[HN Gopher] Keep Android Open
___________________________________________________________________
Keep Android Open
Author : LorenDB
Score : 2281 points
Date : 2025-10-29 04:03 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (keepandroidopen.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (keepandroidopen.org)
| anonym29 wrote:
| I've got my Linux smartphone running and ready to go. VWYF,
| folks. I'll take shitty software and poor battery life over
| digital authoritarianism every single time.
|
| "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
| temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Which brand do you suggest ?
|
| Google wants my apartment lease to let me distribute free
| games, so I just won't support their platform.
|
| This is not about security, it's about control.
| userbinator wrote:
| _This is not about security, it 's about control._
|
| Of course we know, but they always spin it as being about
| security.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| One man's security is another man's control.
|
| Edit: and to be clear, I'm against this change by google. I
| think there is value in protecting grandma from sideloaded
| apps (if that even happens in the real world) but this
| isn't about protection of consumers, it's about centralised
| control of what you can and can't do, in preparation for
| handing over the reigns to an authoritarian government.
| 'Security' either to protect you from scams, protecting
| YouTube from third party apps, or preventing nation state
| hacking or similar will inevitably be the driving
| narrative.
| goodpoint wrote:
| No, it's not security. It never was.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Weird micro-aggression without any argument to back it
| up.
| xorcist wrote:
| They are just careful not to say _whose_ security.
|
| It's not a lie if it is to secure their cashflow.
| khimaros wrote:
| i've had a positive experience with OnePlus 6 and Mobian, but
| if you want something more modern with a business behind it,
| check out https://furilabs.com/
| 999900000999 wrote:
| This looks kind of cool, but it lacks a headphone jack...
|
| Which you think would be the first thing you'd put on there
| since Bluetooth pairing is extremely difficult to get right
| when you're using custom operating systems.
| ElegantBeef wrote:
| If you're cheap like me a used Pixel3a is a grand device.
| anonym29 wrote:
| My primary for the time being remains GrapheneOS, which,
| ironically enough, only runs on Pixel hardware for now
| (though the GOS team is working with an unnamed major Android
| OEM to produce a handset that meets GOS's strict platform
| requirements).
|
| My Linux phone is a PinePhone pro, which I believe is no
| longer being sold. It's not great. Phosh could generously be
| described as "in progress" last time I used it. UIs for many
| applications aren't built for small touchscreens like that.
|
| I'd have to review the hardware market again if I were going
| to make a fresh recommendation. Librem looks cool
| conceptually, but they're a bit pricey, and their framing of
| a "Made in USA" variant as a premium feature rather than a
| red flag, a reputation risk, and a supply chain risk make me
| skeptical of whether Librem is a trustworthy entity at all,
| or might just be controlled opposition. That could just be me
| erring on the side of paranoia, though.
| juris wrote:
| gonna say: the pinephone has been hell over the last few
| weeks. Phone auto-boots whenever power is applied (either by
| their keyboard case or via USB-C), then the battery dies very
| quickly, and you need a minimum charge to boot the phone, so
| that means you have to swap an SD card in there with
| JumpDrive just to charge the darn thing. There are some
| mitigating factors (larger battery, Tow-Boot + loading OS
| from SD card, potentially some SMT soldering shenanigans),
| but I genuinely feel like this is a fire hazard. I -do not-
| recommend inflicting this on others.
|
| someone suggested (I can't lost the link) flipping the script
| with a GLiNet Mudi hotspot with SMS forwarding (to e-mail); I
| really like this idea. It would be suuuper neat to play
| around with the tethered model: make SIP calls with a hacked
| Switch with Android installed / dedicated ruggedized VoIP
| phone for emergencies, or justify making and carrying a
| cyberdeck.
|
| Personally, I'm hoping to revive my 3DS because I fell in
| love with the darn thing again (and its near infinite battery
| life). I heard you can make calls on the original DS with
| SvSIP, so suuurely that can work on the 3DS too. As a fellow
| gamer and android dev I'm sure you'd appreciate the idea.
|
| I don't want a phone owned and controlled and spied on by
| governments and mega corporations. I want a Gibson-
| Neuromancer style obelisk disk blob thing that does Internet,
| Telephony, and Computer stuff and uses whatever I tether it
| to as the human interface.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Wow, PinePhone is mess. So much for a consumer device... Do
| they even use their own product?
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| This works now, but good luck in 10 years time when the radio
| chip requires a digital signature from the host OS signed by
| google or apple and your current phone is deprecated by 6g or
| whatever.
| userbinator wrote:
| _when the radio chip requires a digital signature from the
| host OS signed by google or apple_
|
| China will never let that happen.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| 5 eyes governments would be able to mandate this to stop
| against the 'persistent evils of China'
| codedokode wrote:
| I remember, when DVD players were required to show
| mandatory, non-skippable sections of video, chinese players
| violated the standards and international agreements and
| allowed skipping those sections, and they also sometimes
| illegally ignored regional restrictions.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I think times were different back then. Modern times are
| more like China selling Playstation 5's with mod shops:
| to my knowledge, they currently don't. Even if it ever
| becomes a thing the PS6 is only a few years away and will
| be even harder to break.
| realusername wrote:
| The irony, software freedom is now dependent on China.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Google, Apple, or CCP. Problem solved.
|
| I mean, the actual implementation will be that CCP signs
| Google DragonFly Global Root CA cert, and Apple runs Google
| signed firmware, but those are just minor implementation
| details.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Mobile hotspot with a wireguard tunnel wrapping all traffic.
| Different RF bands (e.g. Starlink). Unauthorized private
| autonomous mesh networks. I don't care how hard they make it.
| I am never going to stop uncompromisingly exercising my right
| to absolute control over hardware I bought and paid for.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| You can still run an Android build that doesn't require a
| Google signature for apps. You'll just lose access to Play
| Integrity APIs, which you wouldn't get from non-Android Linux
| phones either. A better technical solution is to set up a
| federated replacement for Play Integrity that third party ROM
| developers can opt into and a library that can use that or Play
| Integrity for app developers that want it to use.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| Banking apps will not work then.
| baobun wrote:
| I think the "one smartphone for absolutely everything" era
| is over. Either switch banks (there are many who don't do
| this nonsense) or have a dedicated Android/iOS device for
| banking.
| xorcist wrote:
| That's a bit overblown. Almost all banking apps work fine.
| You might be one of the unlucky few of course, but there's
| no need to scare others from running free software.
| jrflowers wrote:
| >VWYF, folks
|
| Volkswagen Your Face
|
| Vincent Wants Yummy Fries
|
| Viewing Worked Yesterday, Frank
|
| Voyeur Whom You Fuck
|
| Veiled Widows You Fancy
|
| Vore Website? Yes, Free!
| wiseowise wrote:
| Vote With Your Francs, obviously.
| jrflowers wrote:
| Verily We Youths Frolic
|
| Verify With Your Face
| fungi wrote:
| never been a better time to donate to postmarket os, mobian or
| friends.
| endgame wrote:
| As I said in the other thread:
|
| Australian users of alternative app stores should make a
| complaint to the ACCC: https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/contact-
| us-or-report-an-iss...
|
| In the past, they forced Steam to implement proper refund
| policies, and they are currently suing Microsoft about the way
| subscribers were duped into paying more for "AI features" they
| didn't want.
| shakna wrote:
| Unfortunately, I think attestation is being pushed by other
| parts of the Australian government. Particularly ACSC.
| hekkle wrote:
| I think you are better off making a complaint to the Australian
| Australian Consumers' Association (CHOICE)
| https://accounts.choice.com.au/contact-us/ than to the ACCC
|
| Tell them to lodge a _designated_ complaint to the Australian
| Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC).
|
| ACCC complaints are designed for individual grievances while a
| designated complaint from a designated complainer is supposed
| to address "significant or systemic market issues that affect
| consumers in Australia".
| neilv wrote:
| No matter how this turns out, I'm sure GrapheneOS will make a
| smart effort. https://grapheneos.org/
|
| But long-term, Android is such a massive code base, and was
| designed more for surveillance and consumption, than for
| privacy&security and the user's interests.
|
| I think getting mainline Linux on viable and sustainable on
| multiple hardware devices is warmer, fuzzier foundation. (Sort of
| a cross between Purism's work on the Librem 5, and PostmarketOS's
| work on trying to get mainline Linux viable on something else.)
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| The problem is for developers. Abandoning Android for Linux is
| not viable for software developers who need to eat. Sure, we
| can use Linux smartphones ourselves, but if the software we
| make has a grand total of three people who ever lay eyes on it,
| that's less than ideal. And given how The Year of the Linux
| Desktop has gone, I think it'd be strongly preferable if we
| managed to stave off the tightening of control over Android
| rather than placing bets on the future Year of the Linux
| Smartphone.
| broodbucket wrote:
| The Year of the Linux Desktop is kind of happening. Not at
| the scale that the meme implies, but I've never seen anywhere
| near as much adoption of the Linux desktop as this year. The
| combination of Valve's efforts, more usage of Linux gaming
| handhelds, distributions like Bazzite that have strong
| selling points for Windows gamers, and Microsoft pissing
| everyone off with everything that is Windows 11, the Linux
| desktop has some legitimate momentum for once
| pimeys wrote:
| And I can just take about any Linux distro, install it to
| about any computer and have an extremely nice device to
| work, play games, and handle almost any daily task with. I
| call that a huge success.
| rob74 wrote:
| The odds of having just about any Linux distro work "out
| of the box" without manual tweaking on just about any
| computer are still pretty low I'm afraid (by "work" I
| mean "support _all_ of the functionality "). For
| instance, the laptop I'm writing this on connects without
| problems to a Bluetooth mouse, but won't for the life of
| me work with my Bluetooth headphones.
| gf000 wrote:
| > The odds of having just about any Linux distro work
| "out of the box" without manual tweaking on just about
| any computer
|
| Well, show me that magic OS that works on "just about any
| computer", because I am sure Windows ain't that. OSX only
| works on their select devices, and Windows have its own
| way of sucking. Let's be honest, there are shitty
| hardware out there and _nothing_ will work decently on
| top. People just try to save these by putting Linux on
| top and then the software gets the blame.
| microtonal wrote:
| Yet, still 1/4th of the time my ThinkPad with Linux wakes
| with a Thunderbolt display connected it dies with a
| kernel panic deep in the code that handles DDC (no matter
| what kernel version).
|
| And the latest gen finger print scanner only works
| between 10-50% of the time depending on the day,
| humidity, etc., no matter hof often you re-enroll a
| fingerprint, enroll a fingerprint multiple times, etc.
|
| And the battery drains in 3-4 hours. Unless you let
| powertop enable all USB/Bluetooth autosuspend, etc. But
| then you have to write your own udev rules to disable
| autosuspend when connected to power, because otherwise
| there is a large wakeup latency when you use your
| Bluetooth trackball again after not touching it for one
| or two seconds.
|
| And if you use GNOME (yes, I know use KDE or whatever),
| you have to use extensions to get system tray icons back.
| But since the last few releases some icons randomly don't
| work (e.g. Dropbox) when you click on it.
|
| And there are connectivity issues with Bluetooth
| headphones all the time plus no effortless switching
| between devices. (Any larger video/audio meeting, you can
| always find the Linux user, because they will need five
| minutes to get working audio.)
|
| As long as desktop/laptop Linux is still death by a
| thousand paper cuts, Linux on the desktop is not going to
| happen.
| gf000 wrote:
| I have had worse experiences on each and every count with
| various Windows installs on various laptops, and yet it
| is the "de facto" desktop OS.
| didacusc wrote:
| That is simply not true. I have tried to get so many
| people on Linux, just for it to fail when they try to do
| something simple, enough times in a row for them to want
| to go back to Windows.
|
| I really wish it was seamless and good, but it just isn't
| (and frankly it's a bit embarrassing it isn't given
| desktop environments for GNU Linux have been in
| development for 20+ years).
| gf000 wrote:
| I'm not saying it's seamless and good. I'm saying that I
| have had windows fail in similar or worse ways.
|
| For example the laptop I had from my previous employer (a
| pretty beefy Dell) was failing to go to sleep, I had to
| unplug the charger and the HDMI cable on my desk each
| night, otherwise every second night it was keeping my
| monitor lit on the lock screen; when low on battery it
| clocked the CPU down so much that the whole system froze
| to a grinding stop not even the mouse pointer was moving,
| and even after putting it back on the charger it remained
| similarly unusable for a good 10 mins..
|
| Like I have been using Linux since the Xorg config days
| when you could easily get a black screen if you
| misconfigured something, but at least those issues are
| deterministic and once you get to a working state, it
| usually stays there. Also, Linux has made very good
| progress in the last decade and it has hands down the
| best hardware support nowadays (makes sense given that
| the vast vast majority of servers run Linux, so hardware
| companies employ a bunch of kernel devs to make their
| hardware decently supported).
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I had so many more issues running Windows over the years
| than Linux. BSODs were a common occurrence, and yearly
| fresh installs were a thing to keep my computer usable.
|
| I moved to Mint almost 4 years ago at this point, running
| it on a now fairly old Dell G5 from 2019. Runs as
| smoothly as ever.
|
| I had one problem during this 4 year run (botched update
| and OS wouldn't start). Logging to terminal and getting
| Timeshift to go back to before the update did the trick.
| Quick and painless. I could even run all the updates
| (just had to be careful to apply one of those after a
| reboot).
|
| I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe I am
| just very lucky with Linux.
| martin- wrote:
| It's the same in every discussion about OS vs OS. People
| who like one OS will claim that the other OS is full of
| problems, and vice versa. In some cases I guess people
| are just lucky/unlucky. Personally, I've been using both
| in parallel for about 15 years, and while I've never had
| any issues with Windows (no BSODs), Linux constantly
| gives me problems. But I'm a developer and much prefer to
| develop on Linux, so I stick with it.
| microtonal wrote:
| Though I think that is not warranted with respect to my
| original comment. I have used Linux in some form or shape
| for 31 years now (jikes), I would love Linux to win, and
| I have used Linux on a wide variety of hardware (last few
| laptops have been ThinkPads).
|
| I think desktop Linux will not improve until people start
| acknowledging the issues and work on it. It's the same as
| the claim that Linux is very secure (which Linux fans
| will often repeat), while it has virtually no layered
| security, and a fairly large part of the community is
| actively hostile towards such improvements (e.g. fully
| verified boot).
| microtonal wrote:
| I think people tend to have double standards when it
| comes to Linux. People who run Linux generally _choose_
| to run Linux intentionally and are for that reason more
| willing to accept /overlook issues.
|
| I have both Linux machines and Macs and Linux has always
| been objectively worse when it comes to driver and
| software issues. It's just has a large number of paper
| cuts.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I think people tend to have double standards when it
| comes to MacOS. People who run MacOS generally choose to
| run MacOS intentionally and are for that reason more
| willing to accept/overlook issues.
|
| I use both Linux machines and Macs (at work) and Macs has
| always been objectively worse when it comes to usability
| ajd development. It's just has a large number of paper
| cuts.
| sotix wrote:
| > Yet, still 1/4th of the time my ThinkPad with Linux
| wakes with a Thunderbolt display connected it dies with a
| kernel panic deep in the code that handles DDC (no matter
| what kernel version).
|
| This doesn't happen on my ThinkPad but does on my
| MacBook. If anyone else faces these kernel panics on
| their Mac, you have to set your monitor to a hard 120hz
| rather than a variable rate on the macOS display
| settings. KDE handles the variable rate just fine on the
| ThinkPad for me.
| pjmlp wrote:
| As long as it isn't a gamer laptop.
| vitorgrs wrote:
| Especially considering how much software these days on
| Windows are all Electron/Web. So is not a hard switch as it
| once was.
|
| I switched from Windows to Linux it's been 2 years. One of
| the few things I missed on Windows, was the native WhatsApp
| app, as the Web WhatsApp it's horrible. Then a few months
| Meta killed the native app and made into a webview-app :)
| LogicHound wrote:
| It only takes one application to force you back to using
| Windows.
|
| e.g. HellDivers 2 didn't work well until recently on
| Linux. If you are playing certain factions it is a very
| fast paced game and I would frequently experience slow
| downs on Linux.
|
| So if I wanted to play HellDivers 2, I would have to
| reboot into Windows. Since running kernel 6.16 and
| updates to proton it now runs better.
| LogicHound wrote:
| It really isn't. This is a temporary sugar rush that comes
| after pretty much every time Microsoft does something
| awful. After a while the buzz will fizz out and the
| majority of those PC gamers that looked to switching go
| back to Windows.
|
| IME a lot developers don't even use Linux on their desktop
| machine. I've met three developers that use Linux
| professional IRL. A lot of devs have a hard time even using
| git bash on Windows.
|
| I am always called up by people at work because I am "the
| Linux guy" when they have a problem with Linux or Bash.
|
| Sure, there are a lot of people that use Linux indirectly
| e.g. deploy to a Linux box, use Docker or a VM. But if
| someone isn't running Windows, 9 times out of 10 they are
| running a Mac.
|
| More generally the thing that has paid the bills for me is
| always these huge proprietary tech stacks I've had to deal
| with. Whether it be Microsoft's old ASP.NET tech stack with
| SQL Server, AWS, Azure, GCP, what pays the bills is
| proprietary shite. I hate working with this stuff, but that
| what you gotta to pay the bills.
| xvfLJfx9 wrote:
| I mean, this strongly has to depend on what kind of
| software you are developing. I don't know a single
| developer who primarily uses Windows. Literally everyone
| around me uses Linux for development work (and a large
| portion of them also use Linux for their personal
| machines).
| LogicHound wrote:
| Of course. However if a developer isn't using Windows
| typically they are using a Mac.
|
| In corpo-world. Everyone is using Windows. If they are
| using Linux it would be through a VM or WSL. I guarantee
| none of those people are using Linux at home.
|
| So for every developer you know that is using Linux,
| there are many more people using Windows supplied to by
| their IT department.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| > This is a temporary sugar rush that comes after pretty
| much every time Microsoft does something awful.
|
| I think what it fundamentally comes down to is that for
| consumer-oriented Linux to see widespread adoption, it
| needs to succeed on its own merits. Right now, and since
| forever, Linux exists in a space for the majority of
| consumers who consider it where they think "I might use
| it, because at least it's not the other guy". A real
| contender would instead make the general public think
| "I'll use this because it's genuinely great and a
| pleasure to experience in its own right". And that's why
| I have absolutely zero faith in Linux becoming a viable
| smartphone ecosystem. If it were truly viable, it would
| have been built out already regardless of what Android
| was doing. "Sheltering Android refugees" is not a
| sustainable path to growth any more than "sheltering
| Windows refugees" is.
| LogicHound wrote:
| I agree, with a caveat. The vast number of consumers
| don't even know Linux/BSD or any the alternatives exist.
|
| I have zero faith in a Linux smartphone. What will happen
| is that there will be some GNU/FSF thing with specs that
| are 15 years out date and you will have to install Linux
| via a serial console using Trisquel and the only
| applications available will the Mahjong (yes I am being
| hypobolic).
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Clearly hyperbole! We'll also have TuxPaint, SuperTuxKart
| (CPU rendering only, because the toolchain doesn't
| support Android's HAL), and a couple of (long-abandoned)
| LibreOffice forks that crudely adapt different subsets of
| the interface for a touch device.
| LogicHound wrote:
| Unfortunately in the past people have taken obvious
| hyperbole literally.
|
| I realised a few years ago when one of my friends didn't
| know what the browser was on her phone, that any notion
| of people caring about the OS outside of branding is
| pretty much non-existent.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Not really, because Proton is Win32, kind of.
| broodbucket wrote:
| Half of the applications people use on Windows are just
| browsers in a native frame, at this point Win32 is just
| one of the many "stacks" that you can run on Linux.
| colordrops wrote:
| Some people don't care and build on top of Linux anyway. This
| lockdown will accelerate this. At some point a critical mass
| will eventually be reached, perhaps with the assistance of
| some corporate entity or organization of some sort that
| pushes it over the edge. Then there will be a real open
| competitor. Will take some time though.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > Abandoning Android for Linux is not viable for software
| developers who need to eat.
|
| We'll finally get our ecosystem diversity back when the next
| geopolitical happening happens and Google bans Chinese
| android apps on bullshit pretexts.
|
| Wait a few years more.
| socksy wrote:
| Why would that affect anything? The Chinese Android
| ecosystem is already split from the Google one.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > Why would that affect anything?
|
| The Chinese will eventually find it easier to sell their
| Chinese ecosystem devices to the world instead of
| catering to Google and American three-letter agencies.
| microtonal wrote:
| I'd rather like to see AOSP development spun off to a
| separate non-profit entity. Either by Google doing it or by
| a hard fork (which will need a lot of funding). Traditional
| Linux misses the polish and especially the security
| layering to be a good phone OS. Better to start from an
| already good base that works.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Waydroid does surprisingly well at running Android apps on
| Linux.
|
| Sure some apps won't work for whatever reason & HN commenters
| will have incredibly scathing things to say about that, but I
| bet there's a lot of folks who'd be cool with missing an app
| here or there.
|
| It sucks to be losing Android, but IMO it's an ecosystem in
| free-fall. Bootloaders are locked more and more, there's
| literally zero AOSP hardware buyable now, and the roms scene
| has diminished not grown over time.
|
| I totally think theres a Steam Deck moment waiting around a
| corner, where what seemed impossible a year ago shows up and
| is dead obvious & direct, and we all wonder why there were so
| many doubts before.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Right, but that 's a choice from manufacturers, not a
| requirement of building a mobile platform._
|
| IMO, I think Microsoft gave up on running Android apps on
| Windows because they read the writing on the wall: Google
| will use Play Integrity/Protect to ensure Android apps only
| run on Google-approved devices/operating systems and
| nothing else.
|
| I think this is the ultimate fate for Waydroid, as well.
| juris wrote:
| so the thing is, as an Android dev if I get embedded linux
| experience then I have lateral career movement to the
| peripherals that I'm usually writing apps for. While the
| intersection of app developers to embedded linux developers
| is probably very small, there is a smidge of incentive there,
| and that can be a powerful thing for the community: a lot of
| the pain points on linux phones feel hardware oriented (I
| complain loudly about the pinephone battery elsewhere in this
| thread).
|
| another tailwind might be in the gaming scene. I have the
| general sense that SteamOS has been an interesting gateway
| for technically-minded folks to be impressed by this Linux
| thing. A similar model for mobile phones might be a tailwind
| (like a SteamOS for ARM?) The reason why that's perfect is
| because it undermines the Google monopoly and creates an app
| ecosystem that people will absolutely flock to, at least for
| games ($$).
| vanviegen wrote:
| I know it's been tried before (eg by Mozilla), but perhaps
| now the time is right for a web apps-only OS.
|
| Many developers would need some help to get offline
| functionality and updates right though.. And it would be
| really nice if these apps didn't require parsing megabytes of
| JavaScript libraries on startup.
|
| One can dream! :-)
| pjmlp wrote:
| My TV runs one, it isn't taking the world by storm.
|
| https://webostv.developer.lge.com/discover
| vanviegen wrote:
| It's _got_ to be better than the laggy, unreliable,
| content-pushing Google TV crap that runs my TV... Right?
|
| Making a guess: nope. Same underpowered SoC, in order to
| save $5.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It is better than Android TV, which I also own, but in
| terms of ads, yep there are some as well.
|
| Differention, that is what all OEMs care about, netbooks
| already showed us that.
| khimaros wrote:
| buy a used OnePlus 6 and load Mobian on it. quite functional
| these days running a mainline kernel.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| (2018) makes me more than a bit sad. I have a OnePlus 6, and
| it was ok with the software I tried out ~3 years ago, and
| basically fast enough. But it's soul crushing how running
| mainline Linux is just so impossible for consumer mobile
| chips.
|
| It felt at the time like there was positive progress, more
| bits getting mainlined at a trickle but at least steady
| trickle rate. But it feels dark now. At least the GPU drivers
| everywhere have been getting much better, but I get the
| impression Qualcomm couldn't even ship a desktop/laptop after
| years of delay, is barely getting that in order now. It feels
| impossible to hope for the mobile chips anywhere to find
| religion & get even basic drivers mainlined.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >than for privacy&security and the user's interests.
|
| Even if that was true, AOSP is better for privacy and security
| than any other Linux distro.
| fsflover wrote:
| By which criterion? This sounds wrong.
| rbits wrote:
| https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html
| fsflover wrote:
| It's a different approach to security. There are no
| malicious apps in GNU/Linux repositories. (And yes, Linux
| security should be improved; I run Qubes on desktop)
|
| https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/docs/community-
| wiki/-/wikis/F...
| charcircuit wrote:
| >It's a different approach to security
|
| That's like saying using a hole in a wall is a different
| approach to security than putting a lockable door in a
| wall. Sure no security is s different approach to
| security, but it's not an effective one.
|
| >There are no malicious apps in GNU/Linux repositories
|
| Maybe not intentionally malicous, but there have been
| bugs that can cause applications to act maliciously such
| as deleting users files. If an application gets exploited
| it could also do malicous things. Just because you trust
| the author of a program, that doesn't mean that sanboxing
| is pointless. Additionally programs like the terminal are
| a free for the user to run things like curl | sh which
| can run malware infecting the system and run wild since
| there is no security to stop it from doing almost
| anything.
|
| >Purism
|
| The wiki page pretty much says that they don't have
| privacy or security and don't have the resources to
| implement such features unlike Google or Apple. They also
| make some claims to try and pretend their platform is
| secure and private in order to help sell the Librem 5, a
| product they made with inferior privacy and security
| compared to Android.
| 3abiton wrote:
| The hope is lost for Android, there is no moving forward with
| google antagonizing its foss roots. Libre phone it is. We have
| to forcibly remove the bandage.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I wish you were wrong, but I don't disagree with assessment.
| I am on grapheneos ( edit: on pixel ) now, but even that
| should only be a pitstop now since google has decided to show
| its hand in such a nasty ( if not that unexpected ) manner.
| surajrmal wrote:
| Everyone is quick to ascribe malice without understanding
| why changes are made. It's never done for the reasons you
| think. Without a formal relationship between Graphene and
| Pixel, things were operating out of luck. This is why the
| next target hardware is starting with a business
| relationship. Even desktop Linux is most successful when
| business relationship between a vendor and the distro
| maker. Everything else is ripe for random breakage in
| support.
| preisschild wrote:
| AOSP is open source so it could be forked.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Except many key features are nowadays delivered via APEX
| modules, distributed via PlayStore.
|
| https://source.android.com/docs/core/ota/apex
| preisschild wrote:
| https://grapheneos.org/features#anti-persistence
|
| GrapheneOS has apex modules disabled and never had the
| need for that.
| pjmlp wrote:
| ART updates are distributed via APEX since Android 12.
|
| So is it stuck in Java 12?
| surajrmal wrote:
| I believe it's similar to kernel modules in that they can
| either be compiled into the kernel or distributed
| separately. Graphene probably just distributes it as part
| of the system images. This just means rollouts are
| coupled. Apex doesn't imply closed source, only that
| there is a stable surface that allows more modular
| updates.
| gf000 wrote:
| > think getting mainline Linux on viable and sustainable on
| multiple hardware devices is warmer, fuzzier foundation.
|
| You just have to somehow speedrun the decades of development
| that went into Android to make it decently run on mobile
| hardware.. never really understood this "throwing out the baby"
| direction - the UNIX userspace model simply doesn't work on
| mobile (I would wager it also doesn't work on desktop anymore),
| has no security (everything runs as your user which made sense
| when you ran some batch job on a terminal with multiple other
| users, but nowadays when a single user has as many processes as
| all the user had back then it effectively means no security
| between any of those programs), there is no real resource
| control, no lifecycles, so the device will burn scorching hot
| and have terrible battery life.
|
| On Android (and iOS) apps were always living in a world with
| lifecycles so if they wanted to operate correctly, they had to
| become decent citizens (save state when asked, so they can be
| stopped and resumed at any moment). This also fits nicely with
| sandboxes and user permissions, etc.
|
| So without developing an alternative user-space for "GNU-
| Linux", it's simply not competing with android in any form or
| shape.
|
| And even if you do, now every GNU app has to somehow be ported
| to that userspace API (you can't just kill GIMP or whatever
| Linux process)
| franczesko wrote:
| > You just have to somehow speedrun the decades of
| development that went into Android to make it decently run on
| mobile hardware
|
| Isn't this mainly due to proprietary drivers and firmware?
| gf000 wrote:
| No, just take a look at how long and smooth does a
| pinephone run with "GNU Linux" vs stock android.
|
| Android devs actually backported a bunch of work to the
| mainline kernel with regards to low-level energy
| management, but that's only one half of the story. The
| other is your phone stopping unused apps gracefully, and
| being able to go back to sleep regularly.
| surajrmal wrote:
| The vast majority which lives in android userspace. The
| customer compositor, input stack, wlan daemons, etc, are
| all tuned and optimized for power efficiency. Also, these
| days, there is a lot of hardware controlled directly by
| userspace - it's not just the GPU. And those hardware are
| generally important for offloading a lot of conpute and
| reducing wake ups. Things seem to only be trending
| further in this direction.
| mycall wrote:
| The closest I got to Linux mobile is GPD Pocket 4 with LTE
| and regular apps. Since I can get it to cap at 5 watts, it
| can give 9 hours of battery life. It does most things I care
| about, but it is just a mini laptop (which is good enough for
| me).
| preisschild wrote:
| > Android is such a massive code base, and was designed more
| for surveillance and consumption
|
| I disagree. I have been using de-googled / de-spywared Android
| for a decade now and I really love it. Once you remove google
| mobile services and rely on open source applications Android
| feels really good.
|
| Also its questionable if projects such as purism or even the
| pinephone will ever offer such good security and privacy as a
| de-googled Pixel with GrapheneOS will.
|
| https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/112712864209034804
| palata wrote:
| > Android was designed more for surveillance and consumption,
| than for privacy&security and the user's interests
|
| I disagree. The Android security model is better than the Linux
| one. I am very happy with GrapheneOS, I don't have much to
| complain about.
|
| The problem is that Google sucks and nobody enforces antitrust
| laws. But it's not just Google: how many Android manufacturers
| don't suck, really? Do they contribute to AOSP at all? Probably
| not. Do they build reasonable devices that could run something
| like GrapheneOS? Nope. Just relocking the bootloader is often a
| problem.
| blindriver wrote:
| 99% of malware with real world consequences of people losing much
| or all of their money is from unverified developers.
|
| This is a step in the right direction to keep people safe in my
| opinion. Most people around the world don't understand the risks.
| silisili wrote:
| The ability to 'sideload' is already off by default, and warns
| you before turning it on. Maybe just a bigger or sterner
| warning? I mean there's only so much you can do there...
| surajrmal wrote:
| This won't be true for much longer iiuc. Look at the outcomes
| of the Epic lawsuit. That's probably why Google is changing
| how they tackle this problem.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| The malware boogeyman is really paying off tangibly for Google.
| They've got actual fans of their profit-motivated paternalism.
| surajrmal wrote:
| Anyone who has lived through the windows PC era knows it's a
| legitimate problem. Google has tons of data to show malware
| exists for Android as well. Being able to prevent that
| malware from affecting the lives of Android users is a moral
| imperative for Google. I understand why folks are skeptical,
| but it's worth trying to dig into the fact rather than just
| react blindly.
| orangecat wrote:
| To the extent that this is true, the lesson is very much
| not that Microsoft should have had total control over what
| users were allowed to run.
| anonym29 wrote:
| 99% of all malware with real world consequences is caused by
| unverified developers, ergo, all unverified developers should
| be removed from app stores.
|
| 99% of all car accidents with real world consequences are
| caused by licensed human drivers, ergo, all licensed human
| drivers should be removed from roads.
|
| Same argument. It's true, and simultaneously, it skips right
| past all of the ramifications of the proposal, even when the
| ramifications conceivably result in more harm than the original
| problem did.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
| kragen wrote:
| Having a trustworthy channel for verified app loading is a
| vital security tool. F-Droid is such a channel; the Google Play
| Store is not. F-Droid inspects the source code of the
| applications they build, removes malware and other antifeatures
| from them, and compiles them from source to ensure that the
| binaries they deliver correspond to the source code they've
| inspected. The Google Play Store doesn't do any of those
| things. Consequently it's full of malware.
|
| The topic here is Google nuking F-Droid from orbit, probably
| because it has NewPipe.
| Dead_Lemon wrote:
| I'm not sure about the NewPipe angle, as Grey Jay exists
| (Backed by FUTO/Louis Rossman) on the Play store, which has
| ad-block and sponsor block incorporated into it. Google is
| just being malicious towards opensource and privacy, under
| the guise of security
| munchlax wrote:
| Not neccesarily a guise of security, but perhaps a
| different means of security. E.g. securing stock
| investments, profits, monies, etc. Nothing is 100% secure,
| you can't be in the void and still call it a void, etc
| zoobab wrote:
| "NewPipe" I use "PipePipe", which does less stracktraces.
| layfellow wrote:
| AFAIK most of the victims actually fall for social engineering
| in combination with legit apps. If you force developer
| registration criminals will simply find other attack vectors.
|
| You are restricting a fundamental digital right in exchange for
| a minuscule reduction in risk.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Akshually 99% of malware with real world consequences comes
| preinstalled on your phone.
| realusername wrote:
| That's rich knowing that both Apple and Google get most of
| their store money from dubious casino like games which I'm
| uncomfortable giving to my family.
|
| Before they are allowed to make any comment on scams, they
| should clean up their own store first.
| yupyupyups wrote:
| YOU should be kept safe.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| When was the last time you read articles about malware in
| F-droid? When was the last time you read articles about malware
| in the play store?
| AAAAaccountAAAA wrote:
| What those "people-who-don't-understand-the-risks" will do
| then, with more money left? I think they will give their money
| to all sorts of political populists, who will cause danger not
| only to themselves, but everyone.
| 63stack wrote:
| A ton of malware is pushed through Google's adsense network,
| which already requires some level of verification afaik. It
| doesn't stop jack shit. You are naive if you think more
| verification is somehow going to stop this.
| layfellow wrote:
| This is doubleplusungood. The war on General Purpose Computing is
| the death of innovation and a direct attack on digital freedom.
|
| If you're in the US, UK or EU, please contact your government.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| If, and I do mean if, government is a solution here, its only
| role is to ensure that app use cannot be required for service (
| and we can argue over what services can stay app-only ).
| rlopezcc wrote:
| Profit is a perverse incentive.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| Has anyone seen Andy Rubin publicly comment on Google's
| stewardship of Android? I wonder what he thinks about his
| creation and the way its evolving.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Considering Andy Rubin is a massive creep, let's not have him
| publicly comment about anything at all, ever:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-rubin-google-settlement-se...
| wasabinator wrote:
| Between this and a growing number of oems not permitting
| bootloader unlocking (latest being Samsung with OneUI 8)
| Android's "open" future is pretty bleak.
| microtonal wrote:
| IMO the bigger recent issue is that Google stopped pushing AOSP
| updates timely. As far as I know the QPR1 source is still
| missing in action after almost two months (!).
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| A direct link to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, in
| case you don't want to go via a blog post:
|
| https://contact-the-cma.service.gov.uk/wizard/classify
|
| It's very simple to submit a complaint.
| codedokode wrote:
| Before buying a smartphone I tried to find an inexpensive model
| that supports open source OS, but I couldn't. What open OS
| support is ether expensive Pixels, or outdated models.
|
| The solution, I think, would be a regulation that forbids
| manufacturers of any chip or device CPU from making obstacles to
| reprogramming the device (using fuses, digital signatures,
| encryption etc). So if you buy a device with CPU and writable
| memory, you should be able to load your own program and
| manufacturer may not use technical measures to stop you. The goal
| of regulation would be preventing of creating digital waste,
| vendor locks and allow reusing the hardware.
|
| Of course, features like theft prevention won't work, so the user
| should be able to waive this right.
| kragen wrote:
| We just had a thread about this on
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45740383.
| maxloh wrote:
| Most vendors (at some level) allow flashing custom
| distributions, as long as you didn't buy that device from
| carrier: https://github.com/zenfyrdev/bootloader-unlock-wall-
| of-shame...
|
| You will lose DRM-based apps (e.g. Netflix), Payment apps, and
| bank apps though.
| xyzal wrote:
| Not in markets without significant Huawei and Xiaomi
| presence. Local banks (Czech Republic) are not using
| integrity APIs to keep being usable for most clients.
| Xelbair wrote:
| That small little caveat already makes it a non-option
| nvdr wrote:
| Most DRM / banking apps work fine for me through the browser
| and you can add them to your home screen. Android / Samsung
| Pay will stop working, but if you have a Garmin watch, you
| can still pay with that.
| fcpk wrote:
| But this is changing. Already in multiple countries(and
| soon possibly EU wide) there will be only play
| integrity(strong verdicts) to enforce availability of many
| services(if not using ios, which is the same locked in
| syndrome).
|
| Yes some banks still allow classic clunky 2FA(sms, card
| readers, sometimes SIM generators) but it'll all eventually
| go away in favor of "locked and favored" os unless
| legislation fights against it.
| maxloh wrote:
| Only for now. Google did push the Web Environment Integrity
| API, which is basically "Play Integrity API for Chrome,"
| that helps websites check if the OS, browser, or installed
| extensions are "safe".
|
| Fortunately, they backed off and decided to abandon the
| proposal after massive backlash. But we don't know when we
| will see a 2.0 version of that.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Even phones from Motorola require you to literally ask
| permission to unlock your bootloader via a form on their
| website, which they then unlock remotely or you enter some
| generated code.
|
| Other manufacturers do the same, where you have to wait a
| period of like 45 days before being able to unlock, and then
| have to ask permission on their website to unlock your
| bootloader.
| munchlax wrote:
| And good lock unlocking anything over 5 years old because
| the updated website doesn't support what you've got. Been
| there, it sucks.
| codedokode wrote:
| To be fair, for "anything over 5 years old" you can
| probably find a privilege escalation exploit.
| wiz21c wrote:
| the question is not "being able to", the question is
| "being able to with a reasonable effort".
|
| wandering the web to find an exploit is way beyond my
| spare time.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| That might get you root but not a bootloader unlock.
| kube-system wrote:
| There are privilege escalation CVEs in bootloader code
| too. I remember unlocking some very early locked
| bootloaders this way in the early days of android.
| NekkoDroid wrote:
| Do tell me when you find one for unlocking the bootloader
| of an LG G6, been looking for one for a few years now :)
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| A 1st gen Verizon Moto X bootloader unlock would be nice
| as well.
| safety1st wrote:
| This is the place where I think lawmakers needs to be
| involved. Bearing in mind that laws aren't engineering specs,
| being able to pay for things and use a bank are about as
| close to fundamental rights as anything is for participants
| in society. If you have to buy a second device to use
| Netflix, so be it, but we need laws that guarantee people can
| make digital payments without Apple or Google's permission.
|
| There are societies today (I live in one) where some
| businesses are starting to accept payment only through a
| banking or payment app, no cash, no card, nothing else. And
| these apps will only function in the very narrow
| circumstances of "I bought a device which runs software from
| one of two American tech monopolies and follow all their
| frequently changing rules for using various software that's
| unrelated to the payment I need to make." This limitation is
| mostly in place due to the banks believing it will make
| things more secure. Security is important, but not important
| enough that you get to start denying innocent people the
| ability to make payments or exile them from the banking
| system because they had some kind of dispute with Apple or
| Google. Governments need to step in with access mandates
| here, otherwise this problem WILL come to a jurisdiction near
| you sooner or later.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Security is important
|
| The argument that this is actually a security benefit is a
| farce. It doesn't do anything. If the device is compromised
| then it's going to capture your password and send it to the
| attacker without attempting any attestation. So the only
| time the attestation is _attempted_ is when the device _isn
| 't_ compromised.
| kevincox wrote:
| Yes, if it was a measure of device security they would
| revoke attestation of devices that are behind on security
| updates. But no, a 5 year old device that never got
| security updates is A-OK according to Google but a
| completely up to date custom ROM is not.
|
| It's clearly not about real security. It is about
| control. You follow the rules and get Google's blessing
| or no SafetyNet for you. These rules include things like
| ensuring that the user can't access their own data
| without the controlling app's permission.
| maxloh wrote:
| I think you are right that it is about control.
|
| Let me offer another perspective. The OS vendor actually
| has significant control over your device. They could
| plant backdoors in different layers of the OS.
|
| Therefore, in their defense, if the OS doesn't come from
| a trusted source (in the bank's or Google's point of
| view), your bank's credentials are essentially
| compromised.
|
| You could argue that there are backdoors either way. They
| are just controlling which party gets to plant the
| backdoors, after all.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Therefore, in their defense, if the OS doesn't come
| from a trusted source (in the bank's or Google's point of
| view), your bank's credentials are essentially
| compromised.
|
| "Compromised" means that someone has them who will use
| them for unauthorized activity. When your device is
| infected with malware because it's running the same
| version of Android it came with that hasn't received a
| security update in several years, entering your
| credentials into that device will cause them to be
| compromised. When your device has a custom ROM that isn't
| sending your credentials to anyone it isn't supposed to,
| they are not compromised.
|
| But the first device passes attestation and the second
| one doesn't. Moreover, that is the common case -- the
| version of Android that came with the device is likely to
| be older and have more vulnerabilities than a custom
| version installed later. Which means that passing
| attestation isn't just uncorrelated with uncompromised
| devices, it's actually anti-correlated with them.
| Requiring it is forcing users to keep and use the older
| OS with known vulnerabilities on that device.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Secure boot and OEM bootloader unlock should be able to
| work with images so you can lock a phone after the upgrade
| again.
|
| I managed to get a US refubished Pixel 2 somehow with a
| fuselocked bootloader here in Ireland. I bought it second
| hand but I've no idea how it got that way. But I'm suck on
| the Pixel image and I wanted to use it for ROM testing etc.
| safety1st wrote:
| This is outside of my area of expertise. I know there are
| i.e. banking apps that will disable themselves if you're
| running some unofficial 3rd party Android derivative like
| LineageOS. Are you saying those apps would work again if
| you perform some kind of secure boot locking procedure?
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| You can relock the bootloader but it still fails the
| SafetyNet check since it's not running an "official" OS
| signed with the manufacturer's keys.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| > If you have to buy a second device to use Netflix, so be
| it, but we need laws that guarantee people can make digital
| payments without Apple or Google's permission.
|
| The reality is however that if you look at active current
| projects being able to use digital IDs to access
| fundamental freedoms like communication without child
| safety rails in Europe is going to require Apple or
| Google's permission _because politicians like it that way_.
|
| You can think things should happen in a way all you like,
| but they are not going to, because governments have vested
| interests in the opposite direction.
| LogicHound wrote:
| Bank apps work fine (at least UK ones) on Graphene OS
| installed via the play store.
| codedokode wrote:
| I wouldn't want the bank to access my phone, so it doesn't
| matter that the app doesn't work, and in a weird case where
| you urgently need to transfer your money to scammers while
| not being at home, you can use bank's web app.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Banks are all moving to MFA through an app, which then
| needs play protect, which then maybe need TWRP/Magisk.
| thomc wrote:
| There are at least a couple of banks or credit card
| companies in the UK now that only offer mobile apps, as
| well as those now using push MFA with their apps for every
| large purchase. Recently I needed to install an app from
| the UK government to prove my identity via camera to renew
| my driving license, and that doesn't work in GrapheneOS
| either. I can do it in person (for now) but there is an
| extra fee.
| codedokode wrote:
| All the banks I use, have a web app, although it can be
| somewhat limited, but I don't need any advanced functions
| anyway.
|
| > as well as those now using push MFA with their apps for
| every large purchase.
|
| Our banks use SMS OTP (not required for mobile app) for
| all operations - I assume otherwise the amount of fraud
| would be exorbitant.
|
| > Recently I needed to install an app from the UK
| government to prove my identity via camera to renew my
| driving license, and that doesn't work in GrapheneOS
| either. I can do it in person (for now) but there is an
| extra fee.
|
| Interesting that the government relies on a proprietary,
| foreign platform.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Android and said manufacturers purposefully do everything in
| their power to make this as awful as possible.
|
| For example, you can't relock the bootloader on any device
| except pixels. Why? No reason. Just fuck you, I guess.
|
| That's a huge security hole that they're creating,
| intentionally.
|
| What's going on is they are hoping that if you do use other
| software that you get malware or get scammed. They are
| literally, actually, undermining their own device's security
| just to send a message.
|
| These people are psychotic.
| willtemperley wrote:
| Looks like GrapheneOS will be available on another "major
| Android OEM" soon [1].
|
| Regulation should prevent Google from subsidising manufacturers
| to use Android. Arguably the recent antitrust legislation [2]
| applies in this case because they're effectively paying
| manufacturers to place that horrendous and impossible to remove
| search bar on the home screen.
|
| [1] https://www.androidauthority.com/graphene-os-major-
| android-o... [2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-
| justice-wins-signi...
| VagabundoP wrote:
| I just wish they had two sizes, a pocket version please. I
| have small Trumpian hands.
| kevincox wrote:
| GrapheneOS is in some ways not an open OS. The official
| builds don't provide root access. So for example apps are
| able to hold your data hostage from you.
|
| I get that this is in the name of security hardening. And you
| can make a build that has limited root access and is
| officially supported. But GrapheneOS isn't the end-all
| solution to computing freedom. Although hopefully on those
| devices you will be able to install custom OSes (root capable
| build of Graphene or otherwise).
| zb3 wrote:
| Raw root access isn't what I'd want apps to have.. it's
| that the Android permission system deliberately limits what
| the user can consent to, the rest is for "system apps" and
| to install those you need to unlock bootloader and start
| the whole "journey" while saying goodbye to banking apps.
|
| Implementing a more flexible permission model + sandbox
| would probably involve too much work for them.
|
| Hopefully AVF might make things a little better if we'd be
| able to run Android VMs on Android - so you'd be able to
| run a rooted VM inside GrapheneOS.. but this depends on
| Google keeping Android open source, yet QPR1 was not
| released.
| kevincox wrote:
| I agree that a powerful permission model is a great
| feature. But that doesn't obsolete the option to have the
| "root permission" that you can give when required. Sure,
| for my specific gripe a "full filesystem access"
| permission would be sufficient and better. But there are
| going to be other use cases that require other
| permissions. So it is always going to be useful to have
| that backup root permission that you can assign to very
| specific apps when required.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| Root access isn't available by default, but it takes about
| 120 seconds (including waiting for it to reboot) to add it.
| treyd wrote:
| Last I checked the situation was similar to what it is in
| Calyx, which is that it's not officially supported and
| you have to keep manually reapplying the root after every
| update.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| Oh yep, forgot about that. I barely ever update so I only
| have to re-root 2-3x a year.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| GrapheneOS is all about security, not privacy or freedom.
| You coincidentally get privacy and freedom benefits, but
| only where they don't conflict with security.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| > Looks like GrapheneOS will be available on another "major
| Android OEM" soon.
|
| I'm secretly hoping that this will be Framework or Nothing.
| grepex wrote:
| Could either of those be considered a major Android OEM? I
| was thinking Motorola.
| theK wrote:
| Did you check the stuff murena has on offer? Most if not all of
| their phones come with an unlockable bootloader and the OS they
| come with isn't that bad to start with either.
| microtonal wrote:
| They are pretty bad when it comes to security:
|
| https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
| theK wrote:
| Hmm... that looks like a pretty skewed comparison. It's as
| if somebody took the security features that make Graphene
| stand apart and compared everything else to them.
|
| No contention that Graphene is safe, but categorizing other
| OSes as "pretty bad when it comes to security" because they
| don't copy Graphene is a bit of a stretch.
| utopiah wrote:
| Does it? If it looks equivalent to "stock" Android but you
| can do what you want with is, including removing bloatware,
| then it's arguably more secure and thus a better
| alternative than most. It might not be the most secure but
| it's already a step.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I'm going to echo the sibling comment that this comparison
| conveniently centers on GrapheneOS while conveniently
| ignoring anything they don't do; for example, a firewall
| using root is useful, but since they've decided user's
| can't be trusted with control of their devices that's right
| out.
| utopiah wrote:
| Indeed, and starting at 360EUR for a CMF Phone 1 with OS
| already installed, no tinkering, feels relatively affordable
| and easy to try.
| N-Krause wrote:
| All the Fairphone Versions support e/OS/ as far as I know. I
| have the Fairphone 5 with the current e/OS/ version completely
| un-googled. But you also have the option to allow partial
| google-fication in e/OS/ so you don't miss out on most of the
| features and paid-apps you had.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >The solution, I think, would be a regulation that forbids
| manufacturers of any chip or device CPU from making obstacles
| to reprogramming the device (using fuses, digital signatures,
| encryption etc).
|
| Why would you make essential security features illegal? Do you
| want to fly on a plane where the flight control software was
| _maybe_ overwritten?
|
| >So if you buy a device with CPU and writable memory, you
| should be able to load your own program and manufacturer may
| not use technical measures to stop you.
|
| The problem is Google and Apple locking down their _Operating
| System_ , this is not a technical limitation on hardware.
| surajrmal wrote:
| Security only works if you can control what software is
| trustworthy. If some software has been proven to be
| untrustworthy, it is worthwhile to prevent all software that
| the producer has ever made from working at scale. Adding some
| nominal process and fee to make it too expensive to create a
| lot of accounts prevents them from creating hundreds of
| alternative aliases. There is a lot of precedence for why
| this is a good idea and works. I think if there was another
| company involved with performing the audit which folks
| trusted it might now seem so scary.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| Do you understand that you are advocating for a world in
| which two corporations are the sole determinator of the
| livelihood of all mobile software developers? A career in
| software development should not be at the complete mercy of
| Apple and Google, or I suppose if you had your way
| Microsoft for PC gatekeeping as well.
| codedokode wrote:
| > Do you want to fly on a plane where the flight control
| software was maybe overwritten?
|
| I don't understand it. Whoever owns the place can replace any
| part of it, including computers. So being able to overwrite
| software doesn't change it. Furthermore, plane computers are
| not a consumer hardware.
|
| You could make a better example with patched car software.
|
| > The problem is Google and Apple locking down their
| Operating System, this is not a technical limitation on
| hardware.
|
| The initial ROM bootloader contains hard-coded signature
| which prevents you from replacing Apple/Google software.
| gf000 wrote:
| On pixel devices you can add your own signature to be
| checked and thus can use secure boot with a custom OS -
| that's how GrapheneOS works.
|
| No need to strip out every wall, we just have to think
| about the problem and put doors at necessary places so we
| can enjoy both freedom AND security.
| thastings wrote:
| Droidian[0] currently supports a relatively new Motorola
| phone[1]. A Snapdragon 8+ gen 1 device, so the performance
| isn't bad, and most features seem to work, including Waydroid.
| I've noticed incoming phone calls causing a glitch where the
| call can't be answered, but other than that, daily drivable.
| Just like a PinePhone, only more powerful. In my region it can
| be had for ~EUR250 brand new.
|
| [0] https://droidian.org/ [1]
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPhone-by-Motorola-...
| wraptile wrote:
| Every few years or so we collectively rediscover that general
| computing devices should be general and repeat the same mistake
| every time new format is released. We're all a bunch of
| reactive losers and that will never change it seems.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Many of those devices are closed exactly due to regulations.
| egorfine wrote:
| > a regulation that forbids manufacturers of any chip or device
| CPU from making obstacles to reprogramming the device
|
| Except regulations are now moving in the opposite direction: to
| mandate device locking.
| andrepd wrote:
| > Before buying a smartphone I tried to find an inexpensive
| model that supports open source OS, but I couldn't. What open
| OS support is ether expensive Pixels, or outdated models.
|
| You can buy a refurbished Pixel 5 for less than 200$. Great
| screen, great camera, 5G, the works. It's definitely not an
| "outdated" device, and it runs Graphene or Lineage with minimal
| hassle.
| gf000 wrote:
| You can get a new Pixel 8 for ~500$, I would say that has a
| very decent price to value, and will be supported for longer.
| edm0nd wrote:
| you can also snag refurb'd Pixel 7s for $170 off eBay atm
| grepex wrote:
| I snagged a Pixel 8A for around 200 on ebay.
| deng wrote:
| Not sure what exactly you mean with "open source OS" and if
| Lineage counts as one in your book: it supports quite a few
| cheap and also fairly recent Motorola phones, which are also
| easy to unlock:
|
| https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#motorola
|
| For family, I just got a used Edge 30 Neo for ~100$ and put
| LineageOS on it, and it works like a charm. Phones like the
| Moto g84 go for even less and still can be bought new for a
| decent price.
|
| Xiaomi would be even cheaper, but I would highly discourage
| getting one because the unlock process is plain ridiculous
| nowadays.
|
| And as others have already noted, if you don't mind getting a
| phone that's a few years old, a used Pixel 5 is not expensive
| (still happily using a Pixel 4a and don't see why I would need
| to upgrade).
| edm0nd wrote:
| fyi you can buy refurb'd pixel 7's off eBay for like ~$170
|
| great for playing around with or if you want to install
| something like GrapheneOS.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Every company is open when they gain from it and closed when they
| gain from it. The idea of free general computing needs a
| different sponsor. Like a country or regulations. I don't think
| open source projects and private companies can defend this idea
| adequately.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| You can't even _develop_ without the paid dev account? I thought
| it 'd just be for distribution. Like, you can build and run
| whatever you want on an iPhone without a paid account.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| You can develop and install via adb, but you can't just tell
| the package manager to install an APK you downloaded on your
| phone. Maybe attestation makes sense to allow Amazon App Store
| or Epic Games Store to be installed without a warning and to
| allow companies like Spotify to distribute their apps
| themselves from their websites without using Google Play Store
| and without a warning. What's wrong is preventing people from
| installing apps that haven't been attested by Google straight
| from their phone, even with a warning.
| morshu9001 wrote:
| I get that requiring attestation for downloaded apps is wrong
| too, it's just this website says "it will no longer be
| possible to develop apps for the Android platform without
| first registering centrally with Google" which seems
| incorrect from what you're saying.
|
| Edit: Oh I get it, "develop for the platform" means develop
| and distribute. Maybe it's just me, but seems like an
| important difference.
| munchlax wrote:
| I think it is and it doesn't just end there. It's develop
| and distribute _binaries_.
|
| Everyone is still free to develop and distribute _source
| code_.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| This feels similar to Sony and their OtherOS feature.[0]
|
| Many people bought Android phones _because_ of the open
| capability. Even if you don 't use it, just _knowing you have an
| out_ is important.
|
| And now Google is "altering the terms".
|
| [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS
| m00dy wrote:
| This is worst thing ever happened to humankind.
| charcircuit wrote:
| If you care about it, then buy Android phones that will support
| sideloading. Financially reward companies that are doing what you
| want.
| bpye wrote:
| Which Android phones? If I understand correctly this will be a
| requirement for certification, so any devices that do not
| enforce it will not pass integrity checks. Goodbye banking
| apps, etc.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Chinese phones, ones with GrapheneOS, new ones created to
| fulfill the market demand Google is creating.
|
| >will not pass integrity checks
|
| Those apps can add support for other integrity APIs.
| Operating system owners can fund this work to help their
| operating system gain marketshare.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| This affects all Android devices with Google Services.
| deanc wrote:
| EDIT: apologies I misunderstood that this is limiting third-party
| distribution. I am of course, in favour of this.
|
| Original comment:
|
| I don't want this. The App Store on iOS has its flaws, but it's a
| curated system that has a lot of checks in place to prevent
| malware. I have never felt unsafe on iOS and it's the primary
| reason I've not joined Android and the Play Store's wild west.
| franczesko wrote:
| What this has to do with the topic, if you're on iOS?
| deanc wrote:
| Because I'd actually be interested in an Android phone if
| Google locks down the play store to legitimate actors,
| increases the barrier for entry and improves the quality and
| safety of submissions. Which this looks to be doing?
| SXX wrote:
| You should just check submission link contents before
| commenting. This just locks down apps outside of google
| play.
| koiueo wrote:
| Why would you be interested in Android?
|
| Isn't iOS a pinnacle of UI/UX loaded with most innovative
| features in the world backed by the most genius CEOs of all
| times?
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| This is not Google locking down the Play Store, it's them
| restricting distribution outside the Play Store, which you
| don't have to do in any case.
| deanc wrote:
| Apologies. I did _NOT_ gather that from reading the OP.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Android phone if Google locks down the play store to
| legitimate actors, increases the barrier for entry and
| improves the quality and safety of submissions
|
| Locks down how? This is literally how it is from the start.
| Ignoring the fact that it is completely unrelated to the
| topic, this is just wrong regardless.
| adithyassekhar wrote:
| I can't emphasize this enough, your comment is 100% wrong.
|
| This is about only allowing play verified apps. Play store will
| remain whatever you think of it regardless of this move.
| ghm2180 wrote:
| Given the apple v epic ruling about in payment commision outside
| the app store, I don't understand this. I assume Google would get
| the same ruling if they tried what apple did, so why bother with
| walling off if you can't get paid?
|
| At least with 3p app stores they could have Gpay if the app
| developer wanted to, but now they will be pissed and can't build
| a 3p app anyway since users can't install it via 3p app stores.
| xigoi wrote:
| > why bother with walling off if you can't get paid?
|
| To destroy competitors of Google apps such as Aurora Store or
| NewPipe.
| munchlax wrote:
| I bet those are just a rounding error to their profits.
| jeena wrote:
| Back in the 2007 or when it came out in Sweden I bought the
| iPhone and started developing for it. This was cool, new and
| exciting and it was fine as long as my company was paying the
| $100 fee every year. But then I switched jobs and worked at a
| company which produced mostly open source code. Suddenly I would
| have to pay $100 every year just to be able to put my own
| software on the phone ...
|
| This is why I switched to Android, just for Google now to pull
| the rug from under my feet again ...
| jb1991 wrote:
| I don't know what it was like back then but in today's world
| you do not need to pay Apple any fees if all you're doing is
| writing software in Xcode and deploy it to your own device. You
| do need a developer account, the free version of one, but you
| only need to pay the fee if you're going to publish on the App
| Store.
| sebtron wrote:
| Don't you also need to buy a Macbook? That is quite
| expensive. I guess in Apple's view also developping on a non-
| Apple device is a security risk.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I've never considered or tried anything other than using a
| Mac, so I don't know. But I was responding to a comment
| about a different matter, the fees for a developer account.
| bluescrn wrote:
| The Mac requirement was a pain for game developers using
| Unity/UE primarily on Windows, and wanting to target iOS.
| (Back when mobile games seemed like they could be an
| exciting new thing, before predatory F2P enshittification
| killed that market...)
| rezonant wrote:
| Free provisioning: If you do not pay the developer fee an app
| installed via Xcode will work for 7 days. Afterwards the app
| on your phone will *stop working*, and you must open Xcode on
| your Mac again, and push a new build to your phone if you
| want to keep using it.
|
| Paid provisioning: If you have paid the developer fee, a
| build will expire based on the amount of time left before
| that payment renews, so if you build and install an app a
| month before your developer fee renews, that build of the app
| (that you installed via Xcode) will stop working in 1 month.
| maybewhenthesun wrote:
| We're stuck between two mafia families :-(
| actionfromafar wrote:
| A.K.A. Digital Feudalism.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I've been doing it that way for years on the free account,
| never seemed like a bother to me. I usually have a tweak I
| want to make to the code anyway. But I suppose some might
| find it inconvenient.
|
| In any case, to say you can't put your own apps on your
| phone without paying a fee is incorrect, which is the
| comment I was responding to.
| rezonant wrote:
| Saying what youve said above and knowing full well how
| this works, but failing to mention a crucial fact like
| this is deceptive.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I guess some are more bothered by this than others. A bit
| harsh to claim there is deception going on. Like I said,
| I've never paid Apple a fee and I have several original
| apps on my iPhone.
| greycol wrote:
| This is like calling a Tesla car a spacecraft because one
| got launched by a rocket. It's like saying you're a free
| man in prison because you don't want to go anywhere. All
| the apps you've made either can't connect with other
| people or require them to be local and visit once a week
| or be able to jump through the same hoops as you and own
| a machine to install the app. "I can install an app but
| my definition of an app is it only works for 7 days and
| then it needs to be installed again"
|
| At best you can install a demo.
|
| I'm immortal because except for the few ways I can die,
| like old age, I'll live forever.
| frankacter wrote:
| >This is why I switched to Android, just for Google now to pull
| the rug from under my feet again
|
| 1) You can continue to install unsigned APKs via adb with the
| upcoming update.
|
| 2) Signing APKs for sideloading requires a Google development
| account which is a one time fee of $25, no yearly fees.
|
| So still a free sideloading option available, and if you want
| to avoid adb it is a one time cost that is 1/4 the annual rate
| on Apple.
| skylurk wrote:
| First they came for F-droid...
| galangalalgol wrote:
| This is the obvious problem.
| fainpul wrote:
| I would call it "free developer experience" (using ADB), not
| "free sideloading".
|
| If you want to send your app to a friend to download and
| install it directly on their phone (without using a computer
| with ADB), you need to be Google-approved and register your
| app first.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I think you could use adb over tcp from a chroot in the
| phone itself? But that doesn't really make it easier from
| their standpoint, and this is just a step towards full
| lockdown which is coming.
| monegator wrote:
| 1) Oh yes of course, here friend you just need a PC and the
| command line tools (unless soon you'll need to be a
| registered and VERIFIED developer) to install revanced or any
| open source app
|
| 2) Unless they decide to ban you (they can if you don't show
| any activity in the developer account for X months) and of
| course because you were verified you can't simply apply again
| and pay again, because you were banned!!!!
| rafaelmn wrote:
| 100$ a year for a dev in Sweden - that's like money you
| wouldn't notice if it got lost in your pockets - and I am sure
| it cuts down on spammers and covers administrative cost.
|
| I have no problem with a store having a small admission fee -
| that's perfectly reasonable and they do have operational costs.
| It would be nice if they had some way to waive the fee for
| popular OSS to garner some god will with the devs.
|
| Taking a 30% cut of revenue on the other hand ... both
| platforms are guilty of this
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| We are not talking about software distribution or admitting
| it to a store, we're talking about executing something on
| your own device, a device that you purchased.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| You can do that without dev license ?
| willtemperley wrote:
| Yes, but app is only usable for 7 days on iOS.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| Yes that is annoying - I hate Apple anti side loading
| stance. But that still doesn't make 100$ fee to apply for
| distribution/integration with their ecosystem
| unreasonable.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Are you even reading the comments you are replying to, or
| ?
|
| You need to pay $100 to execute code on a device that you
| own. Without a 7 day time limit. And only if you have the
| technical expertise to do so. This is not a fee for
| distribution/integration. This is feudal rent.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| Are you reading what I am saying ? 100$ for distribution
| access on the store is reasonable. Side-loading
| prevention is shit. Both can be true at the same time.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Your position wasn't clear to me, at least.
|
| Yes, a world where you can sideload an app on an iOS
| device, without time limits, but you have still pay $100
| to put it on the app store, is a much less shittier
| world, indeed.
| 63stack wrote:
| Your options are either $100/year for "integration with
| their ecosystem", or your app stops working every 7 days.
|
| It is very unreasonable.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > 100$ a year for a dev in Sweden - that's like money you
| wouldn't notice if it got lost in your pockets
|
| For someone who is making money from it, sure, but that's
| exactly who this _isn 't_ about. The way _they_ get screwed
| is by the 30%.
|
| A fixed fee -- in any amount -- is screwing the people who
| aren't in it for the money. Because to begin with, it's not
| just the fee, it's the bureaucracy that comes with the fee.
|
| You're a kid and you want to make your first app, but you
| don't have a credit card.
|
| You live in a poor country and maybe the amount you can lose
| without noticing when you're rich isn't the same there. Or
| even if you can get the money, you may not have a first world
| bank account and the conglomerate isn't set up to take the
| local currency.
|
| You're a desktop developer and you're willing to make a
| simple mobile app and give it away for free as long as it's
| not a bother. The money is nothing but the paperwork is a
| bother so you don't do it, and now the million people who
| would have used that app don't have it and have to suffer the
| spam-laden trash alternative from someone who is only in it
| for the money.
|
| And suppose the amount is as trivial as you propose. Then why
| does a multi-trillion dollar conglomerate need that pittance
| from a million ordinary people?
| rafaelmn wrote:
| > Then why does a multi-trillion dollar conglomerate need
| that pittance from a million ordinary people?
|
| Because the store gets spammed by million of bot
| applications ? Having a small fee for store review is
| probably a decent noise floor.
|
| You can still develop apps on your devices without a dev
| license - the week long cert is annoying, they probably
| want to avoid people side-loading via this mechanism (which
| I am against FWIW).
|
| But you can develop on your devices without paying
| 100$/year
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Because the store gets spammed by million of bot
| applications ?
|
| They're a search engine company. They can't figure out
| how to put real apps on page 1 and spam apps on page 500?
|
| Also, then why are they charging the fee if you use
| _someone else 's_ store?
|
| > the week long cert is annoying, they probably want to
| avoid people side-loading via this mechanism
|
| It seems like you understand their underlying motives, so
| then why are you defending them?
| matsemann wrote:
| But this isn't about the store. It's about being able to
| install apps even _without_ going through the store.
| jeena wrote:
| I'm not talking about putting the App into the Store,
| just installing it on my phone.
| frostyel wrote:
| You bring up several important issues and I agree with you
| 100%. A lot of good application/utilities in the past were
| from engineers who needed the tools themselves, developed
| them, and then released it open source.
|
| But I can also see the clutter argument. Windows app store
| has been and still is a nightmare to use.
|
| It feels like we had a good system, but then lost it. I
| have no idea what it takes to get it back.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > But I can also see the clutter argument.
|
| I don't understand the "clutter" argument at all. What
| does it matter if there are a billion apps? You already
| need a functioning system to show the better ones at the
| top whether the worse ones are 50% of the total or 99%.
|
| On top of that, this isn't about their store anyway.
| They're charging this fee to the people _not_ using their
| store.
|
| > Windows app store has been and still is a nightmare to
| use.
|
| The big problem with all of these is that they're
| charging too much. Apple takes 30% because they ban the
| alternatives. People only _use_ Windows because they have
| dependencies on legacy software distributed outside the
| store, so Microsoft can 't ban that or there would be no
| reason to use Windows. And when you don't _have to_ use
| the vendor 's store, they can't even get away with
| charging 15%, because it turns out platform stores are
| actually worthless.
|
| Because people want platforms to provide both of two
| separate things. First, they want the long tail. They're
| a chemist or a mechanic or a photographer or a farmer and
| they want that half-finished app some grad student in
| Minsk wrote ten years ago that does the thing only people
| in their specific sub-specialty care about. And second,
| they want a curated list of apps so that when they're
| looking for a messaging app or a finance app it only
| shows the ones that don't steal their contacts and sell
| their financial records to data brokers.
|
| The problem with platform stores is that they try to do
| both things at once, which isn't possible. Either the
| store has everything or it doesn't.
|
| What you actually want is for there to be stores that
| only contain the curated stuff and simultaneously a
| reasonable means for ordinary people to install things
| from the long tail. Because sometimes you don't know
| which one to trust, which is when you want the store, and
| other times you know _exactly_ what you want to install
| because this time it 's your field and you and your
| colleagues are the experts, even though the store has no
| means to vet an app their reviewers don't understand and
| only 100 people in the world are using.
|
| You can have a platform that gives you each one via
| different but each widely used paths. What you can't have
| is a store that curates the long tail.
| jhbadger wrote:
| >And suppose the amount is as trivial as you propose. Then
| why does a multi-trillion dollar conglomerate need that
| pittance from a million ordinary people?
|
| Reminds me how in the 1970s and 1980s there used to be
| these ads in the back of magazines in which a person who
| supposedly became a millionaire sold pamphlets for $5
| telling his secrets to success. The obvious question was
| why such a successful person would need $5 from poor people
| (unless that was one of his secrets to success, I suppose).
| array_key_first wrote:
| > and I am sure it cuts down on spammers
|
| Okay, just so we're all on the same page: that 100 dollar fee
| IS NOT for publishing your app. That's not what that is.
| That's a separate thing with its own costs.
|
| That 100 dollars is just the fee to even make an app. Even if
| your iPhone never has an Internet connection. And even if you
| literally load the app via USB to your iPhone only.
|
| It's just extortion. It cannot be justified. Apple does it
| because they can - there are zero technical reasons behind
| it.
| jb1991 wrote:
| > That 100 dollars is just the fee to even make an app.
| Even if your iPhone never has an Internet connection. And
| even if you literally load the app via USB to your iPhone
| only.
|
| This is incorrect.
|
| You make it sound like you cannot even get started unless
| you pay a $100 fee. You do not need to pay Apple any fees
| to make an app and put it on your own device. You have to
| pay the fee once you want to distribute it on the App
| Store.
| array_key_first wrote:
| This is incorrect.
|
| If you want to load the app on _your own phone_ WITHOUT
| the app store, you MUST pay Apple 100 dollars.
|
| Unless you want to rebuild the app every 7 days, which
| any reasonable human will conclude is a stupid ass
| arbitrary limitation.
|
| Again, it cannot be justified with any technical means.
| Please, don't even bother trying.
| jb1991 wrote:
| You are contradicting yourself in your comment.
| array_key_first wrote:
| I don't think you read my comment.
|
| Trying to get me on an "erm well akshually" level
| semantic argument means you're wrong, you know you're
| wrong, and now you're just being annoying.
|
| Both of us can agree that the 7 day limitation is far too
| stringent to be a legitimate solution. So we will go
| ahead and pretend it does not exist, because for all
| intents and purposes, it doesn't.
| jb1991 wrote:
| Maybe you didn't read your own comment?
|
| > That 100 dollars is just the fee to even make an app.
| Even if your iPhone never has an Internet connection. And
| even if you literally load the app via USB to your iPhone
| only.
|
| Someone reading this would get completely the wrong
| information.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Are you purposefully ignoring the things I'm writing to
| try to appear right?
|
| Because I can still see the words on my screen. To
| reiterate, semantic arguments are meaningless and do
| nothing to serve you. If anything, with each passing
| comment, I am doubting your human-ness, because I don't
| believe human brains typically act this way.
| thecupisblue wrote:
| Ironically, somewhere around 2014, Google was doing the exact
| same style "keep Android open" campaign, recruiting developers
| around the world - including me, to help lobby for keeping
| Android "open" and tell the horror stories of issues that
| random OEMs caused by forking Android, breaking compatibility
| and security.
|
| Made sense to me at the time and they were really into "Android
| should be open source" vibe, so I supported it.
|
| 10 years later, I'm also rugpulled. Their vision has
| dramatically shifted into trying to build a walled garden on
| top of Android, but now they are haunted by their open source
| roots, and the walled garden is just a really tall pile of
| bricks laid around it.
|
| So many times we've been promised things, only for them to be
| delivered in a half-baked state with half of the parts open
| source while other parts were closed only to Google and Google
| approved apps.
|
| So many times the issue trackers for different parts of the
| platform ecosystem have changed, that some issues are
| impossible to debug without using web archive. And just as many
| times, they have been closed, ignored for years or unnoticed,
| being ping-ponged among team members until they forget about
| it.
|
| Yet, even with all of the closed and privatized parts of the
| ecosystem, they are still not able to deliver on an ecosystem
| promise.
|
| They control my email, my photos, my cloud, my browser, my
| phone - yet cannot keep a single thing properly in sync. Still,
| I download something and I do not know where it went. Still, I
| cannot Airdrop things without a 3rd party service. Still, I
| take a photo only for it to appear on the cloud 5 minutes
| later. Still, I cannot have a "sandbox" account for testing
| that just works, but have to juggle multiple accounts, causing
| their auth system to break 80% of the time when testing.
|
| As a developer, I do not plan to support Android anymore. I
| recently got an iPhone, and am now fully switching to it. Even
| tho I am long on $GOOG stock, because the money printer go
| brrr, I will be spending that money in the Apple's ecosystem
| from now on.
| munchlax wrote:
| It doesn't make sense to choose between a snake that bit you
| and another that bit you earlier.
|
| If you don't want to be bitten, get out of the snake pit.
| fainpul wrote:
| Apple pisses off many HN users who then swear to switch to
| Android, Google pisses off many HN users who then swear to
| switch to an iPhone - so for both companies, in effect,
| nothing changes.
|
| Aside from that, the masses don't care or know about any of
| this. A couple of HN users don't make a dent in the revenue
| of any large company. What we _can_ do is work on alternative
| ecosystems or at least support the small companies and
| organizations who do with our wallets.
| jama211 wrote:
| People who switch are a vocal minority too.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| > 10 years later, I'm also rugpulled. Their vision has
| dramatically shifted into trying to build a walled garden on
| top of Android
|
| Abrupt abandoning of their Nexus line for overpriced Pixel
| hardware was the watershed moment. The exact moment when
| their executives decided to ride free on open source labor.
| gf000 wrote:
| > Still, I cannot Airdrop things without a 3rd party service
|
| Well, it hardly works between Apple devices themselves to
| begin with (sending a bunch of pictures over to a 4 years old
| iphone works like 1 times out of 10 trial..). At least I can
| use regular old Bluetooth to send stuff to any kind of device
| from Android without the cruel gatekeeping of only Apple
| devices.
|
| So yeah, both platforms have their own ways they suck in.
| justinclift wrote:
| Out of curiosity, have you seen Genode before?
|
| https://genode.org
|
| One of the things it works on is the PinePhone, so there's
| _some_ hope of at least one viable alternative happening:
|
| https://archive.fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3.
| ..
| kace91 wrote:
| Im a millennial dev which happens to have a Gen Z brother who
| also chose this profession.
|
| Seeing him walk my steps 15 years later has been eye opening
| for the brutal cultural change.
|
| They're socially conditioned to assume that anything free is a
| scam or illegal, that every tool is associated with a
| corporation, and that learning itself is going through certain
| hoops (by the uni, the certificator or whatever) so that you
| get permission to earn money a certain way.
|
| As more doors get closed, I fear this process will solidify.
| courseofaction wrote:
| They're right. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish and
| Enshittification have been the core experiences of digital
| life with corporations in charge of platforms.
|
| My hope is that LLMs will help open source developers provide
| reasonable alternatives to the gatekeeping and spyware that
| corporations are now making their bread and butter. Example:
| Recent tried to use Unity LTS for a small project - the
| software is a joke now, basic functionality is broken out of
| the box. A couple of hours with an LLM and I had all the
| features I needed using a more lightweight library, monogame.
| Not an operating system, but I'm hoping the pattern will
| continue as LLMs get more proficient at code - the moat of
| "this is hard and laborious to do" will be drained.
| kace91 wrote:
| An issue is that it's not only the corpos, there's also an
| increase of individuality that has become the norm.
|
| For example, try to learn from an online resource and
| you'll see that the most popular sources (YouTubers,
| twitchers, etc) are all preparing a rug pull to a non free
| resource, slipping undisclosed ads as content or straight
| up selling snake oil.
|
| I grew up assuming that a random guy on the internet had
| always genuine intentions, even those who were assholes.
| Now the default is either a paid account, a bot, or someone
| trying to grind for personal gain. Everything's
| adversarial.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > They're socially conditioned to assume that anything free
| is a scam or illegal, that every tool is associated with a
| corporation, and that learning itself is going through
| certain hoops (by the uni, the certificator or whatever) so
| that you get permission to earn money a certain way.
|
| To be fair, there are also legit reason for why it evolved
| this way. It's mainly for quality and reliability. There is
| so much crappy sloppy work from unqualified workers, and it
| used to be even worse.. The easy available free knowledge
| really helped to rise the standard even for people without
| proper education in an area.
| kace91 wrote:
| I don't fully agree with that, IMO it's a multifaceted
| problem.
|
| There's the obvious fact that tech has become the new path
| to high salaries, and culture changes when people are
| pursuing the money rather than the trade.
|
| There's the centralisation and capture of resources - app
| stores in mobile, message boards moving to reddit then
| being astroturfed, hardware closing to repairs for water
| resistance/ form factor reasons...
|
| There's also the death of piracy limiting access to
| resources. Apps, courses and books were files pirated
| massively, online services kinda stopped that.
|
| I don't think free/open source resources failed to catch up
| in quality, but I do think they failed to soften friction
| and remove the barrier of access. Consider mastodon vs
| twitter, creating a website vs a facebook page, sideloading
| an app vs app stores, reading a manual vs an influencer
| course.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > I don't fully agree with that, IMO it's a multifaceted
| problem.
|
| It always is.
|
| > There's the obvious fact that tech has become the new
| path to high salaries, and culture changes when people
| are pursuing the money rather than the trade.
|
| There is nothing new about this. Education and skills
| have always been a path to salaries. Even a thousand
| years ago, craftsman and artisans had a better career
| than any random farmer. And with education, there is will
| always follow standardization and certification at some
| point, because where money flows, scam grows, and
| societies have to protect their interests.
|
| This is all nothing new, or harmful by itself. The
| problem is that all those legit interests, can also be
| too overprotective or even abused for someone's greed.
| It's always a balanced battle between legit interests and
| someone's greed. But many countries seem far to much
| leaning to the greedy and abusive side at the moment.
|
| > There's also the death of piracy limiting access to
| resources. Apps, courses and books were files pirated
| massively, online services kinda stopped that.
|
| Piracy is not dead. It's always been a battle of life and
| death of individual sources.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > ... mainly for quality and reliability.
|
| And yet, it continues to decline year over year.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > They're socially conditioned to assume that anything free
| is a scam or illegal
|
| Piracy is technically illegal, but that didn't stop us.
| pyeri wrote:
| This situation would have been avoided if we, as community of
| engineers, had insisted on full and uncompromised open source
| (Stallmanist or GPL way) right from the start instead of going
| the ESR way of half-hearted open source where it's technically
| open but corporates get to have a free lunch and make abuses.
|
| Like most coders, I also prefer the permissive MIT/Apache/BSD
| licensing for most software projects but incidents like these
| make me question the direction we are heading towards. They
| raise fundamental questions about freedom itself - looking at
| the broader picture, is having a restrictive kind of freedom
| (GPL) often more beneficial than having full permissive freedom
| (MIT/Apache)?
| survirtual wrote:
| "Restrictive Freedom" as you call it, is simply freedom.
|
| Freedom cannot exist without discernment.
|
| If you have a free and open society but allow Nazis, because
| you allow everyone, how long will you be free? Not long. The
| Nazis will use their freedom to take everyone else's.
|
| Freedom demands a simple rule. We accept everyone who accepts
| everyone.
|
| Fundamentally, GPL shares this rule. That is the point of it.
| Our labor, when shared, should be shared just the same when
| used.
| sham1 wrote:
| Yeah, this is pretty much the rationale behind the Paradox
| of Tolerance, which you alluded to. Just as a tolerant
| society cannot tolerate intolerance without eventually just
| becoming intolerant, this clearly demonstrates that the
| same is true for Free Software. If we tolerate the use of
| Free Software for the use of the non-free software,
| eventually one loses the freedom in Free Software.
|
| It's of course not a perfect analogy since the original
| Free Software still exists, but since in practice the
| dependency was from free towards non-free, like in this
| instance, it still works. Google and its anti-freedom
| practices are still in effective control of the Android
| ecosystem even though it's still technically free by way of
| AOSP.
|
| And just as how some people argue that intolerance of the
| intolerant by a tolerant society is bad, so do some people
| argue that things like the GPL is bad because it prevents
| downstream modifications etc. going from free to non-free.
| Maybe this will help re-evaluate the culture around this
| stuff.
| Gud wrote:
| Just because we "allow nazis" doesn't mean society will
| turn into an authoritarian dictatorship.
|
| People are not stupid.
| mlnj wrote:
| Hmmm. The rise of nazis to power from time to time is
| evidence to the contrary.
|
| Most people, might not be 'stupid'; but complacency in
| the population is enough to drop the guard down.
| Gud wrote:
| I am not arguing for complacency. I am arguing that
| authoritarian ideologies are won over with arguments, not
| by outlawing them.
| mlnj wrote:
| You are arguing as if the two sides are acting in good
| faith. Authoritarianism almost always isn't. Greed and
| corruption is is inherently tipping the scales unfairly
| against the fair system to be imbalanced against the good
| actor.
|
| You can see it again and again in the success of voter
| suppression acts and the deceitful tactics played by
| authoritarians.
|
| Arguments only work when both actors respect good
| arguments.
| xeyownt wrote:
| It's not about outlawing them, it's about not giving them
| a platform allowing them to rise, like the current major
| media platforms are doing right now. Social media should
| be held responsible of the content they publish.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware
| of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their
| remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are
| amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is
| obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in
| words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even
| like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous
| reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their
| interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since
| they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to
| intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely,
| they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by
| some phrase that the time for argument is past." - Jean-
| Paul Sartre
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| > complacency in the population is enough to drop the
| guard down.
|
| In the case of the nazis, the population might even
| _support_ them.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > People are not stupid.
|
| There are plenty of stupid people around.
|
| We interact with them every day.
| Gud wrote:
| Yes. And society with good education has fewer stupid
| people. You don't stop "bad" ideologies by outlawing
| them, you stop them by arguing for a free society and
| education.
| jfengel wrote:
| Is that true?
|
| American education isn't great, but it's not radically
| worse than many other rich nations. The difference
| doesn't seem sufficient to justify the extreme separation
| of ideologies. (That is, I'm not arguing in favor of one
| or the other, but the level of hatred between the two
| implies that at least one is wildly off base.)
| Narann wrote:
| In this case, it was precisely the act of "allow nazis"
| that led Google to its current situation.
|
| People aren't stupid, but the fact that Google is in this
| situation proves that we should have been less naive.
| Gud wrote:
| I don't understand your point. It sounds like you think
| someone is making Google take unwanted actions.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| They don't need to be stupid. They could be complacent,
| afraid or morally corrupt.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| "i know why you did it. You were afraid. And who wouldn't
| be?"
| Swoerd123 wrote:
| Bold move, arguing against yourself like that.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I think a better critique is that these cold-war
| political basis vectors don't adequately describe today's
| political landscape (and neither do the revolution-era
| idea of the left wing vs the right wing; arguably they
| didn't back in 1950 either).
|
| Best example of how the communist/fascist/liberal
| democracy triad completely falls is looking at China,
| which has facets of all three and none at the same time.
|
| This makes it difficult nigh on impossible to have a real
| political discussion, as they fail to amount to more than
| connotative terms to be applied to outgroups, and do not
| map to political reality in any meaningful sense. Anyone
| can turn into the fuzzy outline of a nazi if you squint
| really hard.
|
| Nuances needed to make any sort of sense of 21st century
| politics, especially its newer entries, are the tensions
| between cosmopolitarianism vs communitarianism and
| technocracy vs populism.
|
| The problem with using such an outdated political map is
| that many of our contemporary problems are missing from
| it, and go unresolved until enough frustration builds
| that there is an ill-conceived popular upheaval that
| forces the issue. Rather than addressing the technocratic
| European Union's lack of accountability to its citizens,
| we get Brexit instead, which could likely have been
| avoided if the political map wasn't so out of touch.
| jfengel wrote:
| American politics at this point is practically defined by
| being afraid of the other group. The groups themselves
| have little cohesion, and contain bitter rivals, but they
| trust each other more than their hated enemies.
|
| Which becomes self-reinforcing: attempting to save
| yourself is perceived by the other as oppression.
|
| I don't mean to simply blame all sides here. Facts on the
| ground do exist.I think I can justify how some players
| are worse than others, and that there might be a way out
| of the vicious cycle when some individuals say "no, that
| assertion no longer seems reasonable."
|
| But given that it's gotten monotonically worse for
| decades, I don't see that happening any time soon.
| immibis wrote:
| One side is banning everything related to the other side
| and concentrating them in camps. The other side... is
| doing basically nothing, even when it's in power. I guess
| they gave a couple of bribes to Ukrainian-American
| businessmen but that was about it.
|
| I'm pretty sure they're not the same.
| immibis wrote:
| That's literally how the Nazis happened though? We know
| what happens if Nazis are tolerated: they grow in
| numbers, seize the government, and commit the holocaust.
| We know this because it already happened once.
| throwaway75 wrote:
| > We accept everyone who accepts everyone.
|
| If we were to accept and enforce this rule, billions of
| followers of some major religions would not be eligible to
| be part of a free and open society.
| LinXitoW wrote:
| "Tolerate" might be a better word to use for their
| analogy. I can hate you and all you stand for, but I can
| still tolerate you. Meaning, I let you be and don't try
| to curtail your actions according to my personal beliefs.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Nah. The error is the royal "we". We tolerate <subjective
| judgement>, We enforce <subjective judgement>. And above
| all, We require everyone to be _nice_ and _cultured_.
|
| The actual power-wielder who regulates these things is a
| government (or rather its justice system), a warlord,
| nowadays maybe an AGI, but definitely not society and not
| "We, users of orange social media". These mechanisms work
| for thousands of years, paradoxes gonna paradox.
| spiffyk wrote:
| Good.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| What you quoted is just the person restating the paradox
| of tolerance. It's totally nonsensical once you get past
| "one-dimensonal evil" cases (or perhaps cases like
| software, a category is more narrowly and cleanly
| delineated).
|
| He's right that freedom requires restriction. The problem
| with the paradox of tolerance is that it masquerades as a
| meaningful principle while leaving the actual
| restrictions unnamed.
|
| P.S. it also is worth noting that, to the extent that the
| GPL works, it's precisely because it _doesn 't_ rely on
| vague principles. It's specific about what's restricted,
| when, and how.
| jfengel wrote:
| I don't think the Paradox of Tolerance intends to be a
| principle. It is a statement of the problem, for which
| principles could be proposed.
|
| If there is anything prescriptive to it, it's the
| implication that no principles will ever suffice. In
| which case you need to find a way to reframe the problem.
| Bewelge wrote:
| Can you explain how you mean this in the context of
| software?
|
| What you describe sounds like the paradox of intolerance
| but I fail to see how that can be applied to free software.
|
| Freedom in general: You can't have absolute freedom because
| that includes the freedom to take the freedom from others.
|
| In software: You can't have absolutely free software
| because ... ? I fail to see how free software might
| infringe on the freedom of others.
| rewgs wrote:
| I hate that you're being downvoted. You are absolutely
| right here.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| But Linux is GPL. That didn't stop Google from using it as a
| basis for something that is not GPL and in fact not even open
| source (Google Play Services).
|
| What leverage does a community of engineers have to insist on
| anything? Android could be entirely closed source. So could
| Chrome.
|
| It would be naive to assume that the power dynamics in our
| society can be fundamentally altered by a 10 line software
| license.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Not that it would help in this particular scenario, but
| Linux did not embrace the GPL development from about 20
| years ago.
| pyeri wrote:
| The Linux kernel is a separate system layer here, it's the
| AOSP parts like the Dalvik Runtime (equivalent of JRE) and
| components built on top of it (such as Play Store) which
| are being subject to permissive licensing abuse. If AOSP
| itself was GPL licensed, it'd have been difficult for
| Google to create something closed like Play Store as it'd
| have been considered derivative work.
|
| You're right that broadly speaking, there is very little
| that could be done to stop this but having a culture of
| "everything GPL" in an organization definitely helps. For
| example, Sun was farsighted enough, though they couldn't
| stop Oracle from acquiring MySql, Oracle was still forced
| to keep MySql under GPL and they were able to salvage
| MariaDB too.
|
| Similar was the case with Java. Oracle tried everything in
| its power to control its use and direction including legal
| means, it's only thanks to GPL that alternative
| implementations like OpenJDK and Amazon Corretto still
| exist. We can't even imagine the state of these software
| today if Sun hadn't licensed them under GPL originally but
| used some other permissive license instead!
| cachius wrote:
| Dalvik was used up until Android 4.4. Since Android 5
| Lollipop the Java Runtime Environment is called the
| 'Android Runtime' or just ART.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Runtime
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software)
| gtirloni wrote:
| Java and MySQL were already out in the open as open
| source projects when Oracle acquired Sun though.
|
| I don't know much about Android's history but if Dalvik
| was created exclusively by Google and they had no
| intention of open sourcing it fully... it'd be akin to a
| closed source Java app on top of the open source
| OpenJDK... which would be allowed.
| mistercheph wrote:
| But they are!!
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Would that have really stoped google having its own cloud/app
| layer on top of the base system? OEM could still lock the
| bootloaders.
|
| Unless, maybe the EU, enforce a right to repair and tinker
| we'll be at the mercy of these companies with their walled
| gardens.
| Jedd wrote:
| > ... uncompromised open source (Stallmanist ...
|
| Of course, Stallman strongly eschews the ambiguity and
| misdirection inherent in the phrase _open source_ , and in
| this particular instance the considered use of 'free' or
| 'freedom' is precisely what we're now all upset about the
| impending loss of.
| sjamaan wrote:
| GPL doesn't help you one bit in this particular situation,
| because "regular users" would still be using the locked-down
| stock Android that came with their device. So they still
| can't install your app.
|
| Anyone who is already running a rooted Android or otherwise
| customized OS isn't affected by this, only developers who
| want to distribute their app to users.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| AFAIK GPLv3 requires to allow user to run modified software
| (so essentially device must be unlockable). Android is not
| GPLv3, unfortunately.
| botanical76 wrote:
| Many Android devices are unlockable, you can run your own
| software, and yet we still have a problem. This problem
| exists irrespective of what you can technically do with
| the hardware due to the vote by corporations to favour
| device "security" over user freedom. A phone is useless
| to most people without the apps they depend on.
| immibis wrote:
| I literally can't unlock my device (Xiaomi) because
| there's no way to, despite that it's apparently the law
| in Germany that GPLv2 software cannot be Tivoized because
| "corresponding source" was interpreted to include
| everything you need to install modified software on the
| device. (AVM vs I don't remember, regarding fritz!box
| home routers)
| Zambyte wrote:
| I can't root or otherwise customize my OS on my device
| because Linux is not GPLv3.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| Correct. And the reason GPLv3 exists is because TiVo did
| the same thing eons ago.
| hyghjiyhu wrote:
| I have a "weakly held strong opinion" on this subject. I
| think open source has been a disaster for the state of
| software for normal people. On the one hand exploited
| developers making peanuts or nothing for their hard work. On
| the other hand exploited users losing control of their
| devices and social networks.
|
| The era when people paid an affordable fee for software they
| could use however they wanted was much better. But it got
| squeezed out by free software on the one side and serf-ware
| on the other.
|
| The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is rotten.
|
| Edit: then again maybe it's unfair of me to blame the decline
| in paid for software on open source.
| jaapz wrote:
| Sounds a bit like victim blaming, how is it the fault of
| open source software that corporations are exploiting them?
| kaoD wrote:
| Because they went "open source" and not "free software"
| to appease corporations.
|
| The trap was there all along and developers fell right
| into it.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| > The era when people paid an affordable fee for software
| they could use however they wanted was much better. But it
| got squeezed out by free software on the one side and serf-
| ware on the other.
|
| Charging for free and open-source software is not only
| possible, but encouraged Stallman himself.
| dns_snek wrote:
| Yes but how do you build a consumer software business on
| top of a licensing scheme that legally allows anyone to
| share their copy of the software with anyone else, and
| allows other businesses to resell your software at half
| the price?
| pyeri wrote:
| Few companies have done it successfully like Red Hat,
| Odoo ERP and Sensio Labs (the company that builds Symfony
| framework).
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Notice all three of those companies make their money
| selling support contracts to businesses, not selling
| software to consumers.
| dns_snek wrote:
| Yes but notice how all of those are B2B? I was responding
| in the context of B2C, on one hand we know that people
| are willing to pay for convenience - Steam has largely
| beaten piracy by simply offering a better service.
|
| But that wouldn't hold up if games were released under a
| FOSS license. There would be nothing stopping me (maybe
| trademark law? I'm sure there are workarounds) from
| setting up "SteamForFree", rehosting every game with the
| same user experience as Steam, and offering access for a
| small monthly fee to cover hosting costs and make a tidy
| profit.
|
| I'd like to offer source code, allow modifications for
| personal use, while prohibiting redistribution and
| certain types of commercial use (e.g. companies over $x
| million in revenue). That's a pretty fundamental mismatch
| between what I feel comfortable with in order to protect
| my income and what FOSS licenses allow.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Fully agree with this sentiment.
|
| I do think though that disallowing "certain types of
| commercial use" is a poison pill that would prevent your
| project from getting any significant adoption.
|
| I think a better option would be something like GPL but
| with the "you can redistribute copies of this to anyone
| you like without paying me" part stripped out. (Maybe
| replaced with a provision that allows transferring your
| license to someone else, but then you're not allowed to
| use it afterwards.) The goal being to protect consumer
| freedom to exercise ownership rights over their software
| (including the ability to modify it) without
| simultaneously trying to abolish the copyright system and
| killing your own funding mechanism in the process.
| davisr wrote:
| I charge for copies of free software I wrote, an AGPLv3+
| desktop application, and earn about $2k MRR from it. Most
| people don't care about your choice of license, they just
| want software that conveniently solves their problem(s).
| If they want to share it, that's fine. They're giving it
| to people who wouldn't have bought it anyway. If those
| grantees ever want an official copy, with updates and
| support, they come back to me.
|
| You see the same effect mirrored in illicit distribution
| of copyrighted works. Sharing movies increases box office
| revenue. Sharing albums increases music sales.
|
| The people who get a copy for no charge weren't going to
| buy a copy in the first place. When you expose them to
| the product, some percent go on to become fans,
| advertising the work, and perhaps giving money to support
| it.
|
| Read through my past comments from last year to find more
| info.
| andoando wrote:
| The problem is with someone taking your whole software,
| branding and marketing it as their own and undercutting
| your service for half the price, not individual using it
| for personal reasons.
| davisr wrote:
| So what? That sounds like competition, which is healthy
| in a free market.
|
| And it's not a service, it's a copy. Customers are
| explicitly allowed to resell it, and they have. And I
| still earn enough cash to continue developing it.
|
| And I have the search engine top hits. And I have
| thousands of social media comments linking to my website.
| Copying a business isn't just about copying the product.
| They have to copy my reputation, too. And my sales
| channels.
|
| Stop being so afraid. Selling free software is good, and
| sustainable, and those who think otherwise are extremely
| naive, ignorant, or with ulterior motives.
| andoando wrote:
| Sure, link me to your codebase and I'll give it an active
| try and lets see what happens.
|
| There's no doubt putting up your source code makes your
| business much easier to copy. If I spent a year building
| something sophisticated with the intent of selling it,
| why would I give someone else, with possibly more
| resources to market, a free competition? It may have
| worked out for you, but I think so non nonchalant saying
| "its not a problem ever" is rather bold.
|
| This is a known problem even in the hardware space, where
| Chinese companies will copy an existing problem 1:1 and
| flood the amazon market with 20 different listings.
| davisr wrote:
| You can pay me $12 for it.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Charging for open source software is possible but
| improbable, and I respectfully say it is naive to think
| otherwise.
|
| Every open source product that takes in real money sells
| services and support, or they sell closed "premium"
| features. Oh, and the third bucket, philanthropy.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| the people saying gpl cannot sell software is always bsd
| users, who always work for some company contracting with
| Boz allen Hamilton and such. It's never an honest
| opinion.
| immibis wrote:
| It seems like B2B consumers pay a lot of money to get rid
| of that pesky "as is, without warranty" clause. It seems
| like almost every business that is paying for something
| they could do in-house for free, is basically paying for
| it because of this. They don't want to outsource the
| actual _labour_ , per se - they want to outsource the
| blame when it goes wrong, even if the actual uptime
| percentage is identical or worse. Centralization is an
| advantage here - if we say "we're down because five other
| websites are down, sorry" it looks worse than "we're down
| because half the internet is down, sorry"
|
| More generally, they want to have a contract for services
| with someone. That's what's really meant by "support".
| Not merely being able to call tech support, but having
| people backing their services. The really big places have
| their own engineers, and the really small places can't
| afford it, but the middle-sized places would rather pay
| you to support them as needed, than hire someone on their
| side dedicated to managing your product.
|
| The illusion of support can also sell just as well as
| actual support. Just see Oracle vs Postgres...
| jaltekruse wrote:
| I have been involved in open source projects with various
| structures and sustainability models. Open-core Enterprise
| software startups, unfunded or underfunded
| middleware/libraries and underfunded end-consumer
| software/apps. A real problem that I have with lots of open
| source is a mismatch between technical talent to produce
| software, an open ethos/philosophy (finding true believers
| in a much more open future), AND the most important often
| missing piece, a product mindset and willingness to do work
| that isn't just software dev. So many FOSS projects I have
| seen, with capable engineers spending years of their lives
| working on them, are lacking product management, a
| willingness to let users actually push the project in a
| direction that is more approachable to a mass audience, and
| the willingness to do the hard boring work of making
| software run everywhere. Lots of stuff falls into this
| general gripe, and a bunch of it isn't news to anyone. Lots
| of open source has shitty design/UX, every damn one of us
| that lives with desktop Linux knows exactly why it's not
| the year of the Linux desktop. The sleep function on the
| laptop I am writing this comment on doesn't work right
| (when booted into Linux), and every few months you have to
| find terminal wizardry to fix normal shit that should have
| a GUI config interface to un-fuck it, but "real software
| people don't touch their mouse unless they absolutely
| must". This comment got a bit off the rails, anyway, long
| live FOSS!
| andoando wrote:
| People developing software for free will never compete with
| thousands of engineers employed at corporations working
| every day. Who has time for that except those that are rich
| and retired?
|
| We need a non corporate model of software development,
| something like worker owned coops.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| > half-hearted open source where it's technically open but
| corporates get to have a free lunch and make abuses.
|
| I'd argue what you describe as "half-hearted" is actually
| more true to open source and libre software than restrictive
| licensing.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Google is the modern Microsoft spiritual successor to
| Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Look at all the people who use
| gmail, youtube, etc all from a web app that Google wholly
| controls.
| treyd wrote:
| > This situation would have been avoided if we, as community
| of engineers, had insisted on full and uncompromised open
| source (Stallmanist or GPL way) right from the start instead
| of going the ESR way of half-hearted open source where it's
| technically open but corporates get to have a free lunch and
| make abuses.
|
| And we would have been in a better position to lobby for this
| if unions were widespread in the tech industry, which they
| are not.
| esskay wrote:
| See I was similar but the big difference back then was a random
| little 99c app on iOS would make you several thousand dollars a
| month, so the $100/year fee was nothing for a long time. It was
| only after around 2012 that things changed.
|
| On Google Play I never, ever had any app be anything close to
| as successful as on iOS. I think I probably made less than
| 1/100th the amount I did on iOS back in the day.
| jammo wrote:
| I can see why they add the fee, but they would both garner so
| much goodwill by giving free accounts if the app you publish is
| open source. I don't think it would be that hard to automate by
| requiring a GitHub link.
| justinclift wrote:
| > goodwill
|
| Doesn't seem like something they consider a positive though.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Those days are over. Being evil means there is no goodwill to
| begin with unless you can exploit it financially wise. Google
| stopped being not evil, they specifically deleted it from the
| code of conduct.
|
| Ofc, being evil is subjective. But also this is the first
| excuse of evil players!
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Yeah, I don't understand why people put up with Apple for this.
| I would love to write small personal apps for my iPhone. But, I
| don't want to use a mac, I don't want to pay a fee every year
| and I don't want to use the apple store (yes there are
| convoluted work-rounds for the last one).
| jama211 wrote:
| It's precisely because it's a filter, they _want_ to filter
| for people who take it seriously and/or are seeking app
| sales. This is a company that chooses to pay people to review
| every app submitted to the app store, they don't want
| millions of apps by tinkerers being submitted, and it reduces
| total crapware in the store.
|
| I'm not necessarily advocating for this approach, just
| explaining why they do it.
|
| Doesn't the play store also charge a fee? It's smaller from
| memory but it isn't free
| tsycho wrote:
| I totally agree with your sentiment, but can't you still do
| that with Android?
|
| IIUC, you can still load apps directly via adb. Is that not
| correct?
| bfkwlfkjf wrote:
| Stallman was right.
| hnarn wrote:
| He usually is, given time.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| I wonder, what thing does HN think Stallman is wrong about
| today (and which in the future we will be proven wrong and
| Stallman was right).
| 334f905d22bc19 wrote:
| Well, the things that got him canceled were and are wrong
| obviously. But anything (i know of) software related was
| right
| bfkwlfkjf wrote:
| The "things that got him cancelled" were things he said (as
| opposed to things he did) and those that I've read were
| correct (though I'm aware I havent read everything he said
| on the subject).
| spacechild1 wrote:
| He has written some very questionable things about
| pedophilia (from which he has since distanced himself):
| https://stallman.org/archives/2006-may-
| aug.html#05%20June%20...
|
| To be clear: this does not diminish his contributions in
| the field of software! His ideas about Free Software have
| been visionary and are as important as ever. One can be
| brilliant in one field and a fool in another. This is
| actually very common among technical people ("engineer's
| disease"). We cannot expect someone to be right 100% of
| the time.
| bfkwlfkjf wrote:
| I haven't seen him say anything I disagree with. But we would
| have to discuss specifics for me to have confidence.
| clcaev wrote:
| > Stallman was right.
|
| Stallman did not find an economic model that works within our
| business/legal environment.
| nicce wrote:
| Current big tech is based on Stallman-inspired people using
| their free time to make software. But they are putting MIT
| lisence because "someone" had convinced them that GPL is not
| really free and not socially acceptable!
| bfkwlfkjf wrote:
| Non sequitor. He was right about what companies would do if
| allowed, and that's the most important thing to keep in mind.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Kill it so we get a chance to see a new competitor.
| nicman23 wrote:
| have you seen the stupidity that is trying to develop for ie
| qualcomm soc if you are a small fry?
| BoredPositron wrote:
| It won't get better if nothing changes.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| I just bought a fairphone6 hoping this phone would last me a
| decade with security patches and lineageos support. Naively I was
| assuming Google would keep Android open for that period. Now I
| might as well switch to Apple so I'm in sync with the rest of my
| family. Ugh.
| xorcist wrote:
| You will probably run some kind of community Android
| distribution on that phone, like Lineage or Graphene, and those
| will likely not include this limitation. The world will be
| worse off, but you and I will be unaffected. Worst case is that
| future Google will decide to kick us out of the Play Store, but
| there has been plenty of workarounds for that before.
| runiq wrote:
| Unfortunately the feedback period for the European Digital
| Fairness Act has been closed since October 24th. Does anyone know
| of another way to appeal to my European overlords^H
| representatives?
| aembleton wrote:
| Write to your mep
| IamDaedalus wrote:
| I've only been interested in Android phones particularly Pixels
| because I can just flash another OS and do whatever but if Google
| goes through with this I might consider iphones this time
| Havoc wrote:
| It's funny how the "Google doesn't control it it's open source"
| crowd has gotten very quiet as of late. See also chromium and
| manifest 3
| jwr wrote:
| Oh, the irony. I still remember how in the early days of Android
| vs iOS discussions, the main point was "but it's OPEN!". The word
| "open" was used as a comma by Google people. It was The Thing.
| The Difference. Good vs Evil and all that.
| teekert wrote:
| It looks like eventually any company will start squeezing
| customers for what they are worth.
|
| But only once the company is powerful enough. We don't call
| Google a monopoly, because there is Apple, but taken together
| they certainly behave as one. Both create expectations, create
| expected momentum in a certain direction, people build
| (companies, lives) on those assumptions and boom, you can't get
| out and now the company changes the deal.
|
| Is it just our assumptions that get us in trouble? Or do we
| need to do more?
|
| I'm not sure how to regulate this, other than to stimulate open
| source, as the "for the people by the people" solution. But
| also that will just lead to poor expensive solutions (the
| market created some nice FOSS though). So the law it should
| be... And we're back to the problem of lobbying...
|
| Perhaps there should be contracts: Google advertises Android as
| open: They should sign a contract: For how long will Android be
| open? Define "Open". The contract can be enforced. Or perhaps
| we, the people, sue now, for false advertising, although that
| will just make them flex their legal and lobbying muscles...
| And they didn't sign any contracts.
| dev_hugepages wrote:
| > We don't call Google a monopoly, because there is Apple We
| call that a duopoly, which is similarly bad as a monopoly.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| And after the change Google is doing now, it will still be more
| open than iOS.
| jama211 wrote:
| And still less secure and less trusted.
| joak wrote:
| If you leave under a dictatorship you definitely don't want to
| reveal your identity to develop and distribute an app that fights
| the government.
| giamma wrote:
| While I understand the reasons behind this campaign, I have mixed
| feelings about it.
|
| As an iPhone user, I find it frustrating that deploying my own
| app on my own device requires either reinstalling it every 7 days
| or paying $100 annually. Android doesn't have this limitation,
| which makes it simpler and more convenient for personal use.
|
| However, when it comes to publishing apps to the store, I take a
| different view. In my opinion, stricter oversight is beneficial.
| To draw an analogy: NPM registry has experienced several supply
| chain attacks because anyone can easily publish a library. The
| Maven Central registry for Java libraries, by contrast, requires
| developers to own the DNS domain used as a namespace for their
| library. This additional requirement, along with a few extra
| security checks, has been largely effective in preventing--or at
| least significantly reducing--the supply chain attacks seen in
| the NPM ecosystem.
|
| Given the growing threat of such attacks, we need to find ways to
| mitigate them. I hope that Google's new approach is motivated by
| security concerns rather than purely economic reasons.
| stratts wrote:
| Android already has this strict oversight, in theory, in the
| form of the Play Store. And yet.
|
| Personally I feel much more safe and secure downloading a
| random app from F-Droid, than I do from Google, whose supposed
| watchful eyes have allowed genuine malware to be distributed
| unimpeded.
| marcos100 wrote:
| Exaclty. Play Store takes a cut from what it is selling, so
| they should be more strict what can be sold, not lock the
| whole platform.
| Yokolos wrote:
| I don't understand how you can have mixed feelings about this.
|
| > However, when it comes to publishing apps to the store,
|
| This isn't about publishing apps to the Play Store. If that's
| all this was about, we wouldn't give a shit. The problem is
| that this applies to _all_ stores, including third party stores
| like F-Droid, _and_ any app that is installed independently of
| a store (as an apk file).
|
| > Given the growing threat of such attacks, we need to find
| ways to mitigate them.
|
| How about the growing threat of right-wing authoritarian
| control? How do we mitigate that when the only "free" platform
| is deciding the only way anybody can install any app on their
| phone is if that app's developer is officially and explicitly
| allowed by Google?
|
| Hell, how long until those anti-porn groups turn their gaze
| from video games and Steam onto apps, then pressure
| MasterCard/Visa and in turn Google to revoke privileges from
| developers who make any app/game that's too "obscene"
| (according to completely arbitrary standards)?
|
| There's such a massive tail of consequences that will follow
| and people are just "well, it's fine if it's about security".
| No. It's not. This is about arbitrary groups with whatever
| arbitrary bullshit ideology they might have being able to
| determine what apps are allowed to be made and installed on
| your phone. It's not fucking okay.
| giamma wrote:
| My elderly father unknowingly installed an application on
| Android after seeing a deceptive ad. An advertising message
| disguised as an operating system pop-up convinced him that
| his Android phone's storage was almost full. When he tapped
| the pop-up, and followed instructions he installed a fake
| cleaner app from the Play Store. While the app caused no
| actual harm, it displayed notifications every other day
| urging him to clean his phone using the same app. When he
| opened it, the app -- which did nothing except display a fake
| graph simulating almost full storage -- pressured him to
| purchase the PRO version to perform a deeper cleanup.
|
| In reality, the phone had 24 GB of free space out of 64 GB
| total. I simply uninstalled the fake cleaner and the annoying
| notifications disappeared.
|
| How such an app could reach the Play Store is beyond me. I
| can only imagine how many people that app must have deceived
| and how much money its creators likely made. I'm fairly
| certain the advertisement targets older people specifically--
| those most likely to be tricked.
|
| For better or worse, I'm pretty sure that such an app would
| never land into the Apple App Store.
| gumby271 wrote:
| So you're saying Google is doing fuck all to protect
| customers on their already locked down store, right? This
| doesn't sound like it will be addressed by Google extending
| developer registration outside of their store at all if
| they can't even address obvious scam apps that they're
| already promoting. And to your point, yes, Apple probably
| does do a better job of maintaining their app store, that
| way they can prevent some of the push back on iOS being so
| locked down. An iPhone sounds like the right device for
| your father.
| avra wrote:
| _from the Play Store_
|
| This is not about the Play Store. This is about the whole
| Android platform. It's about running what you want on your
| own machine.
| user34283 wrote:
| If the manufacturer wants to offer verification of developers,
| this should be an optional feature allowing the user to
| continue the installation of applications distributed by
| unverified developers in a convenient way.
|
| Making this verification mandatory is an absolute non-starter,
| ridiculous overreach, and a spit in the face of regulators who
| are trying to break Google and Apple's monopoly on mobile app
| distribution.
| beeflet wrote:
| The threat of such attacks is not growing
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > Maven Central registry for Java libraries, by contrast,
| requires developers to own the DNS domain used as a namespace
|
| What are the requirements around domain renewal?
| Artoooooor wrote:
| Does it also mean that developers in "bad" countries will not be
| able to create installable Android apps?
| yu3zhou4 wrote:
| Are there any alternative mobile OSes actively developed? I
| remember Ubuntu Touch was the thing and something from Firefox,
| but not sure if they are continued?
| baobun wrote:
| Ubuntu Touch is still a thing.
|
| We also have PostmarketOS (alpine base) and Mobian (debian
| base) as frontrunners. Supposedly Arch Linux for ARM and
| openSUSE Tumbleweed are also used by some on mobile.
| dguest wrote:
| There's HarmonyOS [1], which is developed by Huawei, and which
| has a similar mix of open (OpenHarmony) and proprietary
| components. I haven't used it, but it's supported by quite a
| few phones and sort of surprised it wasn't mentioned anywhere
| on this thread.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarmonyOS
| fsflover wrote:
| https://mobian.org
| wosined wrote:
| > please big corpo overlord do not do what is most profitable for
| you, pretty pretty please please
| DrSiemer wrote:
| A year ago I built a React Native Android app for my wife called
| "Pimp daddy", which she uses to track her earnings as an
| independent contractor.
|
| The whole concept is meant to poke fun at the idea of me
| "checking up on her" (I file her tax returns) and the entire
| theme is 80s pimp styled.
|
| Every time she submits something, she'll get a random pimp
| remark, like "Go get that money for me, girl!". She just rolls
| her eyes and ignores it, but it's what made it fun for me to work
| on it.
|
| Edgy stuff like that could jeopardize my account in the near
| future. It might just be security now, but an automated "naughty
| words detector" will be an obvious next step.
|
| I doubt I will invest any more time in hobby app development if I
| have to deal with some humorless overbearing watchdog telling me
| what I can and cannot install on my own device. Very sad to see
| Android following Microsofts anti power user direction.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| The idea of offering something for free then later deliberately
| restricting and or reducing its scope _after_ securing enough
| takers to maximize benefits and advantages for those making the
| offer ought to be unlawful as they are knowingly and deliberately
| manipulating human nature. Those who accept such seemingly
| appealing offers often end up disadvantaged or harmed. And here
| with Google 's latest Android edict we have yet another instance.
|
| Manipulation and deception tactics are particularly relevant in
| internet age and they are Big Tech's standard modus operandi
| _because_ its found them to be such financially successful
| business models. Laws need to enacted to prevent such
| exploitation as it is unreasonable and unacceptable for the
| psyche /reasoning of ordinary citizens to be pitched against such
| psychological might.
|
| As so often happens with such authoritarian and manipulative
| dictates, this Google edict comes wrapped in the usual paltry
| excuse of security. Even Blind Freddy knows this excuse to be
| bullshit and that the real beneficiary is Google. The time has
| come for Android to be decoupled completely from Google.
|
| It's tragic that despite a monopolistic finding against Google
| the Law didn't recognize the fact.
| preisschild wrote:
| Whats also an issue is that Android seemingly has stopped
| publishing the source code for Android (AOSP). Android 16 QPR1
| has been out for months but still no source code released.
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| Yep, slowly moving pieces of AOSP to closed source and now
| silence on putting out any AOSP releases, in the name of
| simplifying their development..
| zb3 wrote:
| They're exremely tight-lipped on this.. many people asked using
| multiple channels but no response for months.
| cryptoneo wrote:
| The play store ID process is ridiculous, their AI is making up BS
| why it wouldn't let your documents pass, clearly no human in the
| loop.
|
| In the EU we can report this to: comp-market-
| information@ec.europa.eu
|
| State that: Google is abusing its dominant position on the market
| for Android-app distribution by "denial of access to an essential
| facility". Google is not complying with their "gatekeeper" DMA
| obligations (Article 5(4), Article 6(12), Article 11, Article 15)
|
| Attach evidence.
|
| Financial penalty is the only way to pressure this company to
| abide law.
| aprilfoo wrote:
| The EU's DMA team replied to a previous inquiry:
|
| > [...] the Digital Markets Act ('DMA') obliges gatekeepers
| like Google to effectively allow the distribution of apps on
| their operating system through third party app stores or the
| web. At the same time, the DMA also permits Google to introduce
| strictly necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that
| third-party software apps or app stores do not endanger the
| integrity of the hardware or operating system or to enable end
| users to effectively protect security. [...]
|
| They seem to be on it, but no surprise: it's all about Google's
| claims for "security" and "ongoing dialogue gatekeepers".
|
| Freedom to use own hardware or software, no.
| Garvi wrote:
| If people working for Google had a conscience, they would be
| working to break the system from within. At this point it's
| leaving the confines of anti-consumerism and entering into a gray
| area of basic human rights abuse. It's clearly a cartel market
| with the other big players (Apple and others to a lesser extend)
| that needed to be broken 10 years ago(if it were possible).
|
| It reminds me a bit of the book "The Constant Soldier", depicting
| Auschwitz guards and staff enjoying their carefree holiday at a
| nearby lake resort, before going back to burning people. Might
| seem like hyperbole, but I think we're rushing towards an ugly
| plutocracy.
| criddell wrote:
| Going full on Godwin today?
|
| People working for Google are not Nazis and people using
| Android phones are not like Auschwitz prisoners. That's a
| really terrible analogy.
| ajnin wrote:
| Android has not been really open for a long time now.
|
| - Many APIs have been moved to Google Play Services (which is not
| open source), and many apps have come to rely on them. You can
| emulate it partially but not fully, see second point below.
|
| - Some features like device attestation / SafetyNet fail on
| non-"official" devices, for example many banking or government ID
| apps refuse to work on open source os like GrapheneOS
| didacusc wrote:
| It's finally the time for Sailfish OS / Linux Smartphone OSes!
| qiu3344 wrote:
| It's a lost cause. We need to focus on pmOS:
| https://postmarketos.org/
|
| With both Android and Chromium, we're ultimately at Google's
| mercy.
|
| btw, does anyone know if Huawei is following along with this in
| their fork?
| palata wrote:
| Linux on mobile is fun, but really I want AOSP and its superior
| security model and SDK.
|
| Now I hate Google as much as the next person, but I also hate
| all the other Android manufacturers who just don't do better.
|
| Ideally, major manufacturers would all contribute to AOSP to
| make sure that it runs well with their devices. And then we
| could install the "AOSP distro" we want, be it GrapheneOS or
| LineageOS or whatever the fuck we want.
|
| > does anyone know if Huawei is following along with this in
| their fork?
|
| They suck like all the other manufacturers: they forked as a
| quick solution, and then decided to go with their own
| proprietary codebase. If nobody else contributes, why would
| they make it open source?
|
| What I see from the Linux experience is that the only way it
| works is to have a copyleft licence and a multitude of
| contributors. That way it belongs to everybody, and it moves
| too fast for one single entity to write a proprietary
| competitor on their own. But AOSP is not that: first it's a
| permissive licence, and only Google meaningfully contributes to
| it.
| jhasse wrote:
| > btw, does anyone know if Huawei is following along with this
| in their fork?
|
| They are moving to their own completely proprietary OS called
| HarmonyOS NEXT.
| nicce wrote:
| I just looked into this few days ago and it seems all Android
| references and Linux kernel are completely removed.
| pmdr wrote:
| Google is evil. Every single one on here arguing "but muh
| security improves" is against freedom of computing, plain and
| simple. There's no middle ground.
|
| Google & others have slowly turned down the freedom dial over the
| years and we let it happen. People working for Google let it
| happen. I'm not aware of any inside movement protesting this like
| they protested against various social issues.
|
| Security that you can't turn off is basically a prison.
| immibis wrote:
| These things simply do not work. Things that work: legislation
| (when enforced); lawsuits (when successful and very costly to the
| company); physical violence of course; people collectively
| refusing to buy the product because now it has zero advantage
| over Apple or because someone comes out with a new better
| competitor; forced interoperability via reverse engineering.
| azalemeth wrote:
| For what it is worth, I submitted a (totally, different,
| "handwritten", personal) complaint to the UK's CMA about this a
| few weeks ago, when it was first announced.
|
| I received _the_ most boilerplate "Thanks, bog off" response
| imaginable, which I presume is a good thing...
| Dear $NAME, Thank you for your correspondence.
| We value people contacting us with information. This helps us to
| tackle anti-competitive behaviour and protect people and
| businesses from being disadvantaged by unfair practices.
| What happens now? Our Digital Markets Team will now
| analyse your enquiry using our published prioritisation
| principles (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cma-
| prioritisation-principles). The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will
| oversee a new regulatory regime, promoting greater competition
| and innovation in digital markets and protecting consumers and
| businesses from unfair practices. The CMA will
| continue to use its existing powers, where appropriate, to
| investigate harm to competition in digital markets. Please be
| aware that the CMA has no powers to take action or open a case on
| behalf of an individual customer or business (for example; to
| pursue compensation, refunds, or to intervene or adjudicate in
| disputes). We prioritise the cases that are most
| likely to make a real difference for people and the UK economy
| based on our available resources and the likelihood of a
| successful outcome. Can I get an update on my
| enquiry? We are unable to give you an update on
| your enquiry. We find all enquiries useful to inform
| our current and future work. However, we offer no guarantee as to
| where or how your enquiry may be used. We do publish
| details of our cases on our website. You can subscribe to email
| alerts which will inform you when new information has been added.
| Will the CMA investigate my enquiry? We review all
| the enquiries that we receive. This helps us to understand:
| whether different industries in the UK economy are competitive
| if competition law is being broken if shoppers or
| businesses are being disadvantaged. Even if we don't
| immediately investigate your enquiry, it may lead to us taking
| further action in the future. Do I need to do
| anything else? You do not need to do anything. If we
| need further information, we will contact you. Thank
| you again for taking the time to contact us. Yours
| sincerely Carol Sampson (she/her) | Enquiries Admin
| Officer | Strategy, Communications and Advocacy | Competition and
| Markets Authority The Cabot | 25 Cabot Square | London |
| E14 4QZ
|
| So, I naively think one way to push this higher up the priority
| list and get the UK's regulator to act at least would be to look
| at those prioritisation principles and make the point that it
| falls high up them. One of them is "The CMA's work should ensure
| that competitive markets provide choice and variety and drive
| lower prices"; another is "the CMA's actions should empower
| competitive, fair-dealing businesses to compete, including by
| addressing the behaviour of a small minority of businesses that
| try to harm consumers, restrict competition, or prevent markets
| from functioning properly".
|
| It's pretty clear to me that Google's direction won't be going
| down this route, and in many ways I wish I knew about these
| before submitting my complaint. If you're reading this in the UK,
| consider looking at those guidance points and hamming home
| explicitly how this move by Google breaks those points - which,
| frankly, it clearly does (it is going to reduce choice and
| variety; it is also explicitly restricting competition and
| harming consumers!)
| drooopy wrote:
| I wonder if it's possible for a consortium led by major phone
| manufacturers to "libreoffice" Android away from Google's
| control.
|
| Android (to a lesser extend iOS) has become deeply embedded in
| the infrastructure of modern society. It is essentially a public
| utility and should be managed as such.
| 0x073 wrote:
| Major phone manufacturers would break androids neck.
| (E.g.Samsung)
| sharas- wrote:
| Just installed Lineage OS 23 (androind 16) on my Motorola g84.
| Works like a charm. Banking apps work. Do I need to say fuck
| google? Like it's not obvious?
| liendolucas wrote:
| I'm going to say something that probably will get me down votes:
|
| Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Seriously. So
| many open source projects have risen out of real and concrete
| needs and successfully made their way into our every day lives.
|
| A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from
| Google. I've given PostmarketOS a go (with a PinePhone) and while
| today I can't say it isn't a daily driver for everyone it is
| certainly the route that needs to be taken.
|
| I'm still unable to use it because is not easy to break away from
| Android, but is a platform that I think about almost every day,
| because I do not want to use Android anymore and I'm willing to
| sacrifice certain aspects to have an open and friendly platform
| on my hands. And if it is not PostmarketOS then let it be another
| project.
|
| We need these kind of projects, not kneeling down to a company
| like Google and begging for Android to be open. Effort needs to
| be put elsewhere. That's how major projects like Linux, BSDs and
| open source projects have flourished and taken the world.
| figmert wrote:
| The problem is that a new project and even a fork would need
| buy in buy companies like Samsung. Otherwise a project
| LineageOS would be much more popular. This is hard to do
| without serious money.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Why is popularity a concern? I'm writing this on a Librem 5
| with PureOS that I've been daily driving for the last few
| years and which gives _me_ a much better experience than
| Android could. Why would it matter to me as a user whether it
| 's popular or not? The only thing I can think of is
| availability of native applications, but this would just hide
| the actual problem with interoperability and pass it down for
| the next underdog project to worry about.
|
| Popularity is important when we consider whole societies, but
| it's not particularly relevant for individuals. I don't need
| a buy in of Samsung to use GNU/Linux on my phone.
| ruszki wrote:
| For example because the wait time in the theme park which I
| visited can be find only in their app for iOS and Android.
| The same true for ordering food to your table in another
| theme park. Yeah, there are alternatives, but those cost
| you time, sometimes hours. And these companies won't
| implement anything for an error margin.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Again:
|
| > but this would just hide the actual problem with
| interoperability and pass it down for the next underdog
| project to worry about.
|
| Just consider how this wouldn't happen at all in an
| environment where no platform dominates in popularity
| (and it doesn't always happen today either, as lots of
| things like these are accessible via the Web from any
| platform regardless).
| ruszki wrote:
| We have exactly that interoperability right now, and the
| market said that they don't want use that.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| A market like that needs to be better regulated then.
| array_key_first wrote:
| The fact this is a thing is part of the problem.
|
| We should not be downloading executables and running them
| from random third parties in order to do mundane tasks.
| If they absolutely must have an app, it should be a web
| app, end of.
| Steltek wrote:
| Here's a question, what if the executable was thoroughly
| sandboxed? Like Firecracker level with virtualization?
| And once you're there, what's the difference between that
| and a webapp?
|
| I don't think apps are going away so users need to have a
| switch that says, "I don't trust this company with
| anything". Extremely limited Internet access, no
| notifications, no background activity at all, nothing. It
| needs to be like apps for the 2nd gen iPhone: so
| completely neutered that webapps look like Star Trek
| level technology.
| aaron_m04 wrote:
| Google is a step ahead of that, with their device
| attestation technology. Now apps can make sure they are
| only running in an approved environment.
| array_key_first wrote:
| This is the inverse of what he's saying. Attestation
| takes control away from users. Permissions give control
| to users. The ultimate user control is not using the
| software at all.
| array_key_first wrote:
| There is beyond zero incentive for either Apple or Google
| to provide something like this. Google HAS network
| permissions on Android. You just can't access them.
| They're hidden from you, presumably because Google
| prefers more malware and spyware running on your phone.
|
| The reality is that both Google and Apple are not just in
| on this, they created this situation. They not only don't
| care if you download 1 million apps from the app store
| that may or may not be malware, they actually prefer that
| model. Going as far as to sabotage the web to maintain
| that model. Going as far as developing their own browser
| which is broken to maintain that model.
|
| Which, relatedly, is why any type of argument of "safety"
| around the app store or play store is complete and utter
| bullshit. Apple and Google want you to download as much
| malware as possible. All their actions demonstrate that.
| liendolucas wrote:
| Yes, agree 100%. It's not only Android the problem. It's the
| cartelization between them and hardware manufacturers. But
| then that means that we will be doomed to the current duopoly
| between Google and Apple.
|
| The very first step I believe needs to be taken is to pass
| strict laws to allow devices to be reflashed with whatever we
| want. Until we do not have that in place we will always be
| stucked like this. Once people can truly install from scratch
| whatever they want then the game should change completely.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Good point about hardware duopoly, and laws (along lines of
| "right to repair", right?). Nit: _" Until we do not have
| that in place"_ - double negative
| dorfsmay wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| So many good working devices go to waste because no longer
| supported by Google and the hardware manufacturers. They
| have good cameras, good wifi etc... we should be able to
| reflash them and install whatever OS we want on them.
|
| It's becoming more and more difficult to install even
| Lineage on a lot of 6 or 7 year old hardware.
| mrasong wrote:
| True, if a new system ever wants to rise, it's gonna need
| backing from a major player. But once it takes over the
| market, it might just become the next "Android."
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| Not so, if the next system is mobile GNU/Linux. As long as
| the components remain free and mostly the same as on
| desktop, if one or two go bad, they can be replaced. And
| certainly the core system won't go bad.
| aNoob7000 wrote:
| I don't understand why individuals expect a corporation like
| Google, driven by profits, to give a sh*t. I would expect no
| less of Apple with IOS.
|
| Individuals should look for and support alternatives. I'm
| currently working on a desktop running Ubuntu because I want an
| alternative to the duopoly of Windows and macOS.
|
| Additionally, we should support open-source alternatives with
| our donations. I personally donate money every year to Ubuntu,
| the Gnome foundation, and Tor.
| agile-gift0262 wrote:
| The OS on desktop situation isn't comparable to the OS on
| mobile situation. You can buy any PC and expect being able to
| replace its OS. On phones, you have to look for the ones
| where it's possible, and depending on the phone, it's
| possible despite the efforts from the manufacturers for not
| allowing it.
|
| Also in PC OSs, there isn't a corporation dictating what
| programs you are allowed to install. In iOS there is, and
| soon in Android too.
|
| IMO, these corporations have managed to amass an amount of
| power where there's no longer consumer freedom. Therefore,
| there's no free market. We have reached a point where the law
| must intervene to restore capitalism.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| If you're worried about a for-profit company having sway over
| your computer, Ubuntu is not really the choice to make.
| Please consider running upstream Debian; there are very few
| downsides, but the upside is that it is run by an
| organization that is not (and never will be) driven by
| profits. Also, it seems a little silly to donate to Ubuntu,
| which is maintained by a for-profit company.
| graemep wrote:
| > If you're worried about a for-profit company having sway
| over your computer, Ubuntu is not really the choice to
| make.
|
| Why not? The point is not to not have anything supplied by
| a business. The point is to avoid being controlled by a
| business.
|
| Ubuntu does not have the same hold over your computer that
| Google has over your phone. The software is open source.
| You can switch distros easily as it does not have lock-in.
| hedora wrote:
| Ubuntu controls a big voting block in debian's
| organization. They forced systemd in, for example.
|
| Devuan is a good enough compromise for me. The OS is
| stable, and the only issues I've had involve hacking
| curl|bash scripts that fail to realize they should just
| install the debian version.
|
| (Steam and docker run well.)
| jraph wrote:
| Even without counting Ubuntu, was there a significant
| number of people against systemd in Debian, with
| convincing arguments?
| paulnpace wrote:
| Likely there just aren't enough of the right people to support
| such a project, _sans_ a sustained revenue model.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Good luck funding the development of a competing mobile OS by
| FLOSS nerds that can compete with Google's trillion dollar
| market cap.
|
| Even if you could get _some_ traction, you 're gonna have a bad
| time getting banks to support this OS, at which point it will
| be useless for most users, preventing you from ever becoming
| profitable.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Even if you could get some traction, you're gonna have a
| bad time getting banks to support this OS
|
| This already happened. Banks here in Brazil like to require
| an invasive piece of software (a browser "plugin", though it
| installs system services) to access their online banking
| websites. For a long time, this invasive software was
| Windows-only, so those of us using Linux had to either beg
| the banks to enable a flag to bypass that "security software"
| for our accounts, or do without online banking. The same for
| the government-developed tax software, which was initially
| DOS-only and then became Windows-only.
|
| But nowadays, there is a Linux variant of that invasive
| banking "security" software, and that tax software became
| Java-only (with Windows, Linux, and MacOS installers, plus a
| generic archive for other operating systems). So things can
| change.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Linux, linux, linux, if you're blackpilled keep it to
| yourself, contributes nothing.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Like many others in this thread have already said, Linux is
| not the solution.
|
| You call it blackpilling, I call it facing reality.
| ElectricSpoon wrote:
| For another platform to rise, there needs to be some heavy
| market shift. There already were opensource mobile OS:
| Maemo/meego/Tizen. Heck! I'd even throw phosh and ubports in
| the pot. But those are about as rare a sight in the wild as
| lightphones.
|
| Phones have become essential to daily lives and the catch22 is:
| companies won't support niche platforms for their apps and
| users won't switch until the apps are there. Android happened
| to get adopted before everyone started relying on mobile
| devices as computer substitutes. Unless a major player pulls
| out a Valve move and does with waydroid what Valve did with
| wine, I can't imagine the market changing significantly.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| One of the benefits of mobile GNU/Linux distros is that it
| _is_ possible to run Android apps on them. Waydroid works
| well. The one catch is that it can be difficult to trick
| certain picky apps into running on an "unsecured" device.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _The one catch is that it can be difficult to trick
| certain picky apps into running on an "unsecured" device._
|
| Imho, _this_ is where we should fight for regulation.
|
| "All mobile apps must allow the user to acknowledge the
| risks of running on an unsecured platform, but then launch
| normally"
|
| Couple it with a liability shield for user security issues,
| if the user acknowledges risk.
|
| The real Android lock-in is the universe of essential apps
| that, through developer laziness, refuse to launch on
| alternative platforms.
| smaudet wrote:
| Eh, I disagree.
|
| You can never catch all "bad actors". Sure, you can make
| a best effort, but govts are not efficient/usually work
| better at doing one thing, not 100 - they should be
| regulating the common platform not all actors on it.
|
| Anyways, that's just as bad as what Google's trying to
| do.
|
| > that, through developer laziness, refuse to launch on
| alternative platforms.
|
| Android Dev is (relatively) quite difficult. The code and
| UI elements do not translate easily to other platforms.
| If a solitary developer (keep in mind, they may be a
| volunteer doing things in their free time, or just
| someone scratching a personal itch) does not then go out,
| purchase multiple other pieces of hardware, and write the
| application on multiple other platforms, that is not
| "developer laziness", rather that is a high cost to entry
| creating practical hurdles.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| I think next time I upgrade my "phone" I'm going to get a
| gaming capable tablet with wireless and give it the steamos
| treatment. This gives you decent linux/windows/android
| interop.
|
| I already lug a small backpack around most of the time, I
| can leave the tablet in the bag and use buds for
| conversations and when I need an actual computer it'll be
| way better.
| dTal wrote:
| >Unless a major player pulls out a Valve move and does with
| waydroid what Valve did with wine
|
| Sailfish sort of did.
| grigio wrote:
| I agree, F** Android, the website should me
| MakeLinuxSmartphoneReady.org and PostmarkeOS + Gnome Mobile is
| in good shape but a few smartphones support it.
| scheeseman486 wrote:
| It's better to have a billion dollar corp footing the bill for
| the massive amount of work it takes to maintain Android. If it
| comes to needing a fork so be it, but if they can be convinced
| (or strongarmed) to be more supportive of an open ecosystem and
| FOSS Android projects, everyone wins.
| symbogra wrote:
| This comment nails it. There was an an article about how the
| FSF got funding for exactly one dude to work on free phone
| software https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45586339
|
| That's great and all but it's just a drop in the bucket of
| the amount of work needed.
| immibis wrote:
| Systems with less maintainers require less maintenance
| because they are made in ways that require less maintenance.
| They also tend to be less good systems, but not in linear
| proportion to their reduced maintenance.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Agreed w the sentiments. Minor nit: _" I can't say it isn't a
| daily driver for everyone"_ - double negative
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government apps
| and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...).
|
| Those are the players that _demand_ excessive control over end-
| user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the problem
| we 're discussing.
|
| It's not that _a_ new mobile platform couldn 't possibly
| succeed. It's an _open_ platform that cannot, because
| aforementioned players don 't want it, and without them, mobile
| devices lose 90%+ of their usefulness, dooming them to become
| mere gadgets instead of (crappy, toylike) tools for everyday
| use.
| liendolucas wrote:
| Webapps solve this completely. You login to a service as we
| have been doing forever. And the control is still on their
| side when you use a webapp. Almost every single app that is
| on my phone can be a webapp.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| This works only as long as the webapp allows you to log in
| using a username/password and/or 2FA which is not tied to a
| smartphone app. More and more countries are moving to
| digital identity solutions, and while many of them offer
| hardware tokens as alternatives to apps, the future looks
| like one where smartphone apps will be only option.
| ecef9-8c0f-4374 wrote:
| Banking websites will tell you that you need 2FA. Of
| course you need to use not just any 2FA you need to use
| their app and of course you don't need a 2FA if you use
| the app directly for banking. My companys equity app does
| not even want to run on lineageos. At the moment it looks
| like a 2 phone will be necessary at some point.
| ubertaco wrote:
| Is there anything preventing use of something like
| Keepass vaults as your 2FA solution?
| dns_snek wrote:
| Yes, the fact that these 2FA systems aren't based on
| time-based one time passwords you're probably thinking
| of. It's a push notification that you need to open and
| approve in the official app.
| Macha wrote:
| The 2FA is not TOTP, it's push notifications to the
| bank's proprietary app
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| For now, my banking app actually runs on GrapheneOS. My
| digital identity app that it requires to log in does not,
| but luckily my government also offers an NFC chip that I
| can just scan instead.
|
| Two phones is such an unsatisfactory solution because it
| will be too impractical, too expensive, or both, for the
| vast majority of people.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Websites as platform can't solve a problem that's social in
| nature - that it's allowed and accepted for organizations
| to have such excessive, invasive levels of control.
|
| The parties I accuse of driving this problem didn't
| suddenly go rogue when smartphones happened. They _always_
| wanted this level of control (and much more) - they just
| couldn 't get it until relevant technologies matured
| enough.
|
| I'm not speculating here - we have actual empirical
| evidence to confirm this. A clear example is that there are
| several countries that, unlike the US and most of Europe,
| went all-in on Internet banking back before smartphones.
| Web limitations and conventions didn't stop them from doing
| the same thing everyone is doing with the phones now - the
| banks there just _force customers to install malware on
| their computers_ , so they can do some remote attestation
| and KYC (and totally no marketing data collection) on their
| PCs.
|
| Most of the West never had this because of the inverse of
| leapfrogging phenomenon - big, developed economies had too
| fast progress and at the same time too much inertia to
| fully adopt a pre-smartphone solution nation-wide.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| My bank had website which I can log in and just use. It
| does not force me to install anything. I need to type
| username, password and SMS code, that's about it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Because your bank isn't even trying to be secure,
| relative to what's considered industry standard.
|
| Be grateful while it lasts.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Why do you think their bank "isn't even trying to be
| secure"?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Because SMS is not considered a secure 2FA mechanism
| anymore, and hasn't been for a while. If that's the
| default for that bank, and not GP going out of their way
| to pick a legacy access path, then they're about a decade
| behind what's considered industry standard -- which today
| is querying a second factor not just per login, but also
| per important operations (money transfers, dispositions,
| changes in settings), with the second factor being by
| default a smartphone with hardware and software integrity
| verified via remote attestation.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Then literally every US business and government is not
| trying to be secure. I cannot name a single organization
| that does not have the option of or requires SMS 2FA.
|
| I think the government and large businesses like it that
| way, as it makes the mobile network providers as a sort
| of credit check (or "are you worth dealing with")
| mechanism.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Now that is more of a problem than a bank. Which is why
| someone beeds to integrate OTP tokens into ID cards,
| closing the issue.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| I haven't heard a compelling reason why remote
| attestation is more secure.
|
| The whole point of 2FA was to have two devices that you
| own. Now the bank is forcing your login and 2FA to be on
| the same device. Which is the easiest device to steal.
|
| What about SMS is somehow worse than that?
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| It's fairly easy to get control of anyone's phone number
| without interacting with them in any form. Just some
| social engineering at the kiosk in the mall.
|
| It is extremely common for people's phone numbers to be
| stolen (even if temporarily), and then their bank
| accounts drained.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Uh, banks still provide separate tokens and one time pad
| cards last I've heard.
|
| If yours doesn't, pick one that does.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The larger point here isn't whether they do, but that
| _they 'd rather not_. They _want_ you to rely on their
| app, and have been pushing people to it for years now
| (some more intensely than others).
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Every org doesn't provide that choice. If your child's
| activities class only communicates via an app and that is
| the only option in a given radius, rejecting that will
| mean you child doesn't get to do their activity. There
| are other examples that are more way more serious and
| make avoiding installing apps infeasible.
| nxor wrote:
| > clear example
|
| > several countries
|
| Doesn't name a single one
|
| ...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| South Korea is, the go-to example I've seen brought up on
| on HN many times over the years. AFAIR, they used to
| legally mandate ActiveX controls to access banking and
| government portals, and that practice continues to date
| even though the legal mandate was dropped. From what I
| read, there's still a set of applications that are
| commonly required to access banking and tax filing
| services, that purport to provide a degree of remote
| attestation and "security" (firewalls, detection of
| keyloggers and screen capture), and to access digital
| certificates.
|
| Brazil is another example - ironically, the software
| suite that's commonly required for banking is named after
| the capital of the country I live in :).
|
| Some quick searching now also flags Slovenia and Serbia
| as places where some banks require custom desktop (or
| even Windows-specific) software to access banking
| services.
| kube-system wrote:
| But, it doesn't. The browser is unsupported for many of the
| above-mentioned applications.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Can I get an example of a single one that can't be found
| on the web?
| kube-system wrote:
| Netflix? Telegram's push 2FA? Any mobile wallet
| application? The vast majority of dating apps? Any of the
| app-only social networks? Basically all keyless entry
| applications?
| jayd16 wrote:
| All functionality found on the web.
| kube-system wrote:
| Have you tried?
|
| * Netflix does not load in a mobile browser, it directs
| you to download their app.
|
| * web.telegram.org sends a 2FA push notification to their
| app
|
| * Apple wallet/ Android wallet do not have web apps
|
| * Popular dating apps, e.g. Hinge do not have web apps
|
| * Some social network apps, e.g. BeReal do not have web
| apps. Many others have reduced features.
|
| * I have never seen a keyless entry app that supports the
| web, at least not from a mainstream manufacturer.
|
| Can _you_ name a single browser app that can do NFC
| payments in the US?
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Firefox supports Netflix web app. It prompts you to
| install the Widevine plugin.
| kuhsaft wrote:
| Being a web app doesn't mean shit. We already have DRM
| encrypted web content where the consuming device requires
| some attestation to decode. I.e. Widevine.
| t_mann wrote:
| They're working hard on shutting that down as well with
| Passkeys. It's only a matter of time until the only way to
| log in will be through de-facto proprietary apps.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| This is why we need laws and regulation. And the most
| important thing we need is not governments forcing Android to
| be open, but laws requiring governments to _not_ force their
| citizens to use locked down hardware.
|
| My government, Denmark, is one of the most digitized
| societies in the world. While the government has allocated
| money to a committee to investigate how the country can
| become less dependent on American big tech corporations, at
| the same time they are planning on launching a _mandatory_
| age verification solution in 2026 where the only possibly
| anonymous way of verifying your age to access e.g. social
| media will be through a smartphone app running on either
| Google Android or Apple iOS. These nincompoops do not realize
| that this move will effectively put every open source
| alternative at a permanent and severe disadvantage, thus
| handing Apple and Google, which are already duopolies in the
| smartphone market, a huge moat that will lock out all future
| competitors form entering the market.
|
| I have written to the relevant government agencies, and while
| they are nice enough to actually answer questions, their
| answers reveal that they act as if they are a commercial
| business and not a government agency that is supposed to act
| in the interest of the people and preserve their freedom.
| They argue that they are releasing a solution that will work
| for the vast majority of platforms and that they are
| continuously monitoring the market to assess whether they
| need to add support for other platforms. This is a cost-
| cutting measure which is maybe okay for a commercial entity
| targeting a specific market demographic, but it is an absurd
| way for a government to think.
|
| Before the upcoming age verification we already had a
| national digital identity solution, MitID, which also comes
| as an app running on Android and iOS, and which is locked
| down to require strong integrity using Google Play Integrity.
| But at least here they also offer hardware tokens so people
| can use their digital identity without owning a smartphone
| and running an open source OS like Linux on their desktops.
| But with age verification this is apparently over, all the
| while the government is lying about actually making an effort
| to free us from American big tech - they are instead
| basically forcing us to be their customers now.
| graemep wrote:
| I think this is true for other European governments. The UK
| is has introduced age verification (although not mandated
| an app) and is pushing for digital ID. If digital ID meets
| too much pushback plan B is a boiled frog approach by
| introducing it for children first (the legislation for that
| is in its final stages).
|
| Governments say they want sovereignty but not if they have
| to pay anything for it. They also like the fact that
| forcing everyone to do everything through a few big
| businesses makes surveillance and censorship easy. No need
| to pass laws, just do deals with a few companies.
| Governments are all about central control, and its more
| important to them than what they see as obsolete nonsense
| about sovereignty.
| upboundspiral wrote:
| Your post made me contemplate how other entities want to be
| able to attest themselves (in your case the government
| wants to be able to verify the identity of its citizens).
| Moral and legal arguments aside, the way they are going
| about it is a bit sloppy in that they are banking their
| sovereignty on a third party instead of taking the reins
| themselves.
|
| Instead of mandating google/apple signed applications, they
| could instead implement some specification for a secure
| enclave (or whatever fits their needs - I doubt they need
| control over the entire OS meaning there is plenty of space
| for pushback for people that want to retain their rights
| and freedoms for their devices). If you add some sort of
| certification based on an open standard that would allow
| any manufacturer interested in the market to be verified
| that the "attestation" for specific apps or secrets works,
| then it would no longer enshrine the current winners
| (apple/google) and instead allow for a healthier market.
|
| This would only be a good thing because it places power
| with the government and not a third party (something surely
| the government would prefer), and allows things to be more
| in the open.
|
| And in an ideal world the specific locked down portion
| would not need to be active or interfere with the rest of
| the operating system to some extent, so people would not be
| reliant on the manufacturers for their applications and
| would have the freedom of installing whatever they want and
| using the rest of their device however they wish.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| I strongly agree, this is very possible and would be what
| a competent government should do. It would also ensure
| that they had a fallback that was guaranteed to work if a
| certain authoritarian ruler decided to suddenly use our
| reliance on Google and Apple for critical infrastructure
| as a weapon to put pressure on us, say if he wanted
| control of a piece of land.
|
| It would also open up for some interesting and innovative
| competition in personal hardware security devices.
| 1gn15 wrote:
| Bank apps: Use an ATM, or a second phone. Enterprise apps:
| Use a second phone, preferably paid for by work. Government
| apps: Use a second phone, or refuse to use it (since there's
| likely elderly whom are not on board yet). Copyrighted media:
| Piracy.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Which is exactly my point: once you apply these
| workarounds, you don't need a smartphone anymore.
|
| Also: both banks and governments are pushing for 2FA with a
| mobile device being the primary, and in some cases the
| only, accepted second factor source.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| "just use a second phone" cannot be the answer because 99%
| of people will just scoff at that. Instead of buying a
| second phone, why not just buy one that works?
|
| And that's to say nothing of the environmental impact.
| pjerem wrote:
| > "just use a second phone" cannot be the answer because
| 99% of people will just scoff at that.
|
| Here we are talking about installing PostmarketOS/Linux
| on a smartphone. The next milestone is not to get
| everyone on it. First we need a base of early adopters
| that are willing to use it despite the drawbacks. The
| more user those alternatives will get, the more they will
| be developed, the better it will get.
|
| Sure, for the next years, it will be way behind Android
| or iOS in terms of ease of use, but that's the price to
| pay to get back control on the device you own that is
| probably the main computer you use everyday.
|
| For me that's not worse than using Linux in the early
| 2000s, and like Linux in the early 2000s, it may even be
| _fun_ to be an early adopter of Linux on the smartphone.
|
| Now we don't need to migrate everyone to PostmarketOS, we
| _just_ need an alternative OS for at least the ones who
| are willing to play with it.
| fsflover wrote:
| Why postmarketOS and not Mobian?
| pjerem wrote:
| idk, I was just giving a name for "Linux but not Android
| on a smartphone".
| fsflover wrote:
| It's called GNU/Linux.
| stackghost wrote:
| >It's called GNU/Linux.
|
| The overwhelming majority of users call it "Linux" and
| don't care what the operating system's pronouns are.
|
| Many Linux systems are running today without GNU
| coreutils or userland.
|
| It's time to stop posting this flame bait.
| fsflover wrote:
| This isn't a flame bait. GNU is exactly what's different
| between GNU/Linux and Android. So say it when it's the
| point.
| pqtyw wrote:
| > it. First we need a base of early adopters that are
| willing to use it despite the drawbacks.
|
| That didn't work that well for Linux, though. It's still
| a very niche OS even on desktop.
| imnes wrote:
| https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| What you're saying already existed. Linux on a smartphone
| was called Android. It ended up where it is today. If you
| were to somehow make _another_ Linux on a smartphone
| competitor, it too would end up where Android is today,
| for the same reasons.
| babel_ wrote:
| It might actually be a better environmental decision, if
| instead of buying a _new_ second phone, it is instead
| about keeping an existing phone in use and not adding to
| the burning heaps of e-waste. Given the rising popularity
| of refurbished phones, not to mention the lower costs, it
| might actually be the opposite of what you claim, at
| least on those grounds.
|
| And for the rest, well, "just works" for what? With a
| little time and effort, it may even get to the case of
| the "just works" part is a siloed unit like a SIM card
| that is just installed to the device, making it opt-in
| and user owned...
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > "just use a second phone" cannot be the answer
|
| It is the best answer at the moment. You can keep an
| absolute basic phone with all the banking and such apps
| loaded and nothing else. You treat it like an appliance.
| Your daily driver will be separate and can be running
| PostmarketOS or LineageOS etc.
|
| There are several benefits off the top of my head:
|
| 1. Since you only install banking/govt type apps on your
| "important" phone, it stays more secure vs. putting your
| random game app along with the banking app on the same
| phone.
|
| 2. When you upgrade your daily driver, you don't need to
| deal with tons of re-auth steps for banking/govt apps.
|
| 3. Your daily driver can be customized to the nth degree
| because the pesky banking app won't be on it to refuse
| login because, say, you turned on developer options or
| rooted the phone.
|
| 4. You can even leave the basic phone at home for extra
| safety, if you wish, without affecting your daily driver.
|
| 5. You can root your daily driver and put as much
| adblocking setup as you want to boost your privacy. Your
| basic phone won't have enough activity outside
| banking/govt. to build much of a profile.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| There's just one problem: increasingly, everything that
| makes a phone a "daily driver" is the thing that can only
| work on the "important" phone. Banking/finance,
| government services, commerce, work, communications
| (thanks a lot E2EE), and DRM-ed entertainment - all the
| major players here are locking their software down and
| relying on remote attestation to ensure their locks stay
| shut.
|
| With this being the trend, you're already more likely to
| leave what you called "daily driver" phone home, and only
| take the "important" one with you.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Still waiting for someone to make a tiny token sized
| phone. Unfortunately the smallest around, Unihertz Atom,
| is both outdated and too low resolution for some apps to
| work.
| jofla_net wrote:
| > "just use a second phone" cannot be the answer
|
| Not That i want to kick the can down the road, but the
| ultimate solution (barring actually fighting for our
| privileges over the systems we buy) is to have that
| second phone, and control it either via vnc, or via a kvm
| which presents vnc. I know, its really absurd, complexity
| wise, what with tunneling and figuring out where to house
| said setup. However, the latter is ultimately transparent
| to the phone, outside of allowing a second monitor/hid to
| be connected to it. You could, given a VNC client then go
| ahead and control it via laptop or another phone.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's not a solution because VNC is already nerfed and
| will be the first thing to go, if people try to embrace
| the idea.
|
| Providers of all the service types aren't driving this
| because they believe locked down phones are a Good Thing.
| They're driving this because _they explicitly don 't want
| you to do the very things you'd want to do with your VNC
| idea_.
| vdfs wrote:
| For bank apps, you can just use their website
| Macha wrote:
| As for the atm: to use the ATM I need a bank card, to use
| the bank card I need a PIN. What do you think all the local
| banks have chosen as their secure channel for communicating
| that pin to users in the last few years?
| state_less wrote:
| Back in '99 Linux didn't run Excel/Word/Powerpoint or most
| games, but I ran it anyway. What others call showstoppers are
| for me inconveniences.
|
| I have a motorolla edge 2024 that I'll load whatever open
| source phone OS will work well enough to place calls and
| browse the web. I'll keep another phone for the rare times
| some corporate/government overlord requires it. Many folks
| who refuse to use smartphones, similarly own a smartphone
| they rarely use for systems that require them.
|
| My recommendation is to put as little time and energy into
| closed, locked down platforms as you can. Feel free to
| complain, but don't forget you can make choices.
| smaudet wrote:
| > Feel free to complain, but don't forget you can make
| choices.
|
| Except, this not really a choice or a reasonable work
| around.
|
| Phones are still somewhat expensive, not to mention a time-
| sink to maintain. Try explaining to your parents or even
| close relatives that they need to abandon the phone they
| either spent $$$($) on our spend a $$ monthly on that they
| should really buy another $$$($) phone and use their
| "official" device like a company card.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Technology has a ratchet effect at scale - as a solution
| becomes widely adopted, it switches from being a
| convenience to being a necessity, because people start
| building more stuff on top of it. It's as true of to-the-
| minute accurate clocks as it is of smartphone banking.
|
| You can still run a version of Word from 2004. It's fine,
| if all you need is to write some thoughts down for
| yourself. But the moment you need to collaborate with other
| people via a Word document, you'll find it difficult
| without the modern version with all its user-hostile
| aspects - and more importantly, other people will find
| _you_ difficult to work with.
|
| Same applies to other software, web and smartphones, and to
| everything else in life - the further you deviate from the
| mainstream, the costlier it is _for you_. Deviate too much,
| and you just become a social outcast.
| micahdeath wrote:
| Social Outcast here... It's pretty good.
| imcritic wrote:
| Now go find someone who cares. I am being mean here as an
| illustration of the reaction you would honestly get from
| not social outcasts
| bluGill wrote:
| Which is why we need to ban together. Libreoffice isn't
| dominate, but it has enough market share that it can't be
| completely ignored. Also if you are using it you are not
| alone - you are an annoying deviation, but there are
| enough of you that many cannot ignore you. The more
| people who also use libreoffice the more power we have.
| If we can get to just 5% market share we cannot be
| ignored. (it need not be libreoffice, there are other
| choices that support that file format well enough which
| is what we care about.)
| Arainach wrote:
| >but it has enough market share that it can't be
| completely ignored.
|
| This is the Hacker News bubble in action. Most of the
| world, most of America, most of China, India, etc.
| haven't even _heard_ of it. They ignore it and they
| thrive. Maybe you need to pay attention if you 're
| dealing with certain European governments these days -
| I'm not sure because I completely ignore it and haven't
| paid attention since there was just OpenOffice and
| LibreOffice didn't even exist yet.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Source on most of China/India not having heard of
| libreoffice?
| tredre3 wrote:
| Kingsoft recently announced that WPS Office has 620M MAU
| users, the bulk of which is in China. Microsoft has even
| more Office users in China
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-microsoft-office-
| rival...
|
| So if China has heard of LibreOffice, they clearly didn't
| like what they've heard...
| spookie wrote:
| It's the product of a government owned company... in
| China. What do you expect?
|
| Moreover, what you write is monitored, and you may loose
| documents based on what you write [1].
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-frozen-document-in-
| china-unle...
| tredre3 wrote:
| LibreOffice's best guess is that they had 200M MAUs in
| 2019.
|
| I personally find that hard to believe and they don't
| explain their methodology to arrive at that number
| (presumably they looked at the downloads and picked a
| number of users based on feelings).
|
| But, if that number is true, then I suppose you're not
| only right, but LibreOffice is already near 5% market
| share.
| noosphr wrote:
| Word from 2004 works better than the office 365 version.
|
| I've used it in the last three years to automate document
| generation in an enterprise because the latest versions
| of word:
|
| 1). Randomly break during automatic updates you can't
| really turn off.
|
| 2). Automatically upload everything to the cloud even
| when you tell them no.
|
| This isn't the 90s when closed software was better. We
| are firmly in the enshitification stage of windows and
| office. Open source is better and is the only sane choice
| for enterprise.
|
| Those are not words I thought I'd ever write in 2005 or
| 2015, but here we are.
| zkmon wrote:
| And we must let someone or some crowd dictate what our
| basic needs are. That crowd is part of our world. If we
| stick to our bows and arrows they come with canons and
| horses. Argh!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That worked fine before agricultural revolution. Since
| then, if you stick to your bows and arrows, you get
| sidelined and lose access to benefits of society and
| civilization.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > Feel free to complain, but don't forget you can make
| choices.
|
| Of course. I can make a choice. When the choice is between
| being able to login to secure services with my SIM embedded
| e-signature, use mobile banking and conduct official
| business and not being able to do any of these things,
| making choices are easy.
|
| Running Linux on desktop is easy mode when compared to
| phones, and yes, I started using Linux on desktop in 1999
| too with SuSE 6.0. Phones are way more interconnected and
| central to our lives now when compared to a general purpose
| computer running your $FAVORITE_OS.
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| What about when your smartphone is required to verify
| your identity so you can work / earn a paycheck? What
| about when it's required in order for you to engage in
| commerce?
|
| We're headed down a very slippery slope and the
| destination is a very dystopian reality where those in
| power can prevent someone from participating in society
| on a whim. I believe the destination has previously been
| described as the beast system or New World Order.
|
| We are all definitely going to have to make a choice.
| That much is certain.
| bayindirh wrote:
| We're already there. Attestation is not in your phone,
| but in your ID card. European passports and ID cards
| carry biometric data of your face, so you can be
| computationally verified.
|
| I'm aware of this slippery slope for a very long time,
| esp. with AI (check my comments if you prefer). On the
| other hand, I believe that we need to choose our battles
| wisely.
|
| We believe that technology is the cause of these things,
| it's not. Remember: Necessity is the
| mother of invention.
|
| The governments believe that this is the "necessity", so
| the technologies are developed and deployed. We need to
| change the beliefs, not the technology.
|
| The same dystopian digital ID allows me to verify my
| identity to my bank while I'm having my breakfast saving
| everyone time. That e-sig allows me to have a practical
| PKI based security in my phone for sensitive things.
|
| Nothing prevents these things from turning against me,
| except the ideas and beliefs of the people managing these
| things.
|
| We need to change minds. Not the technology.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > We need to change minds. Not the technology.
|
| I totally agree that changing the hivemind's mind is the
| only way to preserve these freedoms.
|
| Is anyone making any progress on this? Beyond the FSF,
| noyb, and hn lurkers?
| spookie wrote:
| I feel better having a physical token like an ID than it
| being on my phone, however.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Sure, but the bank feels better about forcing you to
| interact with their app on a daily basis, because this
| gives them a direct upsell channel for their financial
| services. They don't actually _want_ you to us a physical
| token. Security is only an excuse.
| spookie wrote:
| Yup, right on target.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _What about when your smartphone is required to verify
| your identity so you can work / earn a paycheck? What
| about when it's required in order for you to engage in
| commerce?_
|
| In some cases, it already is.
|
| We're already far on the path you described, and there is
| no choice to make on it, not for individuals. To stop
| this, we need to somehow make these technologies
| _socially_ unacceptable. We need to walk back on
| _cybersecurity_ quite a bit, and it starts with
| population-wide understanding that there is such thing as
| _too much security_ , especially when the questions of
| _who is being secured_ and _who is the threat_ remain
| conveniently unanswered.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Well put. Most SWEs on this very site probably require a
| smartphone for id verification for work. Acting like that
| is a personal choice is not useful
| anjel wrote:
| The US is not nearly as far down that path as is, for
| example, China. But two forces are at play here: 1. Near-
| term concern: F-Droid is getting too popular for Google's
| comfort and Android revenue ambitions 2. Longer term
| goal: Control. Much of Chinas's social credit scoring is
| mediated by their phones. Not an issue yet here in the US
| but assuredly, if not explicitly on the current's
| government's list of aspirations. A completely managed
| device with no freedoms (like f-Droid et al,) is
| antithetical to a more restricted (managed) device.
| state_less wrote:
| I booted Slackware from a pile of floppies back then. I
| thought the Germans had a pretty good offering with SuSE
| at the time.
|
| Look I get it, even back then, most folks felt Windows
| was the obvious choice (and still do) for their jobs and
| so on. Sometimes you have to make do with with the
| unappealing choice in front of you.
|
| For a little more context, my cracked screen iPhone can
| still do banking or whatever, but I chose not to pony up
| $800-$1200 for a new iPhone and bought the cheaper $350
| Motorolla. It works for me and I think I'm not entirely
| alone. There are probably some cracked phones, some
| handme down phones that folks could use for those
| situations where you really need to use the closed
| platform, but otherwise are free to use something more
| open.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Slackware always brings out the inner teen in me. I feel
| giddy like in the old days. I need to install and
| maintain it somewhere some time, just for kicks.
|
| I support FOSS wholeheartedly, and believe that it's
| possible to have a device which is completely Free (not
| Open but, Free) from hardware design to firmware and
| software.
|
| On the other hand, there are some nasty realities which
| bring hard questions.
|
| For example, radios. Radio firmware is something nasty.
| Give people freedom and you can't believe what you can do
| with it (Flipper Zero is revolutionary, but even that's a
| tongue in cheek device). Muck with your airspace and you
| create a lot of problems. The problem is not technology,
| but physics. So, unless you prevent things from
| happening, you can't keep that airspace fair to
| everybody.
|
| Similar problems are present in pipelines where you need
| to carry information in a trusted way. In some cases open
| technology can guarantee this upto a certain point. To
| cross that point, you need to give your back to hardware.
| I don't believe there are many hardware security devices
| with open firmware.
|
| I use MacBooks and iPhones mostly because of the hardware
| they bring in to the table. I got in these ecosystems
| knowing what I'm buying into, but I have my personal
| fleet of Linux desktops and servers, and all the things I
| develop and publish are Free Software.
|
| I also use Apple devices because I don't want to manage
| another server esp. in my pocket (because I also manage
| _lots_ of servers at work, so I want some piece of mind),
| yet using these devices doesn 't change my mind into not
| supporting Free Software.
|
| At the end, as I commented down there the problem is not
| the technology itself, but the mindset behind these. We
| need to change the minds and requirements. The technical
| changes will follow.
| state_less wrote:
| For radios, the general idea of building radios to a spec
| and having them certified to be sold in country works
| pretty well most of the time. It might be nice to have a
| phone with plenty of flexibility on the radio, but I
| think most folks would be happy just to connect and send
| work-a-day packets OTA unencumbered by additional
| restrictions.
|
| It seems like a hardware security device could act
| similarly to the radio in that the general OS can ask for
| service (e.g. a signature), but not have access to the
| internals of the MCU. I don't see why these systems need
| to be opaque either, in fact it'd be nice to know what is
| running on the security enclave or LTE radio, even if
| folks aren't generally meant to access/modify the
| internals.
|
| It'll be interesting to see how things develop. In my
| case, I am looking for more experimentation with the
| smartphone form factor. I'd like to see better options in
| the market.
| upboundspiral wrote:
| I don't think open source and not allowing people to
| break laws with impunity are at odds. Because there are
| laws governing airwaves. I think there would need to be
| some sort of legal entity (foundation?) that would need
| to steward open firmware + enable it to be locked down so
| regulations can be followed, but I don't think the two
| are somehow irreconcilable. The first example that comes
| to mind is how all the linuxes work with "secure boot"
| (all of its ridiculousness aside). I think it would be a
| more effort than that but I truly believe that it is
| possible to have trust and openness and following
| regulation. The idea that only a proprietary company can
| follow the law and comply with regulations is in my
| opinion strictly false.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's a big part of the problem: enforcement doesn't
| scale. It's cheaper to restrict people by legal and
| technological means, than to let them use judgement and
| prosecute occasional abusers.
| jama211 wrote:
| It's fairly unappealing to carry around two devices also.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| When that security model is based around SIM swappable
| hardware, this sounds at least questionable. Mobile
| security seems like a contradiction in itself. I would
| say this is also why Google is so eager to also lock down
| the last degree of freedom. So the joke is on you when
| you use it for online banking
| bayindirh wrote:
| Your comment makes a lot of assumptions, and all of them
| are wrong.
| dangus wrote:
| Bingo, this right here. Linux desktop wasn't a daily driver
| until one day it was.
|
| Although the only problem with this strategy is that Linux
| got that way because of a lot of private companies that
| actually wanted that. Valve didn't want to be locked in
| with Microsoft. Many of Microsoft's direct competitors also
| don't want to be locked in. IBM famously switched to Mac,
| Google has been using Mac and Linux workstations for a long
| time as well.
|
| Also, web technologies like Electron made porting
| applications to small user bases Linux easier. If that
| never happened, I wouldn't be able to use my commercial
| apps on Linux. This concept might be a little more of a
| challenge for the mobile app ecosystem, which is a mix of
| native wrappers like react native and native apps, and
| there is a high amount of dependency on native APIs for the
| extra sensors and hardware features phones have the laptops
| and desktops don't have.
|
| E.g., For Linux on mobile to work react native can't be an
| incomplete implementation like the status quo.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's a transient state. Food for thought: how much of
| Linux being a daily driver depends on you _having a
| modern Android or iOS smartphone_?
|
| If you need a locked down phone that passes remote
| attestation to authenticate yourself to a remote service,
| then whatever you use to access the service UI doesn't
| really matter: the only device that's _necessary_ to have
| to use the service is the one you don 't fully control,
| and which gets to control _your_ patterns of use.
|
| An intuition pump I like: imagine you want to put a
| widget on your desktop that always shows you the current
| balance of your bank account. You want it to just work
| ~forever after initial authentication (or at least a
| couple weeks between any reauth), and otherwise not
| require any manual interaction. See how hard it is (if
| it's even possible), and you'll know how badly you're
| being disempowered already.
| mistercheph wrote:
| Bitcoin :D
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| All fun and games until you want to exchange it to
| traditional fiat - at which point regular banking
| suddenly feels like FSF heaven in comparison :).
| dangus wrote:
| Interesting thought. I'd say a low to medium amount but
| you're making a good point here.
|
| Most services offer simple SMS two factor, and then if
| they offer an upgrade to Authenticator or passkey then I
| have no iOS/Android dependency.
|
| My bank's website works almost the same as the phone app,
| I think the only difference is the lack of mobile check
| deposit (but nobody's writing checks anymore).
|
| Some services like Venmo are most popular on apps but
| still have a website.
|
| My remaining hooks are:
|
| - iCloud shared photo libraries with my family. I can use
| those on iCloud.com but it's a bit more of a pain. My
| paid iCloud storage has been migrated to more open
| alternatives.
|
| - AirTags and Find My. There just isn't a competitor
| that's anywhere near as good. It's thankfully not a very
| necessary product.
|
| - Apple Watch. (AirPods actually work great on Linux,
| btw, even if they are missing some functionality)
|
| - Apple Home. I could migrate this to Home Assistant.
|
| - Apple Wallet. This is mostly convenience. Most things
| that use it have some kind of alternative, like printed
| boarding passes. But there's...
|
| - Ticketmaster. The mobile website tells me I must
| download the app or add to mobile wallet. Barcodes are
| dynamic and screenshots don't work. I think the only
| alternative is to go to the box office before the event
| which can be very annoying.
| jama211 wrote:
| Personally I wouldn't want to have an account with any
| bank that allowed permanently open api's - an attacker
| gets one auth and then can see my balance forever? No
| thanks.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| And that would give the attacker exactly what?
|
| Yes, I can come up with scenarios where this gives an
| attacker exactly what they need to time some scam (or
| mugging) perfectly. I can just as easily come up with
| scenarios where the same attacker uses already available
| (or inferrable) information for the same purpose.
|
| Look, many banks are perfectly fine with letting you opt
| into showing the account balance on their app before log-
| in step[0]. So why not let someone opt-in to direct
| access to that information? Or even opt-in to allow the
| app to expose this information _somehow_. Even in a body
| of a goddamn notification[1] (not disabling screenshots
| is too much to ask, I know, surely everyone will get
| hacked if this is enabled).
|
| _Paranoid mentality about cybersec is a big part of the
| problem_ - in itself, but also because it legitimizes the
| excuses app vendors provide to force users into their
| monetization funnels.
|
| --
|
| [0] - It's not a very useful feature, since you still
| need to open the app - and at that point, it's faster to
| log in via PIN or biometrics than to "swipe down to
| reveal account balance" or whatever bullshit interaction
| they gate access through in lieu of just showing the damn
| thing.
|
| [1] - The increasingly common pattern of "let's notify
| user that something happened, but do not say what
| happened in the body of the notification" is getting
| infuriating. It's another way to force users to "engage"
| with the app, and it happens to also deny one of the few
| remaining ways of getting useful data from the app for
| purposes of end-user automation.
| bhewes wrote:
| My daily driver is Rocky 10, but my control plane is a
| Pixel 6 on the ATT network but I control almost nothing
| on that layer. It is why I have been moving most of my
| core workloads off SaaS and back to local.
| yupyupyups wrote:
| Lots of private companies do not want to be forced to pay
| Apple and Google a hefty chunk of their earnings either.
| That's what drove Epic Games and Spotify to fight Apple.
| zouhair wrote:
| You can't buy a new less than $400 that can be google free.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > I'll keep another phone for the rare times some
| corporate/government overlord requires it.
|
| Not having to do that is the whole point (especially as
| those are not rare to most of us).
|
| This reminds me of a Woz interview in the early days of the
| iphone, and his solution to it not supporting multitask was
| also to run two phones.
| Krasnol wrote:
| How about you don't forget about the majority of users out
| there who are unable to do the techy thing to circumvent
| technical issues?
|
| It is a constant trope in technical forums.
|
| We are a minority. Solutions which might be
| "inconveniences" for you, might be unsolvable issues for
| the rest of the planet.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I have a lot of use cases for general purpose computers. If
| I am operating an event, "inconveniences" are literal
| showstoppers. When I'm running sound at a performance,
| switching audio inputs needs to work instantly and with
| essentially perfect reliability.
|
| Another use case which Linux has a lot of trouble with is
| operating as a replacement for a pen-and-paper notepad.
| When I set a computer down for a day, I should be able to
| turn it on instantly and see the notes that I wrote 3 weeks
| ago. There are a variety of reasons this doesn't work on
| Linux. You say "that's an inconvenience" but there are
| circumstances in which being able to read those notes
| without needing to wait 30 minutes for the laptop to get
| enough charge and boot up could be a matter of life or
| death.
|
| If these kinds of issues are mere inconveniences, that
| means the computer is a toy rather than a tool.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| I'm fine with using bank/financial services/media via the
| web. Other stuff can be emulated.
|
| Hopefully I'll never have to buy another closed phone.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| This is only until the only 2FA solutions that the bank
| requires you to use to log in and authorize transactions
| only come as smartphone apps.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| to your point, not exactly a one-to-one, but several
| discount airlines (e.g., RyanAir, PLAY, Allegiant,
| Frontier, Spirit, Wizz, Flair, AirAsia) already require
| an app to check in for a flight, or pay a fee. No app (or
| the horrors, no mobile), it cannot be done on a regular
| computer, must go to a ticket counter and pay a fee.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| This isn't a problem, these apps will probably run fine
| under emulators. It's only wildvine/play protect stuff
| that barfs.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| They'll run fine until they don't, because they'll hook
| up to remote attestation "for sekhurity" like more
| important apps do. Not to mention, those apps' vendors
| don't particularly want you to run their apps in
| emulators either - there's no use case for this they
| consider not harmful to their business.
| Chipshuffle wrote:
| I wonder, if there were an open platform to exist that people
| use increasingly, maybe that would be incentive enough for at
| least one bank/financial app to permit that platform just to
| get a competitive advantage.
|
| In the meantime probably the best that can be done is having
| a regular phone and a banking phone.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Doubtful - the costs of supporting it far outweighs any
| gain they'd have. In case of banks, the costs of supporting
| aren't just about developing software for an additional
| platform, but also insurance premiums and managing fallout
| of hacks (which always eventually happen) - both of which
| would go _way_ up, as the company would be _voluntarily_
| supporting endpoint decides that are less secure than
| "industry standard" minimum.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| Maybe the answer is to put whatever the banks etc need on
| something like a smartwatch. Smartwatch + phone is better
| than two phones IMHO and they're so tedious to use/install
| anything on that it reduces the attack surface for hackers
| etc. Tap to pay or digital signatures or identity, passkeys
| etc via a smartwatch interaction seems like a good use
| case. Sort of a souped up yubikey. I don't know how good
| biometrics is on watches nowadays but my Pixel phone has
| some sort of camera behind the screen to read fingerprints
| so I can't imagine its impossible. Even adding a capacitive
| pad on a band seems plausible. Who knows, I don't feel like
| biometrics have been a real focus of design in the
| smartwatches I've used.
|
| Personally, I have found smartwatches fairly useless (I do
| enjoy the activity tracking and notifications but that's
| not much really) so freeing my phone from bullshit by
| moving some functions to a watch could increase the
| value/utility of a some sort of smartwatch. Ultimately, it
| doesn't need to be that "smart" even.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Still, the problem is that if you go this way, you'd have
| to put almost all useful functionality of a modern phone
| on a smartwatch, at which point you could just ditch the
| phone.
|
| It's not just one tiny use case that's pushing us down
| the road of increasingly locked down devices. It's _most_
| use cases - because no matter the service, it 's more
| profitable for the provider to control what you can and
| cannot do.
| BeetleB wrote:
| This.
|
| Most of us do not want to carry two phones around. The
| reality is that there is strong utility for those non-open
| apps and they will never be replaced by open ones.
|
| In some parts of the world, WhatsApp is as necessary as the
| phone itself. Official business is conducted via it.
| kace91 wrote:
| Communication is the main issue - If you've got
| whatsapp/telegram/whatever,and a couple others you can
| handle your own life differently without human interaction
| being affected.
|
| The rest is a personal choice, I'm happy to have a bit
| higher friction to check my bank's balance for example.
| Maps is an issue but it can be overcome.
| throwaway902984 wrote:
| Accessibility is a big issue. The accessibility some of
| the apps like banking provide are compelling. - not
| totally unlike the difference between stairs and a ramp.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I 'm happy to have a bit higher friction to check my
| bank's balance for example._
|
| I find this to actually be a great litmus test for the
| overall problem. Bank account balance is a basic piece of
| information that's about me, and that I need to keep
| track of to effectively live in our modern times. I
| _should_ be able to access that information non-
| interactively at any time. But I can 't.
|
| Ask many banks, you'll get as many reasons for why they
| can't just allow me to cURL this number off an endpoint
| with some pre-shared credentials. Most of those reasons
| are bogus[0]. Now, it's not hard to identify several
| points where I could observe that information in-flight.
| There's an API that powers the app. The app itself has UI
| that could be queried or scrapped; some apps will even
| communicate this data to other apps when requested.
|
| _But good luck getting access to any of that non-
| interactively_.
|
| This is what all those technologies add up to. The bank
| says I can't have this information unless my eyeballs are
| physically looking at the screen displaying it - and the
| whole tech stack conspires to make sure I can't get it
| otherwise.
|
| It's a trivial and non-critical need, but it's also
| exemplifying the basic user freedoms being denied to us:
| the ability to freely process information on my own
| device.
|
| EDIT: Accessibility tools are often the only remaining
| workaround here, because those are uniquely hard for
| services to close. And as expected, accessibility became
| its special privilege category on modern devices, and is
| increasingly heavily scrutinized and limited by device
| vendors.
|
| --
|
| [0] - They're usually some kind of security or stability
| point, that's just a fig leaf to cover the actual reason:
| this is the way they can force you to interact with their
| app or website daily, creating an extremely valuable
| marketing channel for their financial products.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _It 's a trivial and non-critical need, but it's also
| exemplifying the basic user freedoms being denied to us:
| the ability to freely process information on my own
| device._
|
| I hate to risk sounding like I'm beating a dead horse,
| but when I hear this I flash back to _Attack Surface_ by
| Cory Doctorow. I interpreted his message in that book as
| something approximately like "you can't out-tech the bad
| guys", where "bad guys" can mean government surveillance
| agencies (probably more what he had in mind) OR "big
| corporations trying to control your life" (this may be me
| extrapolating). But even if I'm over-generalizing a bit,
| I think the point still stands.
|
| "We" (open source advocates / hackers / hobbyists /
| makers / whatever) can't win on just tech alone. We have
| to use the legislative process, political pressure,
| social pressure, whatever, to achieve our goals. And so
| we should use our superior knowledge of technology to
| support doing that. So don't just think "how can I hack
| my phone to use an open source OS" but think "How can I
| help use technology to influence the outcome of the next
| election, and elect candidates who really represent the
| things I care about?" or "How can I help use technology
| to stir up enough activists making enough noise to
| persuade my bank to let me access my account using a non-
| proprietary OS", etc.
|
| Now I'm not saying any of this is easy. By no means. Just
| suggesting that we need to at least approach things with
| that mindset in view to some extent.
| kace91 wrote:
| I see your point, but I disagree that you need direct
| involvement in the legal process.
|
| Companies are moved by money, if your tech is popular
| enough companies will dance to your tune.
|
| Say that you get to a point where 90% of desktop users
| are on linux. Is there any doubt that banks, messaging
| platforms and the like would have their own linux apps?
| no matter how many hoops you make them pass through, they
| won't let that piece of the cake go.
|
| The problem is that the current way of doing things will
| never reach those numbers, because we give up on the
| tools that companies use. UX, user research, graphic
| design, marketing and similar roles are pretty absent
| from these communities; I think changing that is the
| mising piece.
| takluyver wrote:
| > we give up on the tools that companies use. UX, user
| research, graphic design, marketing and similar roles are
| pretty absent from these communities
|
| Some of the bigger open source communities, like GNOME,
| do some amount of these things. But I think very few
| people are excited enough about user studies or marketing
| to do them as a hobby, unlike writing code. It's hard to
| see how you could beat Google/Apple/Microsoft at their
| own game like this without a lot of money. Red Hat is
| probably the biggest company that might be interested in
| this, but still about 2 orders of magnitude smaller than
| the giants.
| kace91 wrote:
| You'd be surprised, behance and the like are full of
| people doing case studies for rebuilding popular apps for
| example.
|
| There are hobbyists and people trying to get experience
| eveywhere, but there's a fundamental disconnect between
| communities.
| mindcrime wrote:
| _Companies are moved by money, if your tech is popular
| enough companies will dance to your tune._
|
| I don't disagree, and I guess I'd say that I think that
| is all part of the larger point. Eg, "getting more people
| to use (Linux|BSD|Minix|Mach|Whatever)" is part of the
| larger idea of "social pressure" to convince companies to
| behave in ways that we find desirable. So the question
| then is, as far as I can tell, what more can use techies
| do - leveraging out existing mastery of technology - to
| promote "(Linux|BSD|Minix|Mach|Whatever)" to people who
| don't currently understand the importance of these
| issues?
|
| And I don't mean to claim that "using our tech knowledge"
| is the _only_ kind of activism that matters. Maybe for
| some people it 's just "donate money to the EFF every
| month" or whatever. But to me, that's all still part of
| the same general initiative.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Say that you get to a point where 90% of desktop users
| are on linux. Is there any doubt that banks, messaging
| platforms and the like would have their own linux apps?
| no matter how many hoops you make them pass through, they
| won 't let that piece of the cake go._
|
| Here's the thing: we had that already. It was called
| _Android_.
|
| > _Companies are moved by money, if your tech is popular
| enough companies will dance to your tune._
|
| We're having this discussion precisely because this is
| not true. If your tech is popular enough, companies will
| use their money and influence to subvert it so it serves
| their bidding.
| senko wrote:
| So what. Enough of us do that it just might be feasible.
|
| I've used Linux for a loong time before some business-
| critical software ran on it. I had to have a Windows VM for
| years for netbanking, or before that, dual-boot for gaming.
|
| If we're all too spoiled to give a free alternative a
| chance because it might be slightly inconvenient, we don't
| deserve the free alternative.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Enough of us do that it just might be feasible._
|
| Not nearly enough. Not by three orders of magnitude for
| the market to care.
|
| This isn't the 1990s. Computers are now mainstream.
| Flere-Imsaho wrote:
| I've not managed to read all the comments in this post, so
| apologies if I'm repeating other people, I also have only a
| passing understanding of how Google Play works, but
| couldn't we have:
|
| Linux based phone, running Anbox to support Android apps
| running within containers. Effort would then have to put
| into support Play APIs within Anbox. Not a small amount of
| work, but I compare it to the state of Linux 20 years ago
| and how well Linux is doing today.
| layer8 wrote:
| Google would eventually manage to completely block that.
| For example, have the app be encrypted for download from
| the Play Store for the individual Google-approved device
| key, and the device's firmware will decrypt and run the
| app in a way so that the user can't get hold of the
| decrypted app blob, and hence can't possibly run it in
| any other (non-Google-approved) environment.
|
| The bottom line is, the only way to ensure user freedom
| here is by regulation/legislation.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Yes. This already exists (though usually with Waydroid
| rather than Anbox I think). My Ubuntu Touch phone can run
| Android apps via Waydroid.
|
| The integration isn't perfect (some important things like
| forwarding notifications to the host system are still
| missing) but it's already further along than you might
| have imagined.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| So the last possible community response is to bring back
| "responsive web apps"(tm) in the browser. And make sure a
| privacy first mobile web browser is installed.
| symbogra wrote:
| Too bad browsers also support device attestation.
| viktorcode wrote:
| > Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government
| apps and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...).
| Those are the players that demand excessive control over end-
| user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the problem
| we're discussing.
|
| Those work perfectly via a browser, on any platform where the
| browser can run. As long as a hypothetical open OS has a
| browser capable with bog standard modern capabilities, it
| will be fine
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I tried to log into a banking website on a full desktop
| browser recently, one that I had previously used with a
| password. It literally would not let me login until I
| downloaded their app and set up a passkey. That is now the
| _only_ way for me to access those accounts. Presumably, I
| could call in, though I wouldn't be surprised if the person
| on the phone also asked that I download the app in order to
| verify my identity, and even if it wasn't the case, they
| didn't offer that option when I was trying to login. Many
| bank websites now also require the phone app.
| viktorcode wrote:
| There are banks that do not work via a browser. But no
| one prevents them from doing that. It's their conscious
| choice, not a technology limitation
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| The happened to me with Uphold, precisely yesterday.
|
| It required me to install the application to sign in via
| web browser. There was no way, the web app wouldn't
| bulge.
|
| I did it, checked my $5 dollars balance and deleted the
| app again.
|
| Totally disgusting behaviour.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Remind me again what video quality Netflix gives you when
| streaming to an open browser on an open OS?
| viktorcode wrote:
| You mean Firefox that refuses to support web standards
| for encoded video streams for ideological reasons?
| hueho wrote:
| Wasn't aware of that, can you send a link explaining?
| ryoshoe wrote:
| For a while Netflix didn't support 1080p on browsers
| other than Edge on Windows or Safari on Mac. This has
| changed somewhat but they still reserve their resolution
| content for their "blessed" OS/browser combinations
|
| https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081
| viktorcode wrote:
| It's not just Netflix. It is also FaceTime calls for
| Firefox. This is the reason why Netflix limits Firefox.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Here's the discussion of that:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27432001
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| You're getting downvoted because that's not the point.
|
| You are technically right, we still have access to these
| services via a web browser _today._ It doesn 't mean we'll
| have it forever.
|
| With the advent of AI browsers and AI agents, it's not hard
| to think of a future where LLM chat interfaces and mobile
| apps are the future, and web apps start getting disregarded
| as legacy and eventually, discontinued.
|
| Try ordering some food via mobile application and then
| again via web app. You'll instantly feel the downgrade on
| the web app. Bugs, glitches, slow experience.
|
| The desktop web is already the 2nd-class citizen for modern
| startups.
| subscribed wrote:
| You're saying I can use Revolut in the Firefox on, say,
| Fedora?
|
| People have genuine reasons to stay with the provider /
| platform and usually browser doesn't cover half of their
| use cases.
|
| For example I have to use Revolut because it's one of the
| very few banks that allow me to use Garmin Pay and work
| (reluctantly) on my phone without Google rootkit. Can't
| use, say, Curve because their privacy policy is alarming
| (and I had a very very weird/disappointing interaction with
| their compliance team).
|
| And you've already got a good example with Netflix.
| zouhair wrote:
| This and also phone manufacturers lock us with Google.
| beanjuiceII wrote:
| relative of mine has t1d and they use their phone app to
| monitor and give insulin, also alarm them when they are
| low..trusting outside the reliability of apple and google for
| this type of stuff i imagine would be difficult.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| There are OSS solutions for glucose monitors and even
| insulin pumps, and they exist precisely because commercial
| vendors tend to give at best suboptimal quality even when
| it comes to medical devices. Sure, most pay attention to
| not accidentally kill you, but beyond that, their
| incentives go in opposite direction to your incentives.
|
| It's important to have computing freedoms so that people
| who actually care end-to-end, and don't have financial
| incentives directed against patients' well-being, are able
| to build on top of products on the market, fix the
| enshittification, and improve functionality.
|
| (We also need that to close the loop. It's a common story
| that meh products of today, which improve on bad products
| of yesterday, are just commercializing the fixes developed
| by people fed up with said bad products.)
| marcosdumay wrote:
| IMO, we should be demanding more from the banks and
| governments, not that they keep android open.
|
| We should demand that they support every platform. Or at
| least every platform that adopts some sandboxing model.
| utopiah wrote:
| Yes and to be honest it's not necessarily unjustified BUT it
| should ONLY be done when the parts, hardware, software, or
| both, are not linked to a single proprietary actor.
|
| Need security before doing a $1000 transaction because
| everything so far was $10? Sure, ask for a physical token
| 2FA, NOT a YubiKey implementation.
|
| Obviously though if I was working at Google or Apple and paid
| for the success of my company via incentives, e.g. stock, I
| would fight tooth and nail to let banks know that only MY
| solution is secure.
| SergeAx wrote:
| The web is an open platform, and most, if not all,
| aforementioned applications are happily working on the web.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Web being an open platform doesn't matter in any way, when
| the code runs on proprietary servers.
| t_mann wrote:
| Stupid question: couldn't we work around that with some
| VM/container-style solution? They could probably find ways to
| lock it down with TPM/TEE and similar, but in today's
| landscape it should be possible if you're willing to accept
| the performance and battery cost. And if it does get
| traction, there'll also be more push to keep open
| alternatives viable. Giving in without a fight is the only
| way to ensure you'll lose.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| This is the reason I have given up on thinking of smartphones
| as general purpose computers. I used to root my phone on day
| one, play with custom ROMs, etc...
|
| But then, it became more and more annoying with apps blocking
| root access, features being unavailable to custom ROMs,
| etc... There are workarounds (is Magisk still a thing?), but
| I got tired of them.
|
| So now, I just buy an entry level Samsung, which is well
| supported, runs all the apps I need (browser, financial,
| maps, chat, ...) and takes recognizable pictures. It is just
| a boring tool, like a credit card, I need one because that's
| the world we live in, but the object itself is of no
| importance.
|
| If I want to play with a computer, I have a "real" computer.
| If, at some point, I get interested in smartphones as a
| platform, I will buy one just for this, in the same way that
| I have no intention of using the credit card I buy stuff with
| should I want to play with smartcards.
|
| It has also killed my desire to spend money on a smartphone.
| What's the point of a $1000 device? What's to point of
| upgrading unless forced to by planned obsolescence? Why
| should I pay more than $200 every 5 year or so? They are all
| the same to me. They even all have the same form factor,
| besides overpriced and fragile foldables.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| And yet I can open my bank's website on my Linux desktop,
| using Firefox. The "players" are not all-powerful, and
| defeatism serves no one.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yes, but what do you use as a second factor to authenticate
| and confirm money transfers?
|
| In large parts of the world, the answer is usually "my
| uprooted, remotely attested smartphone". Increasingly, it's
| becoming the _only_ supported method. When that 's the
| case, what you use to load the banking UI doesn't matter
| anymore - the mobile device is the only actual requirement.
| panta wrote:
| that's true only for as long as we allow that to be true.
| Users can live without Spotify (to cite just one
| representative of the mentioned categories), but Spotify
| can't live without users. We could (and should) stop behaving
| as powerless victims.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Good luck convincing anyone of that. We could also live
| without clothes and fancy food and most of modern
| amenities, but we don't, for the same reason.
| EchoReflection wrote:
| I think, even though the ideas aren't "perfect"/"complete",
| Nietzche's "Will to Power" does a pretty good job of
| explaining "why" animals/ideologies/organizations/systems
| "unfold" the way they do. Everything (mostly) tries to
| protect/strengthen/replicate itself.(viruses being the most
| obvious example)
| https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52915/52915-h/52915-h.htm
| txrx0000 wrote:
| It's not that an open platform can't succeed, but rather
| people are accustomed to closed platforms, so more resources
| went into perfecting them. The aforementioned players pushing
| for control aren't invincible. Whether we can move to open
| platforms depends on the choices people make.
|
| I can choose to use a bank that allows me to access all of
| their online banking features via the browser. I can choose
| to work for a company that doesn't want to surveil my
| personal device. I can deal with the government via snail
| mail, or in the browser. I can use third-party YouTube
| clients and torrent movies and games, or simply don't engage
| with DRM'd media because there's plenty of entertainment out
| there.
|
| Count the percentage of software you use that are open-source
| compared to 10 years ago. I bet it's more. It's only a matter
| of time before we make hardware open-source, too.
|
| When the mainstream is evil, being an outcast is the right
| thing to do. Every big change begins as a small movement.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I can choose to use a bank that allows me to access all
| of their online banking features via the browser._
|
| Lucky you. There are fewer and fewer such banks out there.
| The trend is to route login and consequential interactions
| on the web through 2FA on a phone - and not TOTP, but push
| notifications sent to the bank's app, that only runs on
| devices that pass remote attestation checks.
|
| > _I can choose to work for a company that doesn 't want to
| surveil my personal device._
|
| Again, lucky you. Most people don't really get many options
| for employment at any given moment, and the issue of
| corporate phones is usually at the bottom of the list of
| criteria when one is looking for a job. I.e. not a real
| choice for most people.
|
| > _I can deal with the government via snail mail_
|
| At a snail pace.
|
| > _or in the browser._
|
| Modern government systems around the world tend to require
| some sort of identification that usually gets tied to your
| smartphone, either directly or via your bank.
|
| > _I can use third-party YouTube clients and torrent movies
| and games, or simply don 't engage with DRM'd media because
| there's plenty of entertainment out there._
|
| Torrents aside, that's not the case. _Entertainment isn 't
| fungible_. Disney can release all Star Wars media DRM-free
| for everyone to download, and it means exactly zero to
| someone who wants to watch Star Trek, but Paramount/CBS
| decided to go all Ferengi on the franchise. Can't
| substitute one for the other. This is why the market
| supports so many streaming services these days - they
| exploit this very fact.
|
| > _Count the percentage of software you use that are open-
| source compared to 10 years ago. I bet it 's more._
|
| Open Source software stopped mattering once the world
| embraced Software as a Service model. Source code on Github
| means nothing if the code is actually executed on servers
| you don't control and have no visibility into.
|
| That covers end-user OSS. The larger space of OSS building
| blocks are... building blocks. OSS libraries matter to
| users just as much as standard Phillips screws used inside
| an appliance, when they're beneath layers of glue and
| permanently soldered elements and join together elements
| explicitly labeled as "not end-user servicable".
|
| > _It 's only a matter of time before we make hardware
| open-source, too._
|
| That time will come around when we build a Star Trek-style
| replicator (and then have a successful revolution to seize
| this new means to production, because no way the first
| company to build an universal manufacturing device is going
| to just _let people use it_ ). Open Source Software
| succeeded only because software development has near-zero
| natural barrier to entry, so there was a large supply of
| bored high-schoolers and students, hobbyists, academics and
| other do-gooders with enough time and will to _just build
| stuff and give it away for free_. This isn 't true for
| hardware.
|
| Now, circling back to the main point:
|
| > _Whether we can move to open platforms depends on the
| choices people make._
|
| No, it does not. On consumer side, the market is driven by
| supply, not demand. I.e. you only get to choose from what
| the vendors decide to make available to you, and they know
| perfectly well you have to choose something, so your voice
| doesn't matter.
|
| If it did, we wouldn't be having this whole thread in the
| first place.
| txrx0000 wrote:
| _> Lucky you. There are fewer and fewer such banks out
| there. The trend is to route login and consequential
| interactions on the web through 2FA on a phone - and not
| TOTP, but push notifications sent to the bank 's app,
| that only runs on devices that pass remote attestation
| checks._
|
| There will be fewer and fewer such banks out there _if_
| people choose to not use them, among other short-sighted
| decisions which produce such trends. You need to give the
| banks a reason to care.
|
| _> Again, lucky you. Most people don 't really get many
| options for employment at any given moment, and the issue
| of corporate phones is usually at the bottom of the list
| of criteria when one is looking for a job. I.e. not a
| real choice for most people._
|
| The first part is not true. You have plenty of options,
| they're just not equally good. It depends on what you're
| willing to give up in exchange. And you can push for
| change within your org.
|
| _> Modern government systems around the world tend to
| require some sort of identification that usually gets
| tied to your smartphone, either directly or via your
| bank._
|
| They can have some sort of identification, but it
| shouldn't involve surveillance spyware on my device. If a
| government needs that then they're part of the problem.
| People form governments, you can push back against those
| people. Don't bend the knee to tyrants.
|
| _> Torrents aside, that 's not the case. Entertainment
| isn't fungible. Disney can release all Star Wars media
| DRM-free for everyone to download, and it means exactly
| zero to someone who wants to watch Star Trek, but
| Paramount/CBS decided to go all Ferengi on the franchise.
| Can't substitute one for the other. This is why the
| market supports so many streaming services these days -
| they exploit this very fact._
|
| Entertainment _can_ be fungible if you decide that it is.
| I can live without watching a DRM-protected show. Watch
| something else. Do something else. They exploit the
| people which has decided for themselves that they must be
| loyal to certain franchises.
|
| _> Open Source software stopped mattering once the world
| embraced Software as a Service model. Source code on
| Github means nothing if the code is actually executed on
| servers you don 't control and have no visibility into._
|
| You can choose to not use SaaS. Host your own stuff. Give
| your money to ISPs that allow you to host stuff. Pressure
| your government to regulate ISPs. And there's plenty of
| offline software that doesn't need Internet connectivity.
| Not everything needs to be artificially-scarce cloud-
| slop, unless we want it to be.
|
| _> Open Source Software succeeded only because software
| development has near-zero natural barrier to entry, so
| there was a large supply of bored high-schoolers and
| students, hobbyists, academics and other do-gooders with
| enough time and will to just build stuff and give it away
| for free. This isn 't true for hardware._
|
| FOSS succeeded because there's a base production rate for
| software, software (as it gets further from the metal)
| doesn't need monetary incentives. When I said open-source
| hardware, I meant the IP. Obviously making the physical
| thing isn't free. But the IP doesn't need to be as scarce
| as it is now. Schematics will be harder than firmware
| will be harder than software to open-source because
| they're close to the hardware (which is naturally
| scarce), but it's possible, and will be done, and we
| don't need to invoke movie magic.
|
| _> No, it does not. On consumer side, the market is
| driven by supply, not demand. I.e. you only get to choose
| from what the vendors decide to make available to you,
| and they know perfectly well you have to choose
| something, so your voice doesn 't matter. If it did, we
| wouldn't be having this whole thread in the first place._
|
| Consumers and suppliers don't exist in perfectly
| separated vacuums. You can influence suppliers. There are
| plenty of side channels.
|
| Here's what separates chance and choice:
|
| If we assume that our decisions don't matter, then we're
| _definitely_ screwed. If we assume that our decisions
| matter, then we 're only _probably_ screwed. It 's up to
| each and every one of us to make the latter assumption.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Counterpoint: vast majority is not making those choices,
| and if you insist on defying the mainstream, you
| gradually become separated from human society.
|
| This isn't solvable through individual choice. It's a
| coordination problem - and coordination problems are what
| underlies every actually hard problem that humanity is
| struggling with. War, poverty, authoritarian regimes,
| corporate overreach, environmental destruction, climate
| change - all could be solvable though choices like you
| describe, but in practice are not, because humans can't
| coordinate at scale.
|
| Relevant search term: "meditations on Moloch".
| txrx0000 wrote:
| The direction of society is the aggregate of our
| individual choices. I'm no expert on coordination, but I
| think we ought to start with ourselves and not spread
| misery like "your voice doesn't matter" or "humans can't
| coordinate at scale".
| drnick1 wrote:
| > Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government
| apps and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...).
|
| The only real issue here is banks that don't offer an
| equivalent website or require the "app" as authentication
| factor. I couldn't care less about copyrighted media. It's
| only fair that I source my media from the high seas when the
| only options that respect their "rights" infringe my own
| right to run free software on my devices.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The key thing isn't that the banks (and governments, and
| enterprise software vendors, and ...) don't provide an
| alternative to the app as authentication factor. It's _why_
| they don 't do this.
|
| It's not about security. It's about them wanting people to
| use the apps. Forcing everyone to use an app streamlines
| the vendors' operations, reduces the state space of
| possible user interactions down to small number of flows
| they control directly, and also provides them a direct
| channel (communications or upsell, where applicable) to the
| user.
|
| This is not a fluke or a conspiracy of small number of
| influential players. It's an emergent alignment of
| incentives across pretty much the whole supply side of
| digital aspect of human civilization (not "just" the
| market, because it's also happening in political and social
| spheres).
| kuhsaft wrote:
| I would add that end-users are OK with this because they
| expect their devices to not be compromised when installing an
| app. The majority of users are OK with trusted computing and
| are OK with trusting Google, Apple, Microsoft because it's
| easier to trust one of those companies than having to trust
| each app developer. In the end, you have to trust someone and
| it's better if that someone can be held accountable by some
| legal system.
| troyvit wrote:
| I agree. I also think though that it's a different kind of
| trust. They trust Google, Apple, and Microsoft because they
| _think_ they'll be held accountable by some legal system,
| but judging by the wrist slaps meted out for their massive
| security lapses (especially you M$) or their constant
| breakage of their own privacy policies to spy on people it
| actually seems worse than trusting individual app
| developers.
| troyvit wrote:
| > Those are the players that demand excessive control over
| end-user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the
| problem we're discussing.
|
| But they don't demand the same control over laptops and
| desktops. Only phones. Why is that? Granted I can't deposit a
| check with my laptop but I can do any other banking I wish to
| do.
|
| So to me it's more that they see the chance to gain this
| control where they didn't see it before. Phone providers are
| only too happy to get on that bandwagon because they get to
| deploy all kinds of surveillance capitalism in the name of
| security ("hey the banks want it!").
|
| Granted these freedoms are slowly leaching away from laptops
| and desktop too with stuff like TPM, so I don't know. I've
| about had it though.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _But they don 't demand the same control over laptops and
| desktops. Only phones. Why is that?_
|
| Oh, but they do. PCs (and Macbooks) are products of an
| earlier era, and the solutions of control evolved along; it
| looks chaotic, but that's because it's where the R&D
| happened over the past decades, which ultimately produced a
| cleaner - and more easily identifiable - mobile control
| ecosystem. But it's all there, if you look closely. To name
| few major groups:
|
| - Many generations of DRM plugins for games, then for
| streaming media
|
| - Trusted computing hardware
|
| - Intel Management Engine and other firmware backdoors
| routinely inserted into hardware
|
| - Endpoint security software, deployed widely on corporate-
| owned machines
|
| Mobile solutions are just version 2.0, built on top of all
| that R&D.
|
| > _Granted I can 't deposit a check with my laptop but I
| can do any other banking I wish to do._
|
| This is the insidious part: for many banks, this is only
| tolerated because they force you to use their proprietary
| app on a trusted mobile device as a second factor! At this
| point, it doesn't really matter how well-controlled your
| main browsing platform is, because _you have to use your
| phone anyway_ , and there the control happens. And, "for
| your convenience", the mobile app isn't just a physical
| security token, but lets you do banking too, which allows
| them to gradually deprecate the web experience.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| We need both. Open source alternatives are great, but they
| don't replace tight regulation of large corporations. Just
| because Linux exists doesn't mean we can give Microsoft, Apple
| and Google free reign.
| 9cb14c1ec0 wrote:
| If people have to put the tiniest bit of effort into using a
| different platform, they won't. This is the sole problem with
| alternative platforms. I agree with you that the ideal solution
| would be to break away from Google entirely, either with a hard
| fork of Android, or something completely different. But you'll
| have to make the transition absolutely seamless for the masses,
| or it won't happen.
| t_mahmood wrote:
| I agree with you completely.
|
| The point we are all missing, Google is not going to pull back,
| they have already invested in this change, it's in rollout
| phase, infrastructure is in place. It's not going to be rolled
| back. The ship has sailed. Keep Android Open is unfortunately
| dead on arrival, IF we are going to depend on Google.
|
| And, are we going to keep depending on a profit oriented
| company to follow our bid? If so, then, we are very well have
| lost already.
| smaudet wrote:
| > Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Seriously.
|
| Because the market has failed, and we have a duopoly. There are
| many reasons for that, but, this is the exact sort of time a
| govt must step in - when something becomes a utility, it needs
| to be regulated as such.
|
| I agree, I don't really want to enshrine Google/Apple into law,
| however if they are makers of an operating system that is used
| like a common utility, they should be regulated as such.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| Unfortunately western governments are moving to impose more
| and more control over our digital life, and I think they see
| a locked down commercial platform as a convenient means to
| that end because they can regulate it. If the EU commission
| ever succeeds in passing Chat Control, which requires client
| side scanning on all devices, then it is very convenient for
| them if people do not use open source operating systems where
| they can just run clients that don't send data to a third
| party.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| right, government literally side with them if any
|
| open hardware/platform is impossible if they mandate all
| chat is exported to gov anyway
| smaudet wrote:
| _some_ governments, especially autocratic or
| authoritarian.
|
| Even govts that may be in some political climates
| authoritarian can and will want exceptions to this.
|
| There is no world that I see where decisions being made
| by Google are a good or reasonable choice for all
| parties, even ones you might think would side with this
| decision.
|
| Remember, this give Google more control than an
| authoritarian govt. Sure, there may be a cost of doing
| business with some countries, however, even in those
| cases, this is bad for them - Google can just say "sucks
| to suck" and they either must use their product or
| develop their own, but if they use their product, *Google
| still has more control over that authoritarian govt than
| the people in it*
|
| Put simply, now, Google Is Evil.
| zouhair wrote:
| Samsung can cut ties with Google if they want to, they have
| market share to go on their own.
| takluyver wrote:
| I'm sure they would love to. They've been trying to make
| their own app store (Galaxy Store) a thing for over a
| decade. But cutting ties with Google would mean no Google
| Apps and no Google Play Store, and that would probably be
| catastrophic for them.
| Fnoord wrote:
| I completely agree.
|
| Google has been gradually becoming more restrictive on Android
| openness, slowly but surely strengtening the thumb screws.
|
| On the long term, the best thing to happen is for them to
| _bang_ make it proprietary [1] while it is still free and
| liberal. The shock effect will be big, and the initial changes
| big, too. Such will motivate the right people. Open source
| devs, governments, legislators, people with executive powers
| within other companies.
|
| But Google is too sneakily clever for that. So they go slowly,
| gradually. There won't be a shock effect, or if it happens
| it'll be a done deal.
|
| This is how you turn a country into fascism, too. Slowly but
| surely, and then _bang_. It is all the small steps beforehand
| which matter, and this is why the Execute Order 66 quote from
| Star Wars is so such a beautiful example in popular movie SF.
|
| You can see how failed efforts for coups in democracies have
| failed recently because of checks and balances. South Korea is
| a recent example, but looking at the details it was a close
| call. In my opinion, the same was true for USA, and I don't
| know enough about the Brazil example.
|
| [1] Yes, I realize Android is proprietary and AOSP is FOSS.
| hedora wrote:
| Legislation is required at this point. Infrastructure companies
| (including finance and transportation) should be required to
| provide web apps that have feature parity with proprietary
| apps. (Enforcement is simple: ban distribution of the
| proprietary app for 5 years).
|
| I think we going the other way though.
|
| For instance, this recently proposed bipartisan bill would
| force all (even locally installed) AI apps to repeatedly run
| age checks on end users, and also adds $100,000 penalties each
| time the AI screws up when a minor is involved, even for bugs.
| I don't see any safe harbor provisions, or carve outs for
| locally installed / open source / open weight projects, so it'd
| end up handing a monopoly to ~ 1 provider that's too big to
| prosecute:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45741862
|
| The most important thing you can do right now is get the
| democrats to actually field a candidate in 2028 that will
| restore the rule of law and free markets in the US.
| overfeed wrote:
| > Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open?
|
| We don't! Instead, we go to regulators. Though I suspect your
| question really is "Why bother with salvaging Android at all?"
|
| Mobile platforms are _hard_ - famously, Microsoft failed to
| make Windows phone a viable platform, and John Carmack
| successfully argued that Meta didn 't need a custom OS.
| Mozilla's Mobile OS that had OEM partners making real phones
| spluttered out, and nor for the lack of trying. Both Firefox OS
| and Postmarket rely on an Android foundation for HAL/drivers,
| IIRC. Device bring-up is hard, and negotiating with OEMs is
| harder still, and that comes "free" with Android-supporting
| devices.
|
| Logistically, the vast majority of people who install apps from
| non-Play-Store sources do so ok their daily-driver phone, which
| is running the stock operating system. They are not tech savvy
| at all
| hajile wrote:
| > Mozilla's Mobile OS that had OEM partners making real
| phones spluttered out, and nor for the lack of trying.
|
| Firefox OS had serious issues.
|
| * Web standards 2013-2017 weren't ready enough.
|
| * 2013-2017 phones still weren't powerful enough for complex
| JS apps to feel fast.
|
| * asm.js was de-facto proprietary (a new FFOS with wasm would
| be be another story)
|
| * The UI wasn't so great.
|
| * Their launch devices were slow, cheap, and sucked.
|
| * Their launch devices weren't readily available to
| developers.
|
| * Their OS provided no real advantages over iOS or Android
|
| The OS is still around as KaiOS (with a couple hundred
| million devices shipped IIRC) and I believe it still powers
| Panasonic TVs.
|
| Interestingly, I think a FirefoxOS of today with good React
| Native and Flutter integration and cutting-edge WASM support
| could have a shot at success if not completely mis-managed.
| izacus wrote:
| A lot of these pushes for attestation are coming from
| regulators and security audits though.
| overfeed wrote:
| If that's inevitably the case, then we should all enjoy the
| ability to install user-controlled, open source operating
| systems while we still can.
|
| However, if it's _not_ inevitable, then those who cherish
| such freedoms should forcibly push back against the
| attempts to strip them away.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > So many open source projects have risen out of real and
| concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every
| day lives.
|
| Ironic because the foundation of Android itself is built on
| open source.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Most if not all large, successful open source projects are
| funded by commercial interests, not just consumers. The
| resources it takes to maintain something like Android far
| exceeds what can be funded solely by donations and
| volunteers.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Most if not all large, successful open source projects
| are funded by commercial interests, not just consumers.
|
| Right, the key point here is most of the fundamental
| projects were never commercial in origin and had grassroots
| community or academic roots. Android is built on top of a
| student's hobby Unix clone.
|
| > The resources it takes to maintain something like Android
| far exceeds what can be funded solely by donations and
| volunteers.
|
| Um, no duh a corporate project requires corporate funding.
| Android was never a grass roots community effort.
| jraph wrote:
| > Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open?
|
| Because Google and Apple have put themselves between us and
| everything else.
|
| Until we manage to replace them (by lobbying to everything
| including governments against them, and by working towards
| making the alternatives usable), we unfortunately have to
| resort to this. I'd even say we are entitled to this because we
| never asked for Google and Apple to become compulsory, _they_
| decided this.
|
| I would personally be able to switch to Linux mobile today
| because I don't rely on anything proprietary (except the
| interrail app occasionally, damn them - but possibly waydroid
| would work for this)... if only there was usable and reliable
| hardware that could run the mainline kernel: decent battery
| life, decent picture quality, decent GPS, decent calls
| (especially emergency calls even if I haven't needed to
| actually make one so far, finger crossed, and Signal would do
| for most other situations actually).
|
| I've daily-driven the PinePhone for a year. Call quality is
| awful and calls are awfully unreliable, and SMS are quite
| unreliable as well. Too bad for a phone. Unfortunately the
| phone took a big rain and now its modem is unreliable and
| doesn't come back up very often, but that's something a phone
| will likely endure in its life. Pictures are awful. GPS never
| worked well on my regular PinePhone. It somewhat worked on the
| Pinephone Pro until it died because it overheated. Linux
| hardware support is okayish, it was nice to run completely free
| software which was my main motivation for trying it but the
| hardware is crap to the point of being unusable serious.
|
| The FP5 can apparently run PostmarketOS quite well. It would
| make an awesome Linux mobile. Camera and calls only partially
| work though [1]. And that's the main features of a phone.
|
| Linux mobile itself it becoming quite decent (if one can do
| without the proprietary apps), what we really need is good
| hardware running it. Then we can begin to imagine a world with
| it having a decent usage share.
|
| [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-
| fp...
| fsflover wrote:
| Did you consider Librem 5? The hardware is much better, calls
| etc work fine.
|
| > I've daily-driven the PinePhone for a year.
|
| Which OS? Did you try SXMo?
| jraph wrote:
| The Librem 5 is awfully outdated now (and so I won't buy it
| today because I'd worry about it becoming e-waste fast),
| doesn't have a good battery life, is very pricey, and I'd
| worry about call reliability (I have no doubt it can be
| made to work, but reliably, from sleep?).
|
| I'm sure it's way better than the PinePhone, but the Librem
| 5 is definitely not suitable for the general public, even
| without considering the Linux mobile part.
|
| > Which OS?
|
| Mobian and postmarketOS
|
| > Did you try SXMo?
|
| Yes, not my cup of tea. I'm happy with a stable Plasma or
| Phosh; at this point, the GUI is not a concern at all for
| me. SXMO is a nice project but it will never target the
| general public, and I think we need to target the general
| public because I wish the general public's computing were
| free. It's nice that nerds can be free but it's also not
| good enough.
| fsflover wrote:
| > The Librem 5 is awfully outdated now
|
| https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/
|
| > doesn't have a good battery life
|
| It's far from great but you can change the battery on the
| go. Look, you can't fight for anything without making any
| compromises.
| jraph wrote:
| > you can fight for anything
|
| I suppose your mean't you "can't".
|
| I know, m'y life is full of compromises because of my
| various political opinions.
|
| > https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/
|
| I agree and I intend to keep my current phone at least
| ten years (and I hope it will be able to run Linux at
| some point, it's very close!), but the Librem was
| released with outdated specs and that was 5 years ago. It
| was released with outdated specs because then current
| hardware was not free software friendly. However,
| producing outdated hardware _today_ is a huge
| environmental concern for me.
|
| That current hardware is non-free software friendly is a
| huge concern as well, and both concerns go by hand: we
| are absolutely building huge piles of e-waste just
| because of proprietary / closed hardware.
|
| Anyway; the Librem 5 has been a fantastic thing for the
| development of Linux mobile. We also won't go anywhere
| with phones such as the Librem 5 to make Linux mobile a
| reality for the general public.
| fsflover wrote:
| Fair enough. See also:
| https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/docs/community-
| wiki/-/wikis/F...
|
| > I suppose your mean't you "can't".
|
| Thanks, yes, fixed.
| jraph wrote:
| Interesting link, thanks for sharing!
| CivBase wrote:
| Because smartphones are designed such that I cannot put
| whatever OS I want on them. I'm stuck with whatever proprietary
| flavor of Android the manufacturer loaded it with.
|
| If I'm really lucky one of the opem source Android forks will
| support my device. But my current phone is not supported by
| postmarketOS or GrapheneOS.
|
| I don't want a world where the market can only support a dozen
| devices across 4 or 5 manufacturers.
| AbraKdabra wrote:
| Why? Because I want to run bank, OTP, streaming, and other crap
| apps that requires certain level of trust that a 100% open
| source version of AOSP made by some guy in a basement doesn't
| provide, that's why.
| paxys wrote:
| Because money. Yes Android is open source, but Google is
| spending billions of dollars a year paying engineers to develop
| it. If you want Android to be "free" find alternate funding,
| with no strings attached.
| mistercheph wrote:
| See: linux
| paxys wrote:
| How many consumer devices is Linux successfully running on?
| asim wrote:
| > A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from
| Google
|
| After many many years and many forks, yes. This is still
| clearly the right answer. Google didn't succumb to Apple and
| just accept things, they acquired Android and invested heavily
| in it. We are all grateful for that. BUT, we must also
| acknowledge that the time of the two horse race is over. And
| while OpenAI and many others are attempting to do various
| things, we can continue to invest and back alternatives that
| create a more fragmented market. Maybe they will not replace
| Android, that's fine, but you're not going to fix Android's
| problems without suing Google, which people are doing, or
| actively working on alternatives, which again people are doing.
| Change is coming.
| shaneqful wrote:
| I used to have a Jolla phone which ran a pretty cool linux OS
| on it but it only worked because it had an alien dalvik android
| vm so I could still run apps like those from my bank, whatsapp
| etc..
|
| It's nearly impossible to live in the modern world without
| either an iphone or android without making some major
| sacrifices e.g. I'd love to not use whatsapp but it's not an
| option because all of my friends and family use it
| dagurp wrote:
| Why did you stop using it? Asking because I was wondering if
| I should get one.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'm going to say something that _should_ get upvotes.
|
| YOU CAN, AND SHOULD, DO BOTH.
| qwertox wrote:
| Does Qualcomm support the use of their hardware in "raw" Linux
| phone and tablet use? Where I can be root?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Drivers and firmware blobs.
|
| The real problem was never solved to begin with: all mobile
| devices require proprietary drivers to function at all. Because
| these drivers are proprietary, the only people in a position to
| make them compatible with an OS are the manufacturer's dev
| team; and they are only interested in compatibility with
| Google's proprietary Android fork.
|
| When Google starts to release versions of its proprietary
| Android fork, any open Android fork (or other alternative OS)
| will have to reverse engineer that proprietary Android fork in
| order to match its compatibility with proprietary firmware
| blobs. This will need to be done for every device.
|
| Imagine trying to find your way through a building while
| wearing a blindfold. It's much easier if you are able to study
| the original floor plan that building was modeled after, even
| if the building itself has a modified design. Google is taking
| away that floor plan.
|
| The situation is already medium-bad: it would be trivial to use
| an alternative OS if drivers and firmware were open source. It
| would be relatively easy if drivers and firmware had open
| specifications. It's difficult, but feasible in the current
| situation, where drivers and firmware are closed spec, but
| designed to be compatible with a close fork of an open source
| codebase. It will be extremely difficult (and technically
| illegal in the US) to do when drivers and firmware are closed
| spec, and designed to be compatible with a closed source
| codebase.
| keepamovin wrote:
| You're right. Especially with the rise of agentic AI. You could
| have hundreds of contributors, all using agents, working on
| different modules, according to existing spec and tests, create
| a new OS, or Web Browser or anything. It's the end of
| monopolistic control of software.
|
| But, I think the giants already know and accept this. The moat
| now is compute. A centralization of power back to the server,
| the rise of thin clients, and fat services.
|
| So, it is a revolution but there's also counterbalancing
| forces. Still, we should ride that wave :)
| Flere-Imsaho wrote:
| > You could have hundreds of contributors, all using agents,
| working on different modules, according to existing spec and
| tests
|
| The current problem with "Linux on phones" is the locked down
| nature of the hardware. For example, looking at
| PostmarketOS's support device list [0], sensors, Wifi, even
| phone calls don't work. Would what you're saying enable
| faster implementation of those support modules? (This would
| be really cool if possible).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostmarketOS#Supported_devi
| ce_...
| keepamovin wrote:
| If it's just about building software against suites of
| tests and spec that already exist, then definitely what I'm
| saying would make it faster. But if it's a hardware control
| issue, then no.
|
| In that case (ie, if in order to be free we need to free
| the hardware, too), we need to create a hardware company
| that builds a phone from the modem/radio on up and owns
| every layer.
|
| Obviously non trivial hahahahaha :)
|
| AI is letting the world of bits move faster than before by
| exponentially reducing rework and sharing around the
| benefit of network effects from collective human knowledge.
| It's not touching hardware in the same way, and doesn't
| give us the same superpower.
|
| _edit:_ I guess the "easier" play is to convince an
| existing full stack phone hardware company to make us an
| OpenPhone that we can hack on because they believe in the
| inevitabilities of trends and consequences from AI and want
| to invest in that future. That would be cool? Any takers?
| Reach out cris@dosaygo.com
| codexb wrote:
| I agree with you, but that only works if people value it and
| are willing to pay for it.
|
| Look at email. It's technically open, but in reality there are
| a few large players who control the majority of it.
|
| The only way open source phone software succeeds is if there is
| real money behind it and there is an attractiveness to it that
| makes people pay for it.
| jayd16 wrote:
| The short answer is its a huge costly chaotic mess to be in a
| standards/compatibility battle we don't have to be in.
|
| It's far easier for everyone if Google plays nice than to put
| in the work to unseat them and still keep app devs and users
| happy.
| franga2000 wrote:
| Because we can't install _that_ on phones and even if we did,
| we need to use Android apps to do basic daily things.
|
| Phones are not like PCs, you can't "just install a different
| OS". You also can't just build a phone from parts like you can
| with a PC, it comes locked in with the OS, with proprietary
| drivers and advanced cryptographic DRM measures.
|
| And even if we did get things to the level of desktop Linux, we
| can't run any of the apps we need for everyday life. Most of
| these things on desktop are web-based, so you can use them on
| Linux, but this isn't the case for mobile and many things only
| come in mobile. Bank apps, government services, digital
| identification, mandatory companion apps for other devices...
|
| If nothing else, we need to keep Android as open as possible
| because it makes it easier to port those things to other
| platforms and maybe one day have a proper alternative.
|
| Oh, and it's not like we have a good alternative. The current
| Linux stack is completely inadequate for mobile use. An average
| phone has something like 50 apps the need to be able to react
| to any of a few dozen different local or remote events at any
| moment, yet also need to use approximately zero CPU cycles to
| do that. We need a brand new app paradigm if we want mobile
| Linux to succeed and it's not looking like that's going to
| happen any time soon.
| rewgs wrote:
| > Phones are not like PCs, you can't "just install a
| different OS."
|
| This right here is the root of the problem.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Phones are not like PCs, you can't "just install a
| different OS"
|
| They should be. Mine is exactly like that.
| profsummergig wrote:
| This is the correct take.
|
| Let's say we beg Google to keep it open now, and they
| acquiesce.
|
| So what?
|
| Do you think this same drama won't repeat in the future?
| glitchc wrote:
| The difference is hardware. A large part of the explosion
| around Linux in desktop computing is based on the fact that
| IBM's patents for desktop architecture expired and IBM clones
| proliferated in the marketplace. Also, busses like ISA/PCI/AGP
| and ports (serial, parallel, ethernet, USB) were all
| standardized.
|
| In short, Linux was possible because the underlying hardware
| was open and standard.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| Problem is the hardware vendors often very much like closed
| systems. And banking apps too. We sadly have a much less open
| hardware ecosystem compared to the PC landscape. And even here
| driver problems are more pronounced the more exotic the OS
| platform.
|
| For me mobile OS are a broken mess, irrespective of Apple or
| Google, so I would love to have an alternative. Mobile phones
| are powerful devices that are severely handicapped by bad
| software. Restrictions are sold as security and there are a lot
| of people that even buy into these crap argument. So much so
| that even legislation has adopted them to some degree.
|
| But for hardware vendors to jump on another train, a new OS
| must probably offer something shiny. And the average user has
| no idea how easy it could be to interface your smartphone with
| other devices without needing some ad riddled vendor specific
| apps. I mean you can install an ssh client on your phone, but
| meh... That is more or less the only app I install these days.
| superkuh wrote:
| Because you cannot own or operate a cellphone. The cell phone
| modem is not licensed or controlled by you. It cannot be, it is
| the telecommunication company's. And this reality is intruding
| more and more into everyday life. You will not be allowed to
| control your smartphone. They are terrible computers because of
| this. A smartphone's legal purpose is now basically just
| banking, shopping, and navigation. Other things that interfere
| with commerce will not be allowed.
|
| Just use your phone as a hotspot with a real computer for
| computing that you can and do own.
| elif wrote:
| Simple answer, no open source project can have the keys that
| sign play store access.
| ksec wrote:
| I also don't think it is right for Goverment to force companies
| give up their properties, in this case it is like forcing
| Google to continue to fund Android.
|
| May be Goverment world wide could all fund the same OSS OS
| which benefits everyone. But right now I see zero incentives
| for any government to do it.
| qwytw wrote:
| > So many open source projects have risen out of real and
| concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every
| day lives.
|
| When it comes to consumer hardware or software targeted at end
| users? I think such cases are pretty rare and far in between.
| Firefox had a brief stint of being popular in the late 2000s,
| Valve is doing some cool stuff with SteamOS/Proton but I can't
| think of much else of the the top of my head.
|
| Otherwise it's usually companies like Google or Apple which use
| OSS as a base layer for their closed down and proprietary
| platforms.
|
| PostmarketOS is cool but its a product niche targeted a very
| tiny subset of consumers (just like Linux on desktop for that
| matter).
| hn_saver wrote:
| For some reason the awful orange app Materialistic does not
| have down vote so i leave this message instead.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| What are your current bugbears with it to not be a daily
| driver? I've been curious for a while but haven't pulled the
| trigger
| spankibalt wrote:
| > "We need these kind of projects, not kneeling down to a
| company like Google and begging for Android to be open."
|
| Indeed.
|
| > "Effort needs to be put elsewhere."
|
| Also correct. Outside of offering (an) alternative product(s),
| one also needs to fight the _inevitable_ pushback of industry
| dinosaurs and their political toadies.
|
| In other words: One _needs_ to invest in massive lobbying
| efforts on the same playing field of corporations as well, e.
| g. in the EU or the US. For without sound organizing all
| efforts will be relegated to hobbyist spaces with an assortment
| of "Are we there yet?" products.
|
| Smartphones and function-alikes are an entirely different breed
| of device, or at least can be: the general-purpose computing
| platform for your pocket. In this market, "somewhat different"
| rules apply.
| cwyers wrote:
| The short version is: the PC is a historical accident. By "the
| PC" I mean "the Windows-Intel platform on which most consumer
| PCs were built." Linux and BSD were both able to exist in the
| form they did because there was a commodity hardware platform
| that was standardized (ad-hoc standardization, mind you) and
| _somewhat_ open. IBM, Microsoft and Intel were all best
| frenemies, able to exert enough power to standardize the PC
| platform but also able to exert enough power against each other
| to prevent them from locking the platform down too much. There
| is no standard "smartphone" platform like there is with the PC,
| really the only standard is Android AOSP. Because of this, it's
| a lot harder to do a third-party phone platform without
| adopting large parts of Android's code.
| buildfocus wrote:
| The way to make this work for real is with a smooth migration
| path, which means a way to keep running Android apps on your
| new system.
|
| If you want to sponsor Waydroid to help make that happen, you
| can do so right now: https://opencollective.com/Waydroid (I'm
| not affiliated, just a fan, and it's the only realistic route
| to this I see).
| drnick1 wrote:
| Why would you want to start over with a new platform when
| Android (as a FOSS project) is already most of the way there in
| terms of freedom and usability? The only problem are "apps"
| that depend on proprietary Google libraries. This only concerns
| a minority of apps, but notably includes some foreign banks
| that require the "app" as second authentication factor.
|
| Perhaps this could be regulated by law or executive power, but
| considering that governments themselves have created apps that
| depend on proprietary software, I am not too hopeful. But as
| long as the same "app" is accessible through a browser, this
| remains a minor inconvenience.
| ptero wrote:
| The equivalent of dual-booting would, IMO, be a big step
| towards Google-independence.
|
| In my grad school days in the mid-90s I set up Linux because it
| let me write programs in a modern way, accessing all the
| available memory without jumping through hoops, etc. I would
| still switch to Windows for playing games, using Quicken,
| checking Usenet and email and browsing the web.
|
| AOL not even being available on Windows and modem drivers for
| cheap-er hardware being Windows-only meant I had to switch back
| and forth (download on Windows, copy to a floppy, reboot,
| etc.). This sounds crazy today, but it worked "somewhat OK" for
| me to keep experimenting.
|
| If we could somehow provide a similar environment for the
| phone, even jumping through hoops, this will enable enthusiasts
| to start seriously tinkering with their devices. But this is
| not easy -- both the hardware and the Android today place way
| more restrictions than much-vilified Microsoft and Intel did 30
| years ago. And Microsoft tried _very_ hard to snuff Linux out,
| wiping boot sectors and partition tables giving half a chance;
| Google will be much more successful killing any dual-boot
| attempts now. My 2c.
| grandfugue wrote:
| I don't understand the Google's move. Google uses Android as a
| platform to collect virtually everyone's personal info and build
| the profile to benefit its ad business. If there is an extremely
| tiny chance that people (or a sizble population) may walk away
| from the platform, it's not worth the risk.
| inavida wrote:
| It's Google's response to the remedies required by the
| Antitrust act decision last August. The timing is explained by
| the US Supreme Court decision of Oct 6 to deny Google its
| request to pause implementation of said remedies.
| ulfw wrote:
| It's time for a new non-Google OS frankly. Not sure if HarmonyOS
| would be the one, but I don't see a lot of Mobile OS development
| going on anymore
| fsflover wrote:
| https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Software_Releases
| dude0101 wrote:
| Seriously, is this launched by Google to keep people from doing
| something real? Kindergarten...
| clijsters wrote:
| It is a story I heard way too often. Big Tech creates something
| which is so convenient, you don't want to miss it. Then Big Tech
| breaks that something, makes it more expensive or uses any other
| means of rent-seeking just pissing of its customers. We as
| consumers are by far the biggest lobbying-group, but nobody
| really gives an f. I'm trying my way with /e/OS but thats not for
| everybody. It also shows me how deeply dependencies on google
| services are woven into the whole ecosystem - even on open source
| apps.
| zoobab wrote:
| Remember when Apple removed the signature of the dev of iTorrent,
| distributed via an 'alternative' app store?
|
| Exactly the same.
|
| GAFAM are controlling what you can and cannot install on your
| computer.
|
| It's time for a broader law that goes beyond what is in the DMA
| (bootloader, OS, etc...).
| mkaszkowiak wrote:
| Google is killing Android. Along with the side-loading changes,
| I'm losing the desire to keep using it, as it's no longer an open
| OS.
|
| What's the point of those changes? Does Google want to maintain
| its revenue from Play Store? Feels like a bad long-term decision,
| especially when Apple is releasing excellent phones.
| ape4 wrote:
| Perhaps Android could run sideloaded apps in a container. I know
| Android apps are already somewhat contained by userid.
| NoobPretender wrote:
| perhaps the users should be allowed to install whatever they
| want on the devices they own? this "security" narrative google
| spews is weak, considering how much malware fails to be
| detected by play store
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Please, just give users the ability to say whether they want this
| "extra safety" control on. (If it even is extra safety, but
| whatever.)
|
| If they don't, they can sideload, and use F-Droid, and etc.
|
| And then we can debate whether it should be default on, or
| default off, and how hard it should be to turn off.
| npodbielski wrote:
| Will this impact forks od AOSP? Like lineage os or graphene os?
| lilOnion wrote:
| What's the best resource to keep track of all efforts to make
| open source phone OSes?
|
| I'm looking for a new phone and it's tough with the current state
| of things.
|
| Also about contacting your government, what's the best approach?
| I'm in EU.
| zoobab wrote:
| The European Commission public consultation is closed. Maybe that
| would be worth adding a note.
| fidotron wrote:
| JBQ redeemed: https://www.greenbot.com/jbq-is-quitting-aosp/
| (yes, 2013)
|
| I regret having wasted a good part of my career supporting Google
| with the Android enterprise. They had some very good (technically
| and intentionally) people there, but it all got thoroughly
| corrupted.
|
| With hindsight the only thing that kept them remotely honest was
| the Andy Rubin vs Sundar Pichai turf war, which at the time
| manifested as Android vs Chrome. Once that had a decided winner
| it was a recipe for serious trouble.
|
| The only viable way forward for an open mobile OS is to fork
| Android as is. This is the only way to carry over anything
| resembling existing app support or all the work that goes into
| making a mobile OS actually work up to the level users expect.
| i.e. cameras through to hardware media CODECs and total system
| stability.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| I love this and I'll support it, but I know that in the end it
| won't make a difference. Consumers decided they only wanted 2
| choices, and these are the consequences.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| How about linuxonphone.org and just dump all your financial/auth
| related apps to an old Android phone?
|
| Actually, better, dumbphone.org and dump all financial/auth/chat
| apps to an old Android phone that costs some $200.
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| That's doable for now in some places. But in an increasing
| number of countries, payments for just about everything are
| done directly from an Android or iOS app, so you'd always have
| to carry around this locked-down phone as well your Linux
| phone.
| talkingtab wrote:
| The issue of android being open is not a developer issue. I do
| not mean, it does not affect developers, rather that the wrong
| that must be righted is to the _user_.
|
| The F-droid article states: "You, the consumer, purchased your
| Android device believing in Google's promise that it was an open
| computing platform and that you could run whatever software you
| choose on it. "
|
| This is an actionable issue. I believe this is a legally
| reasonable issue. If you buy a car and then the car manufacturer
| changes the car so you can only buy gas from them, or parts, that
| is an offense.
|
| If you accept that users are wronged by googles action, the
| problem is what can be done about it?
|
| Wrongs committed by companies like Google, Apple, Amazon are
| difficult to fix because of failures in our legal system. The
| typical legal action is a class action suit. These typically
| result in large "settlements" with little real effect. Users get
| a notice that they are entitled to $40 but only if they jump
| through seven hoops. Lawyers on both sides make out like bandits.
| The offenders have little incentive not to be repeat offenders,
| just not to get caught again. This is an acceptable risk for
| corporations and so does not act as a deterrent.
|
| There are states Attorney Generals who can file anti-trust
| actions. The US government (ha ha) could file an anti-trust
| action. In my opinion neither of these are likely. And even if it
| happens, it will take years. And years.
|
| A problem with these two legal solutions is that they rely on
| someone else. The result is that users are victims. We are all
| used to that by now.
|
| Since we, as android users, are legally entitled to compensation
| - is there another way to take a legal action.
|
| In most states the limits on small claims actions is between
| $3000 and $10,000. Well above the cost of an android phone. If
| there is one class action legal suit against google they can
| easily spend the money to defend it. And the time. They have the
| resources to do this.
|
| However, what would happen if 1000 people filed small claims
| action, asking for a refund for the cost of their phone? Google
| is declaring war on users. They have their big legal tanks. Small
| claims are the equivalent of drones in the legal world.
|
| We have the internet. We have AI. Can we generate reasonable and
| fair legal small claims court filings for each of the 50 states
| and put them online to help people.
|
| We, the people, have learned helplessness. We need to learn
| something else or resign ourselves to simply being fodder for
| predatory actions by corporations.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Let's not forget Google was legally forced to open up
| distribution to alternative app stores and direct downloads. This
| gives them _some_ baseline security /accountability that applies
| to even side-loaded apps.
| yohbho wrote:
| The nice thing about laws in the EU is: if Google locks it down,
| like iOS, we just enforce that it needs to be more open again.
|
| But for iOS, that did not work well so far, as I have zero apps
| installed via AltStore PAL (iOS), yet some apps via F-Droid
| (Android).
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Google got a minor slap on the wrist for their last antitrust
| case so now they know they're invincible and can get away with
| anything.
| mortsnort wrote:
| I've been using Android phones since the OG Droid (2009) because
| I could install software on it. My next phone will be an iPhone
| if this doesn't change.
| jhasse wrote:
| You can still install software on it.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| reminder that stallman was cancelled from the eff with adhominem
| attacks. and we are back to calling free software (which would
| prevent things like the article) as Open-Source (which ia just
| donations to google and meta)
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| This is likely the result of one of the most idiotic and bad
| rulings to come out of recent tech lawsuits. It's so painfully
| brain damaged and yet somehow has seemed to largely fly under the
| radar.
|
| Google was found to have a monopoly on android with the play
| store (even though you can side load other stores), Apple was
| found to not have a monopoly with the app store.
|
| OK. But that is not the really bad part, the really bad part came
| from the appellate court this past July. Google pointed out that
| the Apple app store was ruled not a monopoly, but somehow
| Google's more open system was..
|
| The judge, I am not shitting you, said that because Apple doesn't
| allow competitors on their phones, they cannot be anti-
| competitive. Google lost the appeal.
|
| So now, clear as day, Google needs to kick out competition to be
| competitive. Good job legal system.
| smashah wrote:
| That's fucking insane.
| shwaj wrote:
| Yes, I recall HN commenters of the time predicting this exact
| outcome as a result.
| Bloating wrote:
| While I didn't study the case, I'm speculating that Google's
| legal team intentionally fumbled the case for this purpose
| qwertox wrote:
| Considering that Google has stated their intent that Chrome OS
| and Android are moving toward a single unified platform, they
| will essentially be fucking up the laptop/desktop market as well.
|
| The only remaining good thing about Google is their Project Zero.
| They have become the same shit as every greedy company.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| that's cool and all, but I would just like to sign the letter
| from a form on the same page instead of having to email someone
| luisml77 wrote:
| The discussion between open-source and closed-source is
| essentially a discussion between communism and capitalism.
|
| Anything that reaches a certain threshold of value to society and
| requires enormous effort to build and maintain has to fall back
| to a capitalist, for-profit, closed-source structure. That's all
| that's happening here.
|
| Of course, small stuff like a software library that doesn't
| require much effort to build and doesn't provide much value can
| remain open-source. I personally think this obsession with open-
| source software is simply an obsession with communism and getting
| things for free, and not wanting getting rewarded for the value
| of the stuff you build, etc.
| qwertox wrote:
| Ah, yes, the library named Linux.
| luisml77 wrote:
| Linux, even though you may think is a massive project and you
| may be right in some regards, doesn't require massive amounts
| of capital, human resources and paid developers, etc. to
| build it.
|
| Android on the other hand is developed by thousands of
| engineers and is a much larger project in terms of monetary
| investment than Linux. Linux was essentially built by a
| single guy. Android could never have been built by a single
| person or even a open-source project. It's too massive.
|
| However complex you think Linux is, its just a kernel and
| doesn't require a conglomerate to build and maintain for
| billions of users. Android does, and those developers need to
| get paid for the massive value they provide.
| qwertox wrote:
| My apologies for not being precise: Linux/GNU and all the
| BSD variants.
| luisml77 wrote:
| My point still remains, none of these projects require
| tens of thousands of paid developers to exist. They also
| don't provide nearly as much value as Android does.
| Billions of smartphones use Android. Linux is not even
| used by regular people. And its precisely because it
| didn't have the same level of development MacOS and
| Windows had with many orders of magnitude more PAID
| engineers working on those
| pietro72ohboy wrote:
| > I personally think this obsession with open-source software
| is simply an obsession with communism and getting things for
| free, and not wanting getting rewarded for the value of the
| stuff you build, etc.
|
| Except that both platforms (iOS as well as Android) were either
| born out of OSS or are still reliant on active development in
| such projects. They created nothing, they took something from
| the commons, polished it and are now rent-seeking. It was
| tolerated till they threatened to choke all competition and
| trap and rent-seek the entire world with their duopoly.
| luisml77 wrote:
| > they threatened to choke all competition and trap and rent-
| seek the entire world
|
| They did so legally and didn't break any rules. This is the
| game of capitalism, and the fact is, IOS and Android are
| extremely well built and developed, and no open-source
| project would ever come close to the hundreds of thousands of
| paid engineers that built IOS and Android.
|
| You can either have capitalism and IOS and Android, or you
| can have communism and a society that is 10+ years behind in
| development. Do you really want to give up IOS 26 for a
| blackberry?
| fyrecean wrote:
| What about this is communism vs capitalism? Or even closed vs
| open source. There are billions of android devices in people's
| hands. Requiring a centralized authority to authorize what code
| people get to run on their own devices has nothing to do with a
| free market economy. This is a private entity telling us it's
| not safe to run code on our own computers without their
| approval.
|
| Linux doesn't need a for profit company gate keeping it to
| ensure it is safe and secure. And even Windows doesn't prevent
| you from running any executable you choose from the internet.
| Why are phones treated differently?
| luisml77 wrote:
| Because everyone in this comment section is arguing that
| Android should be open-source and detached from Google. I'm
| saying some things are simply too big to be built by the
| community.
|
| The developers need to get paid. And the developers only get
| paid if the system is closed-source such that the revenue can
| only flow back to Google which is where the developers are
| hired at. In other words, yes it needs to be centralized, and
| the reason is the money required to build Android is just too
| much and therefore needs to be developed under a for-profit
| capitalist organization like Google.
| luisml77 wrote:
| This is the problem with this Hacker News platform. Who is
| downvoting me instead of discussing my points?
|
| This platform has the EXACT same problem as Reddit. People
| can just silence you before you had a chance of discussion.
| What a waste of fucking time. Instead of improving our
| world models of reality by having discussions, you can just
| silence others because you disagree. Remove the fucking
| downvote button! Just remove it, jesus fucking christ. Who
| thought this button was a good fucking idea?
|
| I'm nearly out of this garbage. The same way I left Reddit
| long ago. X is the only platform that allows free speech.
| xbar wrote:
| Keep Android open.
| rzerowan wrote:
| I think the main ask should not be limited to android/ios but
| similarly to the rules and regs of previous decades around
| agressive interop and standardisation. Asks for piecemeal
| carveouts whenever a monopoliist tightens the noose allows the
| can to be kicked downn the road when the outrage has subsided and
| allows for entrenchment of the status quo by stealth. Chipping
| away until the stated goal is reached. Just like the car/gas
| monopolies were not alowed to get away with locking users into
| their own cartels - similar efforts should (but probably wont) be
| taken to preserve the ability of users to do with their devices
| as they see fit.
| novoreorx wrote:
| Don't be a jerk, if you sign this, you should sign "Make iOS
| Open" first
| utopiah wrote:
| Why? iOS never pretended to be open.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| So what? I don't care what iOS or Android _pretend_ to be, I
| care that they _are_ not open.
| ksec wrote:
| Related question, is Modern Android as good if not better than
| iOS? Or does iOS still have an edge?
| egorfine wrote:
| What makes me depressed the most is that Google made this
| decision knowing full well how much pushback they are going to
| receive.
|
| And still.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| I think this might be an opportunity for runner-up mobile
| hardware manufacturers to build their models so alternate OSes
| can be loaded.
| jama211 wrote:
| Well I'm sure these comments will be rational and balanced...
| bogwog wrote:
| I wonder if filing a complaint at the FTC is a waste of time due
| to the current government shutdown?
| ilmblover2 wrote:
| I've seen this website before haha
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| We need hardware. Why aren't there 5G RF modules that connect via
| some standard interface like PCIe?
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| This battle was lost a looong time ago. The effort it takes to
| keep up with all the shenanigans of Google and that play store is
| way worse than these new changes.
| codethief wrote:
| I wish1 the page would also raise awareness for all the other
| stuff that's been going on w.r.t. Google & Android recently:
|
| - AOSP is no longer developed in the open (if it ever was) -
| source releases & security patches have been severely delayed
| lately.
|
| - Pixel devices will no longer be the reference devices for AOSP,
| and it seems Google will no longer release their device trees in
| the future. In addition, Google could also lock down the Pixel's
| boot loader and thereby prevent installation of custom ROMs.
|
| 1) Of course focus is important, so I get why they kept the page
| short & sweet. Besides, while the side-loading topic is an issue
| that might be interpreted as anti-competitive and that
| institutions like the EU might be able to do something about,
| with the other issues it's not as clear-cut, I think.
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