Android is already free software, and see how far that gets you. The kicker is that you’re tied into their services (with all the data harvesting, targeted advertising and monetisation that that involves).
Yes, because it is permissively open source, not only are these companies free to build what they want - we are entitled to that same right. We therefore created LineageOS and GrapheneOS, and its really great.
There’s also a lot of motivated people getting regular Linux distributions running on mobile devices too, so we have that as well
Apple would sell for 10 but would deny until death that it sold, and still convince you to believe that it didn’t sell.In addition to giving it a “cool” name like DNA Titanium Protection XDR or something like that,
There is already something in the works (that you can technically buy right now if you wanted), and it actively respects your freedom. Granted, as with everything in this ecosystem, its a very slow burn, so it’ll be a while before the software is actually good, but it’s already made massive strides from where it started.
I would say wait a bit and take a look at this later, but i do have one friend daily driving one now to some success (this wasn’t possible a year ago).
That would be great, but you can buy a $20 burner from a gas station that’s more powerful than those phones.
The regular version uses the Allwinner A64 chip which retailed for $5 when it was released… Back in 2015.
The Pro version uses the RK3399S, which is a custom lower binned version of the RK3399. Neither chip was made available retail, but the SK3399 was released in 2016 and only otherwise used in low-end Chromebooks and SBCs.
Sure, but calling them out for not being a $20 burner phone doesnt make sense when you’re comparing that to a developer/development device. This phone specifically isnt meant for everyday consumers. What it is, however, is a signal that there is now a third competitor in the works, and it’s real and tangible.
While I don’t mind BSDs, that would lead to even worse outcomes though in my view. Companies wouldn’t even have to release the source code, and they routinely don’t.
What we need is more copyleft to ensure companies contribute back to the communities they leach from, not less.
See, that’s the situation where we just don’t use them. I’m talking about wiping the original OS and putting something that’s really FOSS in its place.
As. Someone who is incredibly poor and use my current fire stick as a way to help me because of accessibility for my disabilities. Does anybody know if there’s a alternative to Chromecast, fire stick or Roku that doesn’t involve another computer (which I could get a raspberry pi or another computer dedicated to media, but government doesn’t believe in giving disabled people enough for those things)
I don’t pay for my streaming services. My mom who is barley surviving too and others pay for it. Had no choice really. Sense I have zero income it’s hard to save up. (been battling the government for nearly 6 year’s to get SSI or anything to help )
Good luck getting all the developers to rewrite their apps. The only reason you had any apps was because it was based on Android so it was little to no effort to port. Going plain ol’ embedded Linux is basically the death knell of your developer story. Source: been there, had no third party apps, switched to Android
Oh man PWA as a replace to traditional apps have been promised for a while. On one hand the promise of write once run anywhere on the other less ability to lock down your app from your users (good for us, but not popular in the mobile space at the moment)
You’re likely thinking KaiOS. They are still contributing what is required under MPL-2.0 but the rest is proprietary. KaiOS 3.x finally got off of a browser from 2016 as the base, but very few have upgraded their apps to be compatible (the tweaks were minor) & others have used it as a reminder that they were still ‘supporting’ a platform like whoever is maintaining or using that WhatsApp thing for chat.
There’s also Capyloon built from B2G, but it’s still early on & is targeting touch phones, instead of feature phones.
It would be nice to see it around IMO since it’d just be another enhancement to progressive web applications & JavaScript is a better target than Java or Swift.
PWAs are great if they’re written well, especially if they allow offline access.
There’s platforms like React Native where the apps are native on each platform (they use native UI widgets). You can’t just run the same code, but you can reuse probably 90-95% of code across platforms.
I’m not sure how this is in any way different from android? Android is free software they use to restrict the computing they devices they sell to push more ads and junkware. This is just a different one. Amazon sucks, so I don’t see what move they could make that could be seen as positive. Just don’t buy their garbage devices.
I already tried an Amazon Fire tablet, Amazon. No thanks. I returned it. I don’t need a locked-down console that spies on me. Windows is well on its way to becoming that already.
I tried to get one since it was 30 bucks, so I’m not too surprised this is how they operated. They are locking down jindles real hard too. Probably going to make a lot of ewaste.
The author is exited but I’m not. I am not a big fan of corporations taking the free work of FOSS developers and turning it into a proprietary dystopia.
I think that having a strong public domain is good for everyone. For instance properties like Sherlock Holmes really took off once it was in the public domain and people could write spin-offs and whatnot without worry that a copyright lawyer would come along and sue them.
Linux is the same thing, Amazon using the kernel and stuff to build an OS on doesn’t take anything away from anyone else who uses Linux as a desktop or server environment, and in fact can lead to some good pass back, even if it is just that the devices are easier to root. Take a look at the Open-wrt project, where Linksys built their router on top of a Linux kernel and it led to a whole ecosystem of open routers. People went out of their way to buy a WRT-42G just with the intent of rooting it, and Linksys got their money either way.
It’s pretty annoying you replied to someone’s nice, well thought out comment with your own bullshit. Then speculated about something you could have googled in 7 seconds max.
Amazon using Linux isn’t the concern. What OP was referring to are things like their use of Elasticsearch. It’s basically Amazon’s version of embrace, extend, extinguish. It got so bad, that the devs of Elasticsearch changed their licensing as a way to fight against Amazon’s tactics.
Open source is great. But when other companies take the open source code as their own to the detriment to the original open source devs, that’s not sustainable. That behaviour will kill open source.
These tentacular megacorporations are a problem. Amazon is OK as a merchant, MS as an OS developer, Google as a search engine… If they do vertical integration the market is corrupted.
Vertical integration is when you control the entire product, in consumer electronics Apple is the gold standard; they make the software, hardware, and processors then integrate them into iPhones and macBooks. Tesla is a good example in the automotive space, their goal with the mega-factories is "raw materials in, cars out" and they work to build as many of the parts themselves as possible.
Alternately Microsoft just makes a good enough OS that runs on good enough hardware from commodity vendors, so you get good enough computers. Most auto makers buy good enough components from 2nd and 3rd tier suppliers and integrate them into good enough cars.
That is a great explanation of what vertical integration is. I am not sure I see why it is inherently bad.
I guess a large vertically integrated option could make it hard for alternatives to compete. That is more of a monopoly problem than a vertical integration issue though.
I do agree with interoperability requirements though. I see nothing wrong with Apple offering a fully vertically integrated product. The issue is when I cannot run my own OS on the hardware, my own apps on their OS, or interact with hardware from other vendors.
But that’s exactly the problem. If the company is kind about it, or forced to play nice by effective regulation, there’s no issue. But if there’s no regulation and the company wants to, it tends towards monopolistic tendencies. And there’s nothing that incentivizes a company to play nice forever, in fact they’re incentivized to maximize profit. So Vertical Integration is bad without being checked.
Yes, but those minor traces are easy enough to remove, especially if you don't care about being "ceritified" by Google (i.e. are not planning to run the Google services).
If my device is compatible, does it automatically have access to Google Play and branding?
No. Access isn’t automatic. Google Play is a service operated by Google. Achieving compatibility is a prerequisite for obtaining access to the Google Play software and branding. After a device is qualified as an Android-compatible device, the device manufacturer should complete the contact form included in licensing Google Mobile Services to seek access to Google Play. We’ll be in contact if we can help you.
Google services are entirely missing from Android open source. The Google Play package is what contains the entirety of Google’s services.
Not sure if anyone remembers but back when cyanogenMod was the go-to, early versions had Google services included. Google sent a cease and desist notice and said it was a license violation. You cannot distribute it as part of the OS by default. The next release of cyanogenMod had it removed. Users had to flash the package if they wanted it.
Right but the topic was about google’s data harvesting and what I meant was that you can’t just grab any AOSP distribution if you want to minimize that, you need to pick one that replaces the parts that send data to google. LineageOS for example still phones google for quite a number of services.
As far as “easy to remove” goes, I think that’s kind of debatable if you want to do it in a way that’s sustainable long term considering the effort that goes into e.g. GrapheneOS or DivestOS.
Edit: here is a list of the kind of stuff you need to watch out for if you want to minimize the data sent to google
I was answering under the assumption/the context of of "Amazon wants to release an Android-based OS that doesn't contact any of Googles services".
So, when I said "easy enough to remove" that was relative to releasing any commercial OS based on AOSP, as in: this will be one of the smallest tasks involved in this whole venture.
They will need an (at least semi-automated) way to keep up with changes from upstream and still apply their own code-changes on top of that anyway and once that is set up, a small set of 10-ish 3-line patches is not a lot of effort. For an individual getting started and trying to keep that all up to do date individually it's a bit more of an effort, granted.
The list you linked is very interesting, but I suspect that much of that isn't in AOSP, my suspicion is that at most the things up to and excluding the Updater even exist in AOSP.
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