Jolla's Sailfish OS Is Now Available For Google's Nexus 4

[[Knuckles]]

Yea. I don't really get the current situation either, and nobody bothered clearing it up for me when I asked on xda-developers, too. Sigh... The phones seem to have bootloaders and you can install custom things into those, so I don't see why it's impossible to port something like GRUB and then boot off an SD card to install Gentoo or such...

I think the reason it's because when you combine binary/proprietary crap with full access to the source code you get shait.

By this I mean: you are a developer doing a device driver for windows. You hit some snag. The windows kernel does something in a way that really complicates your work. What are you going to do? Well, you have to code around it. And at the end you hopefully have a working driver and submit it for validation to microsoft, and if they didn't like the hack, they throw that crap back onto you and you'll have even more costs for the re-validation.

Now with android/linux you have full access to the source. You hit some snag. Well you could put in some work to solve it... or you could hack whatever you're working on. You know you aren't going to bother submitting code upstream. You know you won't have to maintain the hack because LOL maintaining old android devices who are we kidding. So you hack hack hack the kernel, and then you hack your code and all is well. Then you ship the kernel and your crappy code.
And you do this for all the drivers in the system.

Then comes the end user, and he gets stuck with whatever kernel you chose, because it needs to have the right hacks to match your binary drivers. Otherwise, no drivers lolol.

So this is mainly the manufacturers not giving a f###. But yeah, agree completely: why is not my phone like a computer? Why do I have to buy a new phone to access new software, and not new *hardware*. Of course with an older phone you might not be able to use some software that needs a hardware feature, or some other software may be slow. But "you can't run this because you don't have android X.Y", and then "you can't have android X.Y because your manufacturer doesn't give a crap" are lame excuses.

[tuke81]

Too bad that installing custom roms voids warranty in Finland(even android based which isn't manufacturers own update). Phones usually have counter for firmware installation and it does not help you installing original firmware back, even if the malfunction has nothing to do with software.

[blackiwid]

Too bad that installing custom roms voids warranty in Finland

I don?t think thats really true. Maybe the company say that, and if you brick your phone by uploading a firmware shure thats maybe true.

But if your display stopps working without you letting it fall or something like that. but it boots still and so one and its no softwareproblem, I dont think 1. they would argue taht way 2. they would not win on a court.

[dee.]

Too bad that installing custom roms voids warranty in Finland(even android based which isn't manufacturers own update).

No it doesn't, that'd be against EU regulations.

[aironeous]

Uh, awesome!

Now, if only they did the Galaxy range =D

https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Adaptations/libhybris&oldid=4409

[tuke81]

I don?t think thats really true. Maybe the company say that, and if you brick your phone by uploading a firmware shure thats maybe true.

But if your display stopps working without you letting it fall or something like that. but it boots still and so one and its no softwareproblem, I dont think 1. they would argue taht way 2. they would not win on a court.

Well there are already precedent where warranty were void because of custom rom were overheating and damaging processor and other inner parts. It's of course always seller who has to show that malfunction is caused by improper use of product, which installing custom rom is by manufacturers warranty conditions.

[z0id]

Warranty

No it doesn't, that'd be against EU regulations.

Source?

[dee.]

Source?

http://fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/flashingdevices.en.html

[Pajn]

You know what sucks the most about phones? That I can't buy the hardware I like and then easily install any OS that I (not the manufacturer) like. This pairing of hardware with software is utter bullsh**! It's no better with ARM boards like Raspberry Pi. This whole ARM based computing is a wayback machine back to the 80s :-/.

Yea. I don't really get the current situation either, and nobody bothered clearing it up for me when I asked on xda-developers, too. Sigh... The phones seem to have bootloaders and you can install custom things into those, so I don't see why it's impossible to port something like GRUB and then boot off an SD card to install Gentoo or such...

First ARM as an architecture is hugely fragmented and is just now starting to get better.
Second ARM boards have no standard in how stuff works and communicates which PC does.
Third nearly all drivers are closed so new drivers are needed to be written for nearly all hardware.
Fourth there are a lot more chip manufacturers which means a really crucial part is very
fragmented and needs lots of different drivers.

This is why Canonical uses Android drivers for Ubuntu Touch as Cyanogen Mod is the
largest project in supporting multiple different ARM platforms in a de-facto standardized way.

[ahjolinna]

I hope Xperia Z will get a port too, it is the same hardware as Nexus 4.

Jolla said that they will support Sony Xperia series phones, but it will take time...there is only 100people working for jolla