A GNU/Linux Smartphone Running GNOME & HTML5 Web Apps? Priced At $599, Ships In 2019 If The Stars Align

[WolfpackN64]

What is absurd is that gnome believers believe that gnome technology is the best. Gnome desktop is newer ready and there are very few wayland apps. Using xwayland is not purism. Purists should use X only.

What? How do you function? I can't even...

[grok]

At $599 it's still something that US software devs and US IT admins and a few "fair trade" hipsters will buy, half the price would be a better amount to risk on an uncertain phone. Although I'm open to wishing for the best : if it succeeds at $599 thanks to demand for a secure or non-monopoly phone it'll show there's a market for a higher volume.

Firefox OS was the most successful attempt so far, trying to go for high volume and the very low end from the start. They wasted some energy and had bad press when going really too low end while missing the mark for a low end 5" phone.
You might say Firefox OS wasn't real linux, fair game, it wasn't, it did a fair job of piggy-backing on Android's low level and running something completely different, needed to evolve to support ad blocking though, crap blocking, script blocking, firewalling applications / denying them stuff and lying to them. Would likely work well with current/near future Mozilla tech.

[pal666]

Read my post again.
I never said Android isn't open source.
I'm talking about it's drivers. Those are closed source.

read again my post. i said what you should do when you want to write open drivers

[nomadewolf]

android is opensource. if you are going to write open drivers, surely it is easier to write drivers for android than to write both drivers and new operating system

Read my post again.
I never said Android isn't open source.
I'm talking about it's drivers. Those are closed source.

[pal666]

With Android, the fact is that you can never be sure since the drivers are closed source.

android is opensource. if you are going to write open drivers, surely it is easier to write drivers for android than to write both drivers and new operating system

[nomadewolf]

Thats why I would been for no modem it just raises the price and many people dont need it cause wlan is everywhere.

While i understand and agree with your reasoning, a phone with no modem would (probably) angry many people.
I'd be glad with a switch to turn it off.

[srakitnican]

In one of the videos its mentioned that modem will be optional and WLAN is not everywhere, in fact where I live there is no even mobile connection everywhere.

[blackiwid]

If i'm not mistaken, these guys will use open source drivers. They chose the hardware to be able to do it.
BUT, some of the firmware at least (modem, i think), will not be open source.
Therefore, yes, there won't be true, 100%, guarantee privacy / open source goodness.

I do think it's a huge step in the right direction though, and if people really support this project, it will send a big message.

Thats why I would been for no modem it just raises the price and many people dont need it cause wlan is everywhere.

[nomadewolf]

Well privacy implies security. First of all we have that to that degree with jolla already doesn't we, and you can install sailfish-os on many modern smartphones. So you want that somebody installs sailfish for you?

The free driver matters, even for this horrible "convinience" people that don't care about freedom but only want some linux tools. you probably use also macosx cause you only want your cli commands then you are happy in a prison.

Well back to topic, without free drivers you have the situation like in android. Take the Fairphone 1 as extreme example... cause they dont have the source code to the driver even the fucking vendor can't release android > 4.x. on it.

You can't upgrade the kernel without the sources so this phones get old by design. And of course with that very old kernel if you dont backport 10mio bugfixes which they can't do you will have a very unsecure device.

No "privacy" without security is a pipe dream. Again buy a nexus 5 or something like that put on sailfishos and you are fine. If you don't want free drivers there are 10mio options. But with free drivers there is basicly 0 options. Well except 20 year old Replicant devices.

If i'm not mistaken, these guys will use open source drivers. They chose the hardware to be able to do it.
BUT, some of the firmware at least (modem, i think), will not be open source.
Therefore, yes, there won't be true, 100%, guarantee privacy / open source goodness.

I do think it's a huge step in the right direction though, and if people really support this project, it will send a big message.

[nomadewolf]

android is enough for that

It depends on what your standards are.
With Android, the fact is that you can never be sure since the drivers are closed source.
There is more closed source other than the drivers, but you can't get around the drivers. Easily, at least.