@rl_dane @spaceraser agree everyone in mobile hardware sucks btw. If I were independently wealthy, one of the things I’d work on is building better phones. Open hardware; open software. I use an iPhone today because it’s simply the best on every axis but it’s a closed system at the end of the day. Android is honestly worse because its security model is broken at the most fundamental levels, and calling it “open source” is a stretch of the term.
But there’s no money in that…
@rl_dane lol your last point excludes anyone in mobile hardware these days
Really? I thought it was just Onyx that was being bad in that regards.
@rl_dane I’m more thinking about what would be possible to do. Working in mobile means working with ARM and it’s not impossible to do that open source but it’s a giant pain compared to x86
> ...it’s not impossible to do that open source...
Not sure what this refers to. The ISA? Chip design? Firmware? Drivers? OS?
@rl_dane I don’t know specifically, but it’s my understanding it’s layers lower than the operating system. Just going off what I’ve heard from people who work on free/libre bootloaders, bios, sometimes drivers. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth trying to bring phones or arm computers 100% online with all their features.
@rl_dane @spaceraser "GPL respecting" generally works better on x86 because there, everything that they prefer to keep private is either in boot firmware or device firmware (e.g. GPU), and so the kernel code itself is maintained by the vendors and upstreamed. On the other hand, ARM kernel forks are still legion, and too often ship with binary-only modules that the vendors don't bother to sort out.
When you factor in firmware and you're aiming not just for "not blatantly violate the GPL" but "source code available", the situation is somewhat different: It's possible to go ~fully open source (except for the firmware that's running on your storage, wifi module, whatever else you throw in) from firmware onward with some rockchip SoCs with minor reduced functionality (hdmi out is complicated sometimes, thanks to the hdcp crap) and either lower memory clock or some reverse engineering needed to sort out the one remaining blob, which does ram training.
But you said "GPL respecting", and for that you're better off on x86.
That makes a lot of sense, and lines up with my (admittedly limited) experience with linux on ARM. :)
@rl_dane @spaceraser what do you mean re: Onyx? Looks like they have licenses for every single bit of software under the device info screen?
Don’t get me wrong I think they are a somewhat shady company, but they make the absolute BEST e-ink devices you can buy today. Easily my favorite purchase in the last 5 years. They even have a tiny tablet that looks like a phone (probably no GSM though).
Honestly though, I’ll know I’ve arrived when I don’t even carry a phone 🫠
I don't remember who told me, but apparently they had withheld some source code?
What I've found online is a few years old, so if they've changed their tune, that's welcome news.
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1331748-shortcircuit-showcases-boox-a-product-that-violates-gpl2/
@rl_dane @spaceraser agree everyone in mobile hardware sucks btw. If I were independently wealthy, one of the things I’d work on is building better phones. Open hardware; open software. I use an iPhone today because it’s simply the best on every axis but it’s a closed system at the end of the day. Android is honestly worse because its security model is broken at the most fundamental levels, and calling it “open source” is a stretch of the term.
But there’s no money in that…
I think running a FOSS Android build is probably the best option right now, because at least you have some pretty decent control over what information leaves your phone. Of course, as soon as you install your first google app, all that flies out the window, but there are mitigations for even that (I only have Google Maps, which runs in a "Private Space" sandbox, not logged in, and I occasionally wipe its data (virtual reinstall)).
But the hardware is still garbage from a freedom perspective, and only got worse last year as Google stopped considering their Pixels to be their open dev platform and instead is using some kind of vm. So getting AOSP to work on even Pixel phones has now become a guessing/reverse-engineering game like everything else.
> But there’s no money in that…
Yeah, this is how #crapitalism destroys everything. Even if you have amazing, world-changing ideas, they go nowhere unless they're profitable. Under capitalism, you're either an exploiter ("entrepreneur") or an exploitee (laborer). There's nothing else.
@rl_dane @spaceraser you could do some really cool things if the software were actually open though. Like having a firewall for phone calls and messages. You can sorta do this today but it almost always involves giving some third party app access to your communications metadata, which I am not okay with.
Not totally sure what you mean by "firewall" in this context, but there are APIs for anti-spam services in Android, and there are FOSS anti-spam apps (which honestly don't do much, because last I checked, there's no central service to collect those bad phone numbers).
SMS & MMS messaging in Android is totally open, and you can get any number of apps to handle your messaging, or even filter them, IIRC. #RCS is completely closed* and worthless, though. Absolute waste of paper.
* To any possible reply guys, yes, the spec is open. But there is no FOSS implementation, and even if there was, the RCS infrastructure is completely closed. fugghedaboudit.
@rl_dane my is commi in Monday. Can’t wait for books on the crapper :-)
@rl_dane there is.... one? Hibreak S (ok, and Pro). The others are phones without GSM (so, not a phone in my book).
I wouldn't want color, though. And I'd be afraid of chinese spyware. :P
Oh, they have a black-and-white version. Cool. Still worried about what kind of (spy|crap)ware comes bundled. ;)
Oh man, $200? That's very tempting. XD
@rl_dane I got the bw version.
Graphene is not working on eink support though :-(
Do they even support any hardware other than the pixels?
