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Comment by bsimpson

1 year ago

Did something happen that made Sailfish relevant again? Surprised to see it on the front page today.

It's unfortunate that they're taking a closed source model when others like System76 and Librem are using their hardware sales to fund open source development.

There's also webOS, which was originally funded by Palm and doesn't seem to have any open source development any longer, and the Maui project which is basically one guy trying to make his own Linux UI.

I'd love to see a team with decent UX sensibilities tackle a touch-first Linux UI. Nothing I've seen so far has impressed me. Seems like there are a lot of onesie-and-twosie sized projects that take forever to ship anything and never hit critical mass; meanwhile, nothing really holds a candle to the design of Android/iOS.

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bsimpson

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rickdeckard  1 year ago

> There's also webOS, which was originally funded by Palm and doesn't seem to have any open source development any longer,

After a short stint at HP, webOS is now owned by LG, they use it as the OS for their Home Entertainment (TVs, projectors,...) and nowadays also as an Automotive OS platform.

Open Source: https://www.webosose.org/

  • nmfisher  1 year ago

    It's very much alive, too - LG just sponsored a hackathon to develop games for the new webOS store (including a Flutter-specific stream) with some legitimately good prizes (I think first prize was $100k, second was $80k).

  • ZuLuuuuuu  1 year ago

    I cannot get pass the cookie screen without "accept all". I cannot find "accept selected" or something like that.

    • andimm  1 year ago

      I have the option "show details" and there to choose "strictly necessary". (on mobile Safari and Desktop Edge, Desktop Firefox blocks the cookie screen automatically)

    • necovek  1 year ago

      If you click "analytics" checkbox, button above changes from "accept all" to "save & proceed".

      Unchecking it again hopefully does what you desire.

      1 reply →

necovek  1 year ago

TBH, I prefer all of WebOS (on HP Pre 3), Maemo/Meego (on Nokia N9 and N900) and Ubuntu Touch (on Meizu MX4) over Android for the UX qualities.

Obviously, they lacked in phone hardware and app selection, but basic experience was unmatched.

IIRC, Sailfish was inspired or derived from Maemo, so I wouldn't be surprised it took some great stuff with it.

Hitting the critical mass is tricky without having hundreds of millions to lose before you "validate" your experiment: Nokia was at that point with N9 release (to a wide acclaim in reviews too), but shifted right after that release fully to Microsoft Windows straight to their demise.

Canonical pulled out quickly as well, and well, HP Pre 3 didn't even make it to the market (WebOS changed hands weeks before the release).

I actually used each of these phones for a couple of years, and that was so much smoother (OS-wise) than Android. Never used iOS for a longer period to make any claim there (though if I go by MacOS, it's much hype for nothing).

saidinesh5  1 year ago

WebOS/Lune OS recently made a release in February no? Apparently they rebased themselves on top of LG's WebOS OSE. Rebase - being loosely used.

I think the Librem 5's adaptation of Gnome looks like a decent touch friendly Linux OS these days. Haven't touched it in a while though.