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FSF announces Librephone project

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Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#561

Post by Ajedi32 »

fsflover wrote: post #550
Ajedi32 wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said that's just another way of soliciting donations; it relies entirely on consumer goodwill (or ignorance/poor accessibility of the free option). There are limits to how big you can get with that (or how much you can charge) before someone just undercuts you with a fork. I'm not saying it's impossible to survive with that model; lots of organization survive on donations. But you're not gonna be able to build t…

> that's just another way of soliciting donations; it relies entirely on consumer goodwill (or ignorance/poor accessibility of the free option). That's almost like saying that Netflix relies on the consumers' goodwill, since pirating is too easy. In reality, people pay for convenience in getting what they want.

The main reason Netflix is more convenient than piracy is that piracy is illegal. If The Pirate Bay was allowed to offer a $2/month unlimited movie streaming service with no legal repercussions, Netflix would be out of business.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#562

Post by [deleted] »

galangalalgol wrote: post #484
sznio wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding of the article, Postmarket or Lineage or any other mobile operating system will be able to make use of this project. The goal is to provide FOSS drivers, so that you can run Lineage without proprietary blobs copied from the distribution of Android provided by the device manufacturer. It's mainly a libre purity project. A Lineage user won't be able to tell a thing, but the system will be "ethical…

There aren't even any arm or x86 desktops that are completely blob free. There is some ridiculously expensive amd power hungry power9 thing that nothing will run on, and some of sifive's newer boards might qualify. Every arm at least has some soc blobs. And every x86 has something like ime. Going straight for a blob free phone seems like getting ahead of ourselves. How about we shoot for a completely free rpi usable…

[deleted]

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#563

Post by fsflover »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #561
fsflover wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's just another way of soliciting donations; it relies entirely on consumer goodwill (or ignorance/poor accessibility of the free option). That's almost like saying that Netflix relies on the consumers' goodwill, since pirating is too easy. In reality, people pay for convenience in getting what they want.

The main reason Netflix is more convenient than piracy is that piracy is illegal. If The Pirate Bay was allowed to offer a $2/month unlimited movie streaming service with no legal repercussions, Netflix would be out of business.

Actually, piracy became rare exactly when Netflix became easy to use and not when the former became illegal (which it always was).

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#564

Post by ruszki »

guerrilla wrote: post #557
ruszki wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that shows that there is no real lack of qualifications by sex, just lack of opportunity. And that’s the best data which you can get today. Do you have any data which shows that the type of leadership must be so different which affects this? Because if not, then you can infer only one thing from that data, and not what you did.

I think you're lost in the weeds. If you don't know anything about software, you're not qualified to talk about software. The end.

Nobody said otherwise. Even sexists say the same thing because they can hide behind “sex blindness”, just like with racists and color blindness.

Are you saying that women with that qualification have the same opportunities as men without external intervention? Then why did you even bring up sex, and why I need to show you how to express it?

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#565

Post by palata »

franga2000 wrote: post #295
Itoldmyselfso wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GrapheneOS has huge problems because of Pixel devices, which LineageOS could help with. What are these "huge problems" caused by Pixel devices?

Probably that Google is dragging their feet releasing Pixel kernel and other source code. LineageOS has many years of experience getting a working system on top of bad or incomplete sources, including getting kernel source out of vendors in the first place.

> dragging their feet releasing Pixel kernel

Isn't it only the device tree, and therefore only affecting initial support for the Pixel 10?

Doesn't feel like a huge problem, though it makes it harder to support the Pixel 10.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#566

Post by palata »

moffkalast wrote: post #306
Itoldmyselfso wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GrapheneOS has huge problems because of Pixel devices, which LineageOS could help with. What are these "huge problems" caused by Pixel devices?

I will never use GOS as long as it requires me to buy a Pixel, on principle, because it's made by Google. It's like having to buy a Microsoft Surface in order to use Linux.

The reason why GrapheneOS only supports the Pixels is that the other manufacturers are not trying to get their shit together and release a phone that is reasonably secure. It's not that GrapheneOS supports Google, it's just that the other manufacturers are worse than Google.

If a major manufacturer released a good smartphone that GrapheneOS could support, they would get new users from the set of people who want GrapheneOS. I would gladly buy a non-Pixel as long as it can run GrapheneOS.

Which means that in a way, if you buy a Pixel and install GrapheneOS, you give more credibility to GrapheneOS, making it more interesting for a different manufacturer to consider supporting them.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#567

Post by palata »

beeforpork wrote: post #328
bebna wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got an FP5, would not buy again.

We bought two FP5 with e/OS/ from Murena (for spouse and myself), and would buy again. Why wouldn't you?

I don't like how /e/OS claims everywhere that they support all those phones, when in all my experience they just can't keep up and I end up with phones that don't receive vendor firmware updates for 1+ year.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#568

Post by thayne »

fsflover wrote: post #479
jrochkind1 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also software that is licensed?

AFAIK you can use and reverse engineer the firmware blobs on any OS, free or not.

Reverse engineer? Probably. As long as there aren't patents involved. And that is what the librephone project aims to do, from what I understand.

But the binary blobs are protected by copyright, so you need a license to use them.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#569

Post by efreak »

glitchc wrote: post #211
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've kinda migrated to the worst-case scenario already and it's really not that bad - for my use case. I have an old phone (actually running LineageOS rather than stock) that works as you perfectly describe as a glorified digital token. This device doesn't come with me. There's no banking I need to do, on a day-to-day basis, requiring said token, that has to be done right now or the world will end . It can wait until…

It sounds utopian except you still have to pay for a cell plan on said device, no? How else to obtain a phone number for MFA?

You already have a cell plan. It doesn't have to be attached to the same device.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#570

Post by rolandog »

kristianpaul wrote: post #507
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…

"Librephone is the FSF's project to free up those blobs. This project's goal is not another Android distribution, but a long-term project to better understand and reverse-engineer the nonfree blobs used by virtually all SoCs made today. " Looks they're going to build something literally from the ground

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