Comment by cookiengineer
4 months ago
Why can't they just partner with postmarketOS here?
Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways?
Why do we have to have a Librephone project now instead of partnering with say, Fairphone and the Pine64 people?
Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined. The only thing that comes close to this is GrapheneOS, LineageOS, and postmarketOS.
LineageOS has huge problems since the mandatory eBPF requirements of late Android versions, which postmarketOS and its upstreamed kernel drivers could fix. GrapheneOS has huge problems because of Pixel devices, which LineageOS could help with.
We need a unification of this ecosystem because each on their own is hardly surviving on their own against the megacorporations.
"Librephone is the FSF's project to free up those blobs. This project's goal is not another Android distribution, but a long-term project to better understand and reverse-engineer the nonfree blobs used by virtually all SoCs made today. " Looks they're going to build something literally from the ground
I feel that free software sometimes obsesses over the 1% when the 99% of their objective is achieved.
I make a parallel with politics and transparency, a software lead once told me that a completely transparent government was tried in the french revolution and it kind of didn't work. For example, we all would agree that there's some functions of government related to war and security that should not be transparent. I feel that free software would obsess over that private fraction because for all you know it might hold all of the secrets and evil that you imagine.
That said, it is possible that under the guise of reasonable need for private blobs/three-letter-agencies, a lot of other 'evil' things may be hidden. Maybe they say it's due to security or IP concerns, to provide protection against device tampering, to avoid pollution of radiofrequency spectrums, but it's possible that in reality they are hiding spying software in the wifi firmware and hardware keystores?
I feel that if the FSF recognizes that there's some areas that are ok to have closed source, then they could be taken seriously, otherwise they will just be ignored and leave room for precisely the kind of misuse of closed source that they fear. This is especially noticeable when they fight against projects that precisely do a lot for open source, like github (See GitLab/Savannah), or Android, they are 99% of the way there, give them a break.
Extremism begets extremism, if the jails are too full (or too empty), advocating for the other extreme will get you nowhere, the Overton Window doesn't quite apply, in fact it can be harmful as you are providing a real threat to the other extreme.
> I feel that free software sometimes obsesses over the 1% when the 99% of their objective is achieved.
It rather depends on what that 1% is.
The low-level code is what's most important to be free. If you have free firmware and drivers and operating system but then you still have to run a Windows VM or WINE for an old proprietary app, you can only have problems when running that app.
If you have opaque blobs interacting with the hardware, they can crash the whole system, expose firmware-level security vulnerabilities with persistence and the blobs are specific to a kernel version so when the vendor stops providing updates, you're stuck with an obsolete kernel version with known security vulnerabilities. If anything needs to be free software, it's that.
> This is especially noticeable when they fight against projects that precisely do a lot for open source, like github (See GitLab/Savannah), or Android, they are 99% of the way there, give them a break.
Android is "open source" but then the devices are Tivoized or you run into attestation failures if you actually want to run your own version of it. GitHub literally got bought out by Microsoft. These seem like legitimate concerns.
> I feel that free software sometimes obsesses over the 1% when the 99% of their objective is achieved.
Yes, that's what it means to have ideals.
Free software is by its very nature dogmatic. Stallman himself makes cringey jokes and references to the “church of gnu”. It’s more of a way of life than a way to develop software. By design, a religion is only happy with 100%.
Open source is just pragmatic and is very happy with the 99% being open source. It’s more corporate and doesn’t generally care at all about the dogma.
Yeah I don't know that this premise is true. For a lot of examples you might give WRT war or security, I feel like some will take the approach that "if you can't do it transparently then you probably shouldn't be doing it at all".
Yeah but the problem here is that the FSF has this annoying track record of being proven correct, over and over again. Two of your examples are github and android: github got bought out by microsoft, and android is about to be hobbled to the point that f-droid won't work on it anymore. If you want to go and look at the history you'll see a bunch of other instances of Stallman and the FSF saying things that sound paranoid at first, but which turn out to be correct in the long run. It's genuinely annoying, life would be easier if they were wrong occasionally.
Does it still count as a cult if they're right? Do they still count as extremists if they're empirically correct? Maybe it's a good thing to have that type of extremist out there, fighting for everybody.
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> free software sometimes obsesses over the 1% when the 99% of their objective is achieved.
That is the nature of software. 1% is too much. It is Free or it is not
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From my understanding of the article, Postmarket or Lineage or any other mobile operating system will be able to make use of this project. The goal is to provide FOSS drivers, so that you can run Lineage without proprietary blobs copied from the distribution of Android provided by the device manufacturer.
It's mainly a libre purity project. A Lineage user won't be able to tell a thing, but the system will be "ethically pure"
There aren't even any arm or x86 desktops that are completely blob free. There is some ridiculously expensive amd power hungry power9 thing that nothing will run on, and some of sifive's newer boards might qualify. Every arm at least has some soc blobs. And every x86 has something like ime. Going straight for a blob free phone seems like getting ahead of ourselves. How about we shoot for a completely free rpi usable on the desktop first?
Rockchip AFAIK doesn't have any. It boots with mainline u-boot, but it doesn't include any wifi or other radios.
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> Postmarket or Lineage or any other mobile operating system will be able to make use of this project.
Any OS "is able" to use anything from any other OS - in theory and given infinite resources. In practice though, it makes a huge difference when something works by default.
No, software licensing often gets in the way.
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Mobile software is unfortunately not really a lego that can always be combined at will.
In your examples you compare Android rebuilds with real Linux distros. The projects also have quite different goals (providing full manufacturer ROM replacement for Android on Lineage OS to reusing any old hardware to basically run servers on PostmarketOS).
That's not entirely true.
Most PostmarketOS devices start out using LineageOS kernels, and many are atill using those.
Why not use PostmarketOS kernels on LineageOS?
The ultimate goals are different, but cooperation on upstreaming kernel work would benefit both.
LineageOS kernels are AOSP downstream kernels, and PostmarketOS has expressly deprecated their use. LineageOS is now working on running their system on close-to-mainline kernels, as provided by PostmarketOS and most Linux distributions.
> Mobile software is unfortunately not really a lego that can always be combined at will.
If we're talking about the mainline Linux, then it this looks exactly like a Lego to me. I hope that FSF will concentrate their efforts on that.
Why partner with postmarketOS, LineageOS, GrapheneOS, or CalyxOS? This would be an open source initiative that contributors from any of those projects to add to. The results could be used by any of the aforementioned distributions, and more. It might even make running vanilla Linux on our exiting smartphones viable.
Why partner with Fairphone and Pine64? They already have open hardware, and require zero reverse engineering to get a fully open solution working. In a world with thousands of Fairphones and Pinephones, and billions of corporate smartphones, replacing the proprietary software needed to run those billions of corporate smartphones is a hell of a win for software freedom.
And are you really expecting the argument "open source loses" to be a real argument against a project by the Free Software Foundation? This is like asking a cancer charity why they don't endorse your preferred brand of cigarettes.
What the FSF is doing here isn't about maximizing your experience with your preferred custom ROM, it is about tearing down the proprietary software barriers that prevent the vast majority of smartphone users from fully owning the hardware they purchased. It fits perfectly with the FSF's goals.
> tearing down the proprietary software barriers that prevent the vast majority of smartphone users
Are you aware that all those millions of devices require each model a dedicated reverse-engineering effort? You don't gain the coverage you're implying by concentrating on Android at all.
This type of semi-whataboutist comment appears at the top of most open source project announcements.
Once we live in a centrally planned utopia these projects will all be merged with each other and produce the perfect phone/operating system/smart watch.
This project is about reverse engineering the firmware blobs. It states that they do not want to create a distribution like postmarketOS or other projects do.
The listed distributions have already been created. The OP didn't suggest to create a distribution but to collaborate with existing ones not relying on the Google's OS.
Graphene and Lineage both rely on Google's OS, so this is not what the OP was saying.
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Why are all commenters on HN ignoring the only smartphone running an FSF-endorsed [0] operating system, Librem 5, and only list everything else? I just can't get it.
Even the FSF themselves didn't mention it or provided any reasoning for choosing a Google-controlled operating system - despite recommending Librem 5 earlier [1]. What am I missing?
[0] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/
as someone who has followed this phone for a long time, it has had an image problem - fairly old hardware, early software/buggy, and bad customer service experiences.
i'm still pretty tempted to play with one.
> fairly old hardware
How new do you think the chosen Android hardware will be at the end of the promised reverse-engineering efforts?
See also: https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/
It's fast enough and stable enough to serve me (and many other people, including in the HN comments) as a daily driver.
> bad customer service experiences
This depends: Purism is a quite small company, and sometimes they take time to reply, but the community at forums.puri.sm has been really helpful. I'm a happy user.
We are talking about the FSF here, not Apple. The former concentrate on the user freedom, not modern hardware or polished experience (which is a good thing).
We know that you will post something about Librem 5 so there is no need for anyone else to do it.
It’s amusing to me that whenever I see a submission about Linux phones, I start looking for the obligatory @fsflover comment.
No bad feelings, fsflover, keep up the good work. I also can’t wait to post on here from a libre phone.
> LineageOS has huge problems since the mandatory eBPF requirements of late Android versions
It's a mixed bag. The eBPF requirement makes it harder to support newer AOSP versions on very old downstream kernels (you now need a close-to-mainline port, like what pmOS aims to provide) but because it is a requirement, it will make it easier for newer devices to run a more up-to-date kernel starting from the available downstream sources.
You have a good point about things coming together, but open source often is a lot of design and development by committee, or interest.
Librephone appears to be taking existing linux approaches, and specifically reverse engineering the SoC blobs to be completely free. I may have mis read, but it doesn't appear they are building another android distro for android phones, as they already have done that in the past.
Just tried to learn the difference between these and it seems like:
- Graphene - For current devices only - An alternative for phones that are supported and updated by Google. Security Patches, etc.
- LineageOS - For devices while they're supported or may not be updated that often. Support can be sometime by community members.
- PostmarketOS - devices that no longer have a maintained Android version for it, can just become a linux computer. Mobile functionality doesn't necessarily.
Some phone chips overtime end up having a hardware security flaw that software can't fix.
I really enjoy using Android. Part of the issue is not all deices get timely security updates, even if they get monthly updates, the updates might be from 6 months ago. Google might release a security patch but sometimes it has to go through the device manufacturer, and maybe even the mobile company. Pixel / Android pure installs seem to improve this a bit, but it's hard to have complete trust.
Librem?
> Open source loses this war because proprietary devices are streamlined.
"Open source" didn't loose because it didn't fight anything. It was exactly "Open source" that enabled Google to dominate the smartphone landscape.
FSF and many other have been warning us for decades that Android been open source didn't matter because firmware, play store and many other components of Android were proprietary.
People gave a shit to them and now do you want to blame them for the results?
The diversity of projects were not and are not the problem. The problem is people that do nothing and only criticize.
> It was exactly "Open source" that enabled Google to dominate the smartphone landscape.
The financial interest may have preferred a licensing model, but either way, it was the financial interest that actually built a ton of this software. Linux isn't unpopular with businesses because of its license model. It is healthy because it found ways to plug into financial interest.
The FSF will always push licensing models while ignoring financial interest, basically abandoning users and businesses. There are how many billion smartphone users on Earth, and the FSF expects volunteer programmers and volunteer donations recruited on one of the worst websites I have ever seen to carry the load? Give me a break.
This is the one big flaw I've seen in Stallman's philosophy on software. He's been thoroughly proven right I think about the dangers of closed-source (unmodifiable) software to user freedom. But I think his insistence that Free Software also needs to be freely redistributable with no payment to the author in order to be Free has greatly limited the resources available to build such software.
The FSF will argue "you can totally sell Free Software"[1], which ignores the fact that without any restrictions on distribution/copying, the fair market value of said Free Software rapidly drops to ~$0. It's not a viable business model. Companies have built alternate business models around soliciting donations, or selling support or non-free add-ons to Free software, but selling Free Software itself (at least as the FSF defines it) doesn't actually work in practice. (You can do it obviously, but it's effectively just a different way of soliciting donations at that point; the fair market value of the software is ~$0.)
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
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PREACH. Sorry. I felt heard and seen!
I prefer /e/OS to LineageOS because it includes sensible defaults (e.g. Maps app + MicroG with location providers and signature spoofing enabled) that are a pain to set up for yourself after flashing vanilla LineageOS.
/e/OS already partners with Fairphone, if you like that hardware: https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairpho...
I agree that PostmarketOS needs a lot more love, but it's very far from being a daily driver system today.
/e/ has extraordinarily poor privacy and security. Extremely delayed privacy and security patches including years of delays for kernel, driver and firmware updates or complete AOSP patches is not compatible with privacy.
/e/ rolls back privacy and security far more than LineageOS and /e/ includes their own invasive services. Murena services even send data to OpenAI without user consent.
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand... is a detailed post covering the lack of privacy and security of /e/ with a bunch of linked sources including other detailed posts by third party privacy and security researchers. It also touches on the lack of security of Fairphone hardware including end-of-life Linux kernel branches not getting LTS updates and delays for driver/firmware patches, but it's much worse with /e/.
You post something similar almost every time /e/OS is mentioned.
I recognize that GrapheneOS has a different threat model in mind (journalists, activists, etc.), but /e/OS is a big improvement over OEM Android for most regular people. I tend to agree with your linked article that for users happy to live in Apple's locked-down glass box, iOS is a more secure, more usable system than either Graphene or /e/OS.
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Supposedly Graphene is partnering with a major OEM (they say "one of the top 10") to get better hardware support. Even then they're still at the whim of Google, though - the most recent QPR1 update still has not been pushed to AOSP even after many weeks. Supposedly partnering with an OEM means they get these updates quicker but who knows.
You may have missed this, it's only been ~11 days since the post but they've got a solution now, with the first release having happened:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/27068-grapheneos-security-p...
This is a security patch which is different from the QPR1 release. _Supposedly_ once they partner with an OEM they will get more reliable access which would be nice, but I'm hesitant. I switched my Pixel 8 Pro to Graphene a few months ago and really like it.
Why is eBPF a problem?
A lot of functionality of newer Android releases (Android/AOSP 13 and later) rely on eBPF [1] for both interception of process insights and sandboxing of processes. eBPF in a nutshell is a way to build kernel hooks, so that you can also disallow or intercept syscalls or kernel API calls that the Apps are executing behind the scenes.
eBPF was introduced with Kernel 4.14 officially (but partly long before that). Most LineageOS supported devices still rely on older kernels, the most range being around the Kernel 4.4 or 4.9 branches, which lack that eBPF functionality. The LineageOS maintainers were backporting a lot of things already, but that's the "hardcut of now unsupported legacy devices" that people are experiencing with their old phones.
The issue here is that upstream vendors (e.g. Fairphone, actually meaning upstream Qualcomm IoT) only maintain their outdated kernel versions, and never maintain them in the sense of updating their driver code into newer kernel releases. The drivers are always stuck in an outdated state of a feature frozen kernel.
I'm just making this specific example with the Fairphone because "5 to 8 years support" isn't what most people would think it is. It means "only the really critical security patches of old stuff gets backported" and does not mean "hey we migrated our old code to a new kernel and Android version".
For example, Fairphone 1, 2, 3, 3+ are all stuck in old kernels right now (4.9 being the latest backport for the FP3+) and are essentially not updatable because of this.
I don't try to blame Fairphone here, because other manufacturers are much much worse in this regard. Fairphone and Pixel are already the "as good as it can get" for third-party ROMs case.
I mentioned postmarketOS specifically, because they're trying to fix that by upstreaming the kernel drivers, so that Linux support of those devices will stay updated with newer kernel releases (hopefully).
[1] https://source.android.com/docs/core/architecture/kernel/bpf
> only maintain their outdated kernel versions, and never maintain them in the sense of updating their driver code into newer kernel releases
Just an aside, but this is one of the major downsides of monolithic kernels, and a case where microkernels would have had more consumer friendly upsides.
I don't think Android is really using eBPF for much. Last I remember they were loath to adding more things and they've definitely locked away the ability to load arbitrary new programs because they couldn't secure the attack surface it opened up.
I'm pretty sure they said they're partnering with everybody that they possibly can. I also don't know what you mean by "just partner with postmarketOS." It's basically a project to create a fully-free Android-compatible distribution (or rather the fully-free low-level elements that would support this), and postmarketOS is not Android. I also don't have any idea why you think that they wouldn't be talking to everybody who is reverse engineering phones to get OSes on them.
I really do not understand this comment at all. I don't understand the weird judgemental tone, and I don't understand that people have reacted to it like there is content there.
I agree about postmarketOS but eOS isn't the same as Lineageos, I used both and they are pretty different. eOS wants to have its own non-Google ecosystem which is a non-goal for Lineageos
That's just the unfortunate reality of free software. Free software is anarchy, and the only people who thrive in anarchy are the ones who band into fiefdoms, who then fight amongst each other and build mutually incompatible projects (often from the very same components) which are direct substitutes to each other.
There's tons of evidence of this with stuff like linux distros, desktop environments (each one MUST have its own sanctioned file manager, video player, music player etc, god forbid some godless charlatan come along and make its own).
The price of admission into these 'tribes' is the adoption of the local creed (libraries/HIG/coding style/whatever/not speaking out against the Dear Leader/Core Principles/local purity committee). As with other such despotic organizations, incompetence and laziness is tolerated, disloyalty is not.
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You're forgetting 1 tiny thing: the wjole AOSP ecosystem is running on volunteer dev time. It's much more difficult to organize and streamline vision / roadmap.
As in every idealistic movement, the fundamentalists(which contribute all the talk and non of the walk) hijack it and drive it into a wall.
Your statement is wrong in two distinct ways:
- Fundamentalists never hijacked the FSF, they founded it: Stallman is about as fundamentalist as possible about free software.
- In the case of the FSF, the fundamentalists are absolutely walking the walk, both in terms of contributing software, and in terms of going out of their way to not use proprietary software.
> in terms of going out of their way to not use proprietary software.
Performative and an example of very self-defeating tactics that belie motivations other than actually accomplishing anything.
> they founded it
This is true, but it actually contributes to arguments that the FSF is full of crazies content to preach from the monastery of ascetic suffering rather than live in a world with lots of independence and strong open source.
> GrapheneOS has huge problems because of Pixel devices, which LineageOS could help with.
What are these "huge problems" caused by Pixel devices?
Probably that Google is dragging their feet releasing Pixel kernel and other source code. LineageOS has many years of experience getting a working system on top of bad or incomplete sources, including getting kernel source out of vendors in the first place.
> dragging their feet releasing Pixel kernel
Isn't it only the device tree, and therefore only affecting initial support for the Pixel 10?
Doesn't feel like a huge problem, though it makes it harder to support the Pixel 10.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45208925
I will never use GOS as long as it requires me to buy a Pixel, on principle, because it's made by Google. It's like having to buy a Microsoft Surface in order to use Linux.
You can use an older pixel, thus not really giving money to Google, and also preventing that phone from landing in a landfill. Without all that Google and carrier excess junk on board, an older phone is fast.
You can buy a new pixel, install GrapheneOS, and laugh thinking about how you're denying the enemy the OS level tracking they wanted with that device.
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The reason why GrapheneOS only supports the Pixels is that the other manufacturers are not trying to get their shit together and release a phone that is reasonably secure. It's not that GrapheneOS supports Google, it's just that the other manufacturers are worse than Google.
If a major manufacturer released a good smartphone that GrapheneOS could support, they would get new users from the set of people who want GrapheneOS. I would gladly buy a non-Pixel as long as it can run GrapheneOS.
Which means that in a way, if you buy a Pixel and install GrapheneOS, you give more credibility to GrapheneOS, making it more interesting for a different manufacturer to consider supporting them.
PostmarketOS has never achieved proper support on any device so far.
Doesn't this count? https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Purism_Librem5_(purism-li...
Looks like it is not. Unfortunately.
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I got an FP5, would not buy again.
Could you elaborate on why? This type of comment doesn't add any value.
We bought two FP5 with e/OS/ from Murena (for spouse and myself), and would buy again. Why wouldn't you?
I don't like how /e/OS claims everywhere that they support all those phones, when in all my experience they just can't keep up and I end up with phones that don't receive vendor firmware updates for 1+ year.
I considered purchasing it, but ultimately turned it down due to its size. What's the reason you're not liking it?
I like the size. I do not like the weight. I love the phone overall though. Love love. Good choice despite downsides.
I got a FP4, will definitely buy again.
Can you elaborate?
Did you read the article? They're not creating nor choosing an operating system for the librephone project. They're looking into reverse engineering the binary firmware blobs needed to achieve a fully free software distribution on a modern device. Afaik, this work will benefit all alternative OS projects for whatever devices they succeed with.
I guess maybe a good analogy would be like trying to port coreboot to a laptop.
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TLDR or something? They aren't making an OS.
The project is about opening up the closed blobs that mobile chipsets use:
"This project's goal is not another Android distribution, but a long-term project to better understand and reverse-engineer the nonfree blobs used by virtually all SoCs made today."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45589873
Thats clearly not what the OP is suggesting as per "Why do we have to have /e/OS instead of a better supported LineageOS, because /e/ is a 1:1 copy anyways?". Both cases are android. /e/OS is not librephone.
There's little point in "partnering" with postmarketOS, because the project is literally about clean room reversing the proprietary blobs found in android devices: https://librephone.fsf.org/site/ - there are no commercial phones using postmarketOS with blobs to reverse engineer.
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> The FSF is now under the leadership of a "Bachelor of Arts degree in Media and Culture and a Master of Arts in the Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image" who probably hasn't written a line of code.
This is an exceptionally poor argument.
1. Coders are biased and often not aligned with users whose rights FSF is there to protect. Just look at any OSS vs FS discussion on this site to see examples.
2. Your "probably" here is too big of an assumption and of not much consequence. I have a degree in humanities, do not work in IT and have contributed code to Free Software.
3. You somehow imply that formal education affects _leadership_ in a _rights_ organization and a technical one would be preferable. That's a long shot.
Good initiatives require strong argumentative basis to have a strong wide following, you're providing a counterexample.
> Coders are biased and often not aligned with users whose rights FSF is there to protect. Just look at any OSS vs FS discussion on this site to see examples.
Programmers understand software ecosystems, of which free software is just a subset. I also see a lot of programmers advocating leaderships and other non-technical skills generally. If you observe a pattern where a lot of coders seem biased, maybe there's something else going on?
> Good initiatives require strong argumentative basis to have a strong wide following
The FSF has circular logic all throughout their ideology. They only want to argue if you let them frame the conversation with their own conclusions along with a full deconstruction of views they didn't come up with, like open source, which they explicitly work to discredit and do not represent. It is little wonder that their following is not wide nor strong because they are divisive and completely incapable of working with others or incorporating ideological diversity. They are eclipsed by the EFF and several other organizations built around open source applications in terms of fund raising at this point. Don't listen to me. Just go look at some financials. You'll see how little they represent these days.
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In free software those who write code decide what is done and nobody else matters in the end.
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This take is gatekeeping and sexist. Coding is not the job description for FSF leadership; policy, licensing, and funding are. The previous, highly effective former FSF executive director was a poet, not a programmer.
Focus on outcomes: mainline kernels, modem firmware, reproducible builds, verified boot, power management, app ecosystems, and sustained funding. Credit the projects pushing those fronts and press FSF to support them: attack decisions, not résumés or gender.
I personally think it's unfair to accuse this person of sexism. I didn't even know he was talking about a woman until you pointed it out. It's possible that this comment comes from a place of sexism, and it's possible that it doesn't. It's uncharitable to just assume the former.
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This post was fine up until you decided to be sexist for no reason. If you're using "feminine" as an insult, professing "obvious" connotations, you need to reflect on why you have these associations.
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Librephone is reverse engineering project that attempts to remove remaining proprietary binary modules, not a competing project.
> Librephone will serve existing developers and projects who aim to build a fully functioning and free (as in freedom) Android-compatible OS.
Feminine? What on earth? How can an NGO have a gender? And more importantly, why does it need one? I like your comment, but the word "feminine" is really sexist, as if everything female was of less value.
people followed Stallman because the GNU stuff was interesting and good, then we got decades of endless dick-measuring about whose freedom is more free, GPL2 or GPL3 or MIT or AGPL or ...
and while the differences have consequences in the grand scheme of things what mattered is what the trillion dollar corporations wanted, because the FSF didn't manage to do shit, not even the feminine coordination (nor the masculine rallying cry to arms!)
The GNU stuff was precisely what FSF managed to do. They didn't manage to do more because they had a fraction of the resources large corporations had. People wanting more just doesn't create more by itself, they were reliant on our contributions and we failed them.
Today, I have access to quality tools on my computer and my computer runs Linux without any of the drama that proprietary equivalents bring and looks visually fantastic. My computer feels mine again and for that, I remain eternally grateful to the FSF.
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It is how the times are nowadays. You don't get the CEO throne of any org without chest-thumping your social justice initiatives. The FSF is merely following fully up2date standard operational procedures of Western civilization. How can you blame them for following the de-facto standards ?
Praise the Heavens that at-least 3/10 staff are coders. That is a far better ratio than most NGOs.
FSF is a social justice initiative.
It's time you stop blaming social justice initiatives for your own failures. The projection is clear.
It's wonderful that you've been privileged enough to not need to understand the point of "social justice", but it's not a bogeyman preventing you from being a leader.
> the FSF is at least 15 years late to really launch something in that space
Not really. https://replicant.us is an FSF-supported project. But it kind of died due to the lack of contributors.
IMHO, postmarketOS is better than Replicant or any other Android Rom, because it doesn't depend on Android.
Yes we should have seen (me included) that going the free android distribution path was a long term trap.
This is where the Stallman hard, radical and long term vision make a lot of sense in retrospect. Because we see now Google is pulling the rug.
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FSF could finally take a look at webOS / Open WebOS and release it for devices.
Apps built in HTML/JS/CSS, straight from 2009.
The feminine vibe doesn't really land, and seems to kind of undermine the rest of what you're trying to say.
There's no shortages of OSS floating around with individuals butting heads about splitting hairs to their preferred interpretation, forking away into oblivion or to a standstill alone.
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Why do we have to have million Linux distros? Why do we have to have dozen desktop environments?
Because in FOSS world every single actor is a snowflake with unique vision. Any form of cooperation ends up in drama and moral accusations.
The FOSS world is primarily about freedom. You don’t have to align with someone else’s vision, you don’t need to be profitable, you don’t need to care about other projects
A.k.a. not getting paid, so you might as well do what you want.
How's the computing freedom for general audience? Better than ever, right?
Why do we need so many car models and manufacturers?
We don't.
But as soon as FOSS orgs will obtain resources comparable to those of car companies I will stop complaining.
I don't mind the many multiple distributions but the default experience really sucks.
For example, there should only ever be one clipboard by default. If power users want multiple, they can go out of their way to configure their device config as such. Similarly, the function keys should function as function keys on a keyboard out of the box, without us having to fiddle with config files. Also the scroll wheel click to scroll should work out of the box without requiring editing config files. The default experience is still pretty poor.
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So what exactly is the problem? To many options?
The options thinking they're an island retreat only for those who agree with their way while standing on the same continent.
What's missing is building something that resonates with the user/consumer's experience backwards, not just personal preferences or interpretations, which is fine, but at that point it's a personal project, not a product, or much larger unless it really captivates both people who can contribute to creating it and also it is adopted quite easily.
Creating beginners can seem like something too many OSS projects can be allergic to. It's the greatest sin of too many projects, and they ultimately can't be freed of it.
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