Very interesting discussion at HN, incredibly relevant for SFOS on several fronts. IMHO, the comments both at Feddit and HN are really worth reading:
14 Likes
Yeah, except that production costs are so high, that no one can do it. The rest are commercially oriented players, who do not want to lay their products open. And the linux community divides on irrelevant issues and can not delivery working software.
Idea is great, but it has been degrading since at least 2008. I honestly believe it was already 2005/6 wen things started going south.
Look at Jolla … >10y and still issue here and issue there … compared to Android it is a hot air balloon. I even doubt it is more secure than Android.
3 Likes
Well, the fact that with SFOS, one does not have all those Google and Meta apps running in the background and snooping around your phone, for some people, including me, make it more secure.
When Google and Apple say that their OS is secure, they mean that they protect you from 3rd party “hacks”. They, themselves, can do whatever they wish with your data. And they can sell your data and profit from it, to their 1.000.000 client data leeching companies.
24 Likes
Well at least to me it has looked that big part of problems are one way or other related to a lot smaller resources. They haven’t yet been able to increase the devs side fast enough while things move forward all the time. With the resources they have, I would argue they have done quite good job.
12 Likes
Well … the decisions they made were stupid or politically motivated and thus stupid anyway.
Digging your own grave is what comes at the end.
1 Like
Why are U wasting your time here, if you do see Google as more “secure”?!
Are you aware, they are leaching users data, spying on them whenever possible?
Maybe it’s time to downplay that too and point out it’s for the “greater good of us all” and for our own sake. 
5 Likes
This reply is indication of low education, because you are introducing another topic that was not mentioned by me in any way.
But as you are mentioning it, I will share with you what I am thinking to do. I am thinking to buy FairPhone with e/OS. I have a friend that had Volla and FairPhone with e/OS and she reported that FairPhone with e/OS is the better solution.
Look I need a working phone. Not one that stops working/ringing or whatever misbehaves at random, that does not provide updates or support in any means. If you call this secure, well good for you. I call it useless crap. But to finish in a kind of positive way, I enjoyed it and even had to compile things (like buteo bluetooth plugin) so that I can still use it in the way I used N9.
Why was buteo bluetooth plugin removed, I never understood … may be because it is more secure to upload my contacts and appointments to the google cloud. Great achievements! Great thinking! Just enlightening! Amazing! Same as your comments.
Stop judging people - listen what they say and do something meaningful.
+10y … only promises and nothing working at 100%.
For example last week I had to reboot it again, because it stopped ringing (again). This is a JOKE!
3 Likes
I think he refers to/doubts on/ the capacity of SFOS to stay secure. I share as well some of those concerns: I think there’s limited capacity to maintain even the open parts (old libs, kernel deps, etc).
Not being on current versions mainained by teams like debian or alike, pulls on their tiny team a Sisyphus workload to just keep their noses above the water. With zero to none new value created.
2 Likes
It’s not the production costs, it’s the profit margins. If you produce in the EU you can’t make 20% profit or even more.
1 Like
So in fact it is the production costs ( by some research I read time ago you need to have 300mln user base).
And if you can not make a profit, just shut down your business and stop pretending.
My Xperia 10iii works almost flawlessly, and I use it as a daily driver for a long time now. I have no complain. If it does not fit your everyday needs, you can give up and move on to something else.
When you see a small company, like Jolla, struggling to survive in a sea full of gigantic sharks, they are not pretending. They are simply trying to survive in conditions that favor ONLY the big-techs (e.g., not allowing Jolla to have Russian investors, but on the other hand allow the import of Russian gas, allowing Google and Apple to activate devices in Russia etc).
You either join, or you turn your back, simple.
And yes, you have a group of 20 something people, against Googles 20.000+ employees. You must understand the consequences in their progress (actually, their attempt to try and keep up).
I personally thank them (and everyone that voluntarily support) for even attempting to build and maintain such a project.
Remember, I don’t want to, in any case, argue or change your mind. Its just my point of view.
25 Likes
As someone who chipped in on the HN discussion, as I stated there, I have been happy moving from Meego → Maemo → Jolla and with a few breaks have had a linux phone for over 20 years.
Yes, there are hickups. And yes, we’re behind. But thank god. I just did a re-install of an Android for my son (games, games, games) and it’s a f’n nightmare.
Just as with the desktop (stopped using my powerbooks in 2007) I’ve been a productive (and profitiable) linux/bsd user for a very, very long time.
If you want all the toys now, go buy an iphone and be happy.
21 Likes
This is certainly a problem. There is way too much fragmentation in the Linux phone OS space, especially taking into consideration how few devices are viable.
Maemo was nice because it was essentially Debian + GNOME with some tweaks that make sense for a phone. I actually I should say is nice because it is still developed as Maemo Leste thanks to generous support from EU NGI.
4 Likes
That is also my approach to things. But on the mobile camp, I am frustrated by the lack of a good mainstream browser for Jolla. Firefox Mobile should chip in. They got started on Maemo, and supporting a build for SFOS shouldn’t be a huge deal for a big org like them.
This would also act as a catalyst to bring in more users. SFOS needs a better browser and some good native messaging + VoIP. Without that, the entire experience feels unfinished.
Another issue is that govt apps only support the duopoly, and that acts as a huge privacy and user lockin. This is an existential threat and sometimes motivation for users to dump iOS/Android and come to SFOS. With things like digital wallets, we are moving towards a scary scenario where you need a sanctioned device to do basic daily chores.
3 Likes
Having your own hardware is not strictly necessary. Linux thrived in the desktop without custom hardware thanks to the openness of the IBM PC platform.
One could strike a deal with a friendly manufacturer such as Sony or Fairphone, perhaps with the assistance of some public grants. Personally, I cannot understand how EU governments are comfortable relying on iOS and Android. Probably they don’t know what they are doing.
4 Likes
Oh, there certainly are many good things we could do together as a society. But truth is: The governments don’t listen to us, but to the big companies.
3 Likes
The “openness of the IBM PC platform” - is more of an accident: it happened when IBM failed to control the architecture in their so IBMish mainframe-style.
We’d need a “rebel” HW platform that for gaining market share - or other advantages - inserts openly into the main linux tree.
MIPS platforms are years away from viable products and I see nothing else on the radar.
Til then, we’ll have to deal with locked-in, NDA protected HW . Openness means some available blobs which, for some, are almost full OSes, with a mind of their own. And that’s what runs your phone’s modem or BT controller.
I don’t see EU regulators intervening, force openness, etc. They probably still pop champagnes congratulating themselves for the USB C adoption, their greatest achievement ever. In terms of sovereignty - or just common sense -there’s everything to do, because they did nothing.
I hope I’m wrong.
5 Likes
True, there is still some relatively open hardware out there that is close to being runnable on a mainline kernel. Some Xperia devices were like that, Sony was relatively open. Some niche devices are even better. Obviously, pushing all manufacturing to China has made this much more difficult than it should be. The trend is worrying, but we need to stay positive and lobby a bit.
Another problem, which was discussed in the HN threads @poetaster was involved in, is fragmentation. Some expressed concerns with SFOS diverging too much from upstream Linux at this point.
here there are some videos showing android running on a risc-v processor: Android and RISC-V: What you need to know to be ready | Google Open Source Blog Fedora is also building packages for risc. Is there not hope that mainstream linux could run on such hardware? I’m sure we will see phones with such arquitecture and since the arquitecture is open I think drivers should be easier to implement and there would be no need for reverse engineering, am I wrong?
2 Likes
Supporting a CPU architecture, like MIPS, is an important step, but just the 1st out of many. Putting together a working phone is complex and the time to market vital.
I mean, Linux runs on ARM, sure, but I’m not aware of any phone with native open drivers for all things in the phone. At best linux sits on top of wrapped, close-sourced blobs intended for android.
And were they open specced, it’s questionable if Jolla had the manpower - or even the engineering skills- to maintain the drivers on its own. Dealing with the iron is hard.
I’m an irrational optimist, I guess - or I wouldn’t be here 
5 Likes