[Replicant] [Replicant - About the Replicant project - msg5193] RE: Have you looked at Tizen?
Paul Kocialkowski
contact at paulk.fr
Sat Aug 1 19:04:01 UTC 2015
Le mercredi 29 juillet 2015 à 02:39 -0400, Bob Summerwill a écrit :
> One year on ... Tizen has proven to be a real disappointment in
> practice. The open governance has not come to fruition, and there is
> no real community.
Right. I haven't seen any significant development in there either.
> Sales are good, though, and I think there is still a hope that Tizen
> can become the #3 mobile platform, and one with better "genetics" than
> Android. If the open governance is not addressed, though, that will
> be of little benefit to GNU/Linux mobile hackers.
Well, that's a surprise, I haven't seen any of those around, but maybe
they'll hit western markets later.
> My own primary focus has shifted to Sailfish OS, with an eye on Ubuntu
> Touch, Firefox OS and the recently announced Plasma Mobile, all of
> which now look a better fit than Tizen for scratching my own "itch":
I wouldn't count on Sailfish OS too much, it still has lots of
proprietary parts and Jolla apparently doesn't have issues with making
the most basic user applications proprietary. I wouldn't expect their
systemto be any kind of game changer when it comes to software freedom.
Nothing has changed recently regarding Firefox OS and Ubuntu Touch.
Plasma Mobile looks more like a high-level interface and there are few
details about it at this point. I'll wait and see to find out how it
deals with low-level drivers. If you have information on that, I'd be
glad to learn about it.
> As you so kindly explained to my more naive self a year back, though,
> the harder issues still remain:
>
> 1. Proprietary baseband processor (which is perhaps practically
> unsolvable due to the complexity of the standards, and is better
> ignored, with the hope of future ubiquitous mesh networking for most
> urban users)
I'm not sure it's "better ignored", but we should indeed focus our work
on other areas where we have an actual chance at making a change. This
is still an issue and I think it's of the utmost importance to inform
people about it and make sure that users are aware of it when they
decide to use a mobile phone.
> 2. Binary blobs for drivers, especially for GPU drivers. Efforts
> underway on the Linux desktop front - Freedreno, Noveau, Lima.
> Hybris provides a pragmatic bridge to get mobile Linux OSes working on
> a wide range of hardware, but at the cost of side-stepping this hard
> issue. Are any people working on bringing these free drivers to
> mobile, do you know?
Well, libhybris has always been a way of working around the problems. It
doesn't solve anything. I have only seen people give up on reverse
engineering projects because it was technically easier to use libhybris.
Thus, I'm not hopeful to see things go the other way round.
> 3. Secure bootloaders, root access, "stores".
I'm working on freeing bootloaders those days, and other low-level
things. I think it's a valuable contribution to bring more freedom to
mobile devices and embedded devices in general.
> Am I missing more?
Well, I maintain an comprehensive overview of what's wrong with those
devices (that is, assuming a free system like Replicant) at:
https://www.replicant.us/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php
> Best wishes ...
>
Thanks, to you as well. I'd be happy to know if you find out about
interesting development on those topics in the future!
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 9:33 AM, <no-reply at replicant.us> wrote:
>
> http://redmine.replicant.us/boards/33/topics/5193?r=5745#message-5745
> Paul Kocialkowski
>
> > With Tizen being close to "just another distro", it becomes
> trivial for anybody in the existing desktop GNU/Linux world to
> bring their weight over to mobile, because mobile is where all
> of the action is in computing now.
>
> I hope you're right and the technical proximity between Tizen
> and other GNU/Linux distros will make it easier to have a
> strong community of developers working on the core issues of
> the system, the proprietary hardware abstraction libraries.
>
> > Around the world, phones are going to be the first computers
> that many people have.
>
> I always makes me very sad to hear such claims. Tablets and
> phones are mostly tool to consume information and content, not
> to produce any. Have you tried writing a blog post from your
> tablet or your phone? Traditional computers are much more
> usable to create content, so I hope they survive despite your
> sayings. I don't want computers to be yet another way to make
> people passive consumers while they're an opportunity to be
> the exact opposite!
>
> > Weight of numbers raises the importance of getting solutions
> to the burning HAL, bootloader and free hardware issues.
>
> Right. As much as I find phones and tablets useless, I figured
> that we might as well have them running free software if
> people are going to use them.
>
> > I am an optimist. You have to be. Otherwise why bother?
>
> Well, it's a matter of carefully deciding on which task to
> spend your time when you want to achieve a goal. If the goal
> is software freedom on mobile devices, I don't think Tizen
> will be so much of an asset (but hopefully, I'm wrong), so I'm
> not so optimistic about it.
>
> > And maybe that is where we are different? I truly care about
> broad adoption, and would prefer that huge numbers of people
> had something which is more free than they currently have,
> even if it isn't perfect. That is a bridge to freedom. With
> regard to search engines, perhaps 99.9% of people use them all
> the time, me included. Many of those people are unaware what
> they are "selling" in doing so. I am aware and use them
> anyway. They are just way too useful for me not to use them.
>
> What's the point of having many people use free software if
> they don't know the ethical motivations behind it? So many
> people have Android devices which run free software for a big
> part, but only a fraction of them are aware of the stakes of
> free software and really care. What did having a large number
> of users bring us? Mostly weight in debates about standards
> and such. Of course, I'm all for spreading the word about free
> software and if many people come to agree with our ideas, I'll
> be very happy, but when you start compromising on your ideas
> to make free software widely spread, you soon end up with that
> same Android situation, where people are using free software
> but still don't care (that's the whole issue with open source
> by the way).
>
> > IMHO to choose NOT to leverage that existing system on the
> basis that it would be compromising your principles is really
> cutting off your nose to spite your face. It is accepting
> defeat. Similarly, not having a Twitter or Facebook presence
> is to miss all of the eyeballs. I know these are "enemy
> tools", but you use them knowingly and turn their own tools
> against them. Well, that's my approach anyway. I don't see
> that as immoral. I see it as rational "war strategy and
> tactics".
>
> Using tools such as Facebook to promote our system implies
> that we endorse the use of such tools, which we don't. This
> gets in the way of the message we are trying to deliver. I
> think it is our duty as good neighbors to try and educate the
> masses about the issues we are dealing with, but it doesn't
> mean this has to be an absolute final goal. People have to
> take a few steps in our direction in order to reach our
> message. This means for them not relying on tools such as
> Facebook to learn about it.
>
> > If you don't care about having users then you won't have
> users. Don't you want more people to be using free OSes?
>
> I don't understand why I would want that. I do not claim that
> I hold some kind of truth that others are too blind to see. If
> people are happy with their proprietary systems, iPhones,
> facebook or whatever, well, good for them. My aim is to
> provide an alternative for people with interest in the stakes
> we're dealing with, not to make sure every single person on
> Earth agrees with me.
>
> > There are millions of people out there who would love to use
> your software, if they only knew it existed, and why it was
> important. Don't you see that as a key part of your mission?
>
> If people are not aware, it's good to let them know about
> this, that's our duty as good members of our community, but I
> don't think this is really a problem nowadays. The Snowden
> revelations were covered by national television all around the
> world and I'm sure that anyone with interest in these topics
> will find out about free software pretty soon. The information
> about Replicant is pretty easy to find out about if you're
> looking for it: we have a blog, a wiki, a wikipedia page, etc.
>
> I disagree this is the real reason so few people are
> interested in Replicant and software freedom on mobile devices
> in general. The real reason is most likely that people just
> don't care and even though they know about privacy issues,
> know that software somewhat restricts them, they just don't
> care enough to do anything about it. Mainly, privacy and
> freedom are not the values that prevail in their decision
> making processes. In today's modern societies, it is all about
> passive consumption, easiness, doing as few as possible, etc.
> The idea of happiness is totally detached from any notion of
> effort or intellectual process. That's the model of societies
> we live in. Now of course, I agree that it doesn't suit me at
> all, but who are we to decide for the masses what is good for
> them? If most people are very happy with it, who are we to say
> that we know better? Of course, the people who turned our
> societies this way at first went ahead and forced people down
> that path, that's for sur
> e, but that still doesn't make it right to try and decide for
> others what is good for them, even if it only seems fair.
>
> > Just building something so that people have the option is
> like having a life-changing religious experience and then
> living in a cave for the rest of your life :-)
>
> The comparison with religion is sort of relevant here. I would
> say that trying to make as many people as possible use my
> system is indeed the same attitude as religious people trying
> to convert more and more people to their religion. I just do
> not understand that attitude. As long as facts are easily
> available for people looking for them, that shall be enough.
> Why try and force people to change their mind?
>
> > Don't you want to get out there and spread the word, so we
> can change the world?
>
> I don't aim to change the world. I am to provide the tools to
> make it possible for people to change the world, if they feel
> like it.
>
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> --
> bob at summerwill.net
>
>
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