[Replicant] [Replicant - About the Replicant project - msg5193] RE: Have you looked at Tizen?
Bob Summerwill
bob at summerwill.net
Wed Aug 5 13:28:26 UTC 2015
>> 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.
There is only a single device so far, and it is low spec (
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_z1-6894.php).
The vast majority of the 1M sales have been in India, their primary market,
though they
are also selling the Samsung Z1 in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal too.
It is very small and targeted so far.
It looks like the next device, the Z3, will be much more capable and might
be sold in a broader set of countries. Z3 developer devices were given to
attendees at the recent Tizen Developer Summit in India. The spec is
pretty decent.
http://www.tizenexperts.com/2015/07/samsung-z3-device-given-to-attendees-at-the-tizen-developer-summit-2015-bengaluru-india/
Russia was the original target market for the Samsung Z (
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_z-6403.php) which never launched after
being announced last year. It would make sense for Samsung to return
there. India and Russia both have lots of untapped engineering talent,
and are GNU/Linux-friendly. And then China is likely the massive next
step. I understand that both the Z1 and Z3 got FCC approval, but Samsung
are just choosing to leave North America alone for the time being.
Hopefully, like the Galaxy devices, these will be decent hardware targets
for hacking. They will likely share most of the hardware and maybe some
firmware? We will see ...
On Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Paul Kocialkowski <contact at paulk.fr> wrote:
> 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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> >
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> >
> > --
> > bob at summerwill.net
> >
> >
>
>
--
bob at summerwill.net
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