples.

2. Your "probably" here is too big of an assumption and of not much consequence. I have a degree in humanities, do not work in IT and have contributed code to Free Software.

3. You somehow imply that formal education affects _leadership_ in a _rights_ organization and a technical one would be preferable. That's a long shot.

Good initiatives require strong argumentative basis to have a strong wide following, you're providing a counterexample.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#373

Post by Tepix »

bsimpson wrote: post #11

Interesting that they chose Android as a base and not one of the desktop-Linux-for-mobile ports like postmarketOS.

It's the right decision: Android is mostly open source and works well. Not to mention that in real life, right now, people need access to certain apps as a firm requirement.

Have you seen the attempts of past "Linux phones"? Usability, performance and usually battery life were horrible and progress was also slow.

There have been comments about the race to support recent phones. I hope that Fairphone will looked at as a target device. It would be a good cultural fit and they don't have a yearly device cycle which should also help.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#374

Post by bombcar »

austhrow743 wrote: post #171
drnick1 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be part of the problem. As long as people like you are happy to run spyware on their phones for the sake of convenience or a meager discount, companies will be empowered to make such software and devices a requirement.

Do you think the same for using credit cards in general or is using the phone somehow worse?

Credit cards have become mainly a way for the banks and visa/mc to use the customer to strong arm money out of the business.

Get 3% and rebate some to the customer. For the convenience.

It’s kind of sad, really.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#375

Post by jacquesm »

charcircuit wrote: post #299
jacquesm wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And practical differences like being able to fix security issues benefits users. More often than not these updates are not actually benefits to the users.

Can you provide such an example? Because of bugs in the new version? A lot of the time old versions can still be loaded.

Just in the last couple of days:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45568700

There are by now thousands of examples of this, I wonder why you would ask for an example, this is about as uncontroversial as the sun going up tomorrow.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#376

Post by dandellion »

saagarjha wrote: post #325
guerrilla wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their point is obviously that they can't if they aren't qualified. I don't know if that's actually true but it's clear what they're arguing here anyway.

Stallman has historically done pretty poorly at getting people involved in the free software movement. Before someone goes "surely you are talking about women and other underrepresented groups" no I am not talking about them, although that is also important of course. I'm talking about the people who are not hackers, the people who are stuck using Microsoft Office at their job but want to know about better options, t…

Even if Stallman had only given given us Emacs and we ignored everything else he has ever done, he'd still have given us more and brought more people involved in free software than this new crop of MBA/communications degree CEOs that has taken over ever will.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#377

Post by ekianjo »

cookiengineer wrote: post #265

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…

PostmarketOS has never achieved proper support on any device so far.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#378

Post by gtsnexp »

sunshine-o wrote: post #284
cookiengineer wrote: post #265

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…

[flagged]

This take is gatekeeping and sexist. Coding is not the job description for FSF leadership; policy, licensing, and funding are. The previous, highly effective former FSF executive director was a poet, not a programmer.

Focus on outcomes: mainline kernels, modem firmware, reproducible builds, verified boot, power management, app ecosystems, and sustained funding. Credit the projects pushing those fronts and press FSF to support them: attack decisions, not résumés or gender.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#379

Post by rightbyte »

lenkite wrote: post #326
sunshine-o wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is how the times are nowadays. You don't get the CEO throne of any org without chest-thumping your social justice initiatives. The FSF is merely following fully up2date standard operational procedures of Western civilization. How can you blame them for following the de-facto standards ? Praise the Heavens that at-least 3/10 staff are coders. That is a far better ratio than most NGOs.

FSF is a social justice initiative.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#380

Post by franga2000 »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #360
franga2000 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a government app, you can pressure the government in many more way than you can let's say a bank - and FSF has experience in that kind of pressure. I hope their technical initiative also comes with a parallel legal/policy initiative that tries to get governments to stop using things like attestation.

> If it's a government app, you can pressure the government in many more way than you can let's say a bank Many more, like? For an individual, almost none. I can boycott a bank (if it's not a government one), I can't boycott my own government, only leave. An organization can start an initiative, but without an interested party involved it's only an initiative, you can hardly call it "pressure".

You can't boycott a bank, they all do the same shit and you need to have one.

With a government, however, you can go through your MPs, use administrative procedures to lodge complaints, etc. They also don't have Visa/Mastercard forcing them into attestation, it's usually just because the contractor thought it made things More Secure™.

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