By a wide margin the many different projects for an open source phone OS. From GrapheneOS to PostmarketOS, from Ubuntu Mobile to Plasma Mobile.
I am sick and tired of corporations telling me how I can use my phone. I am sick and tired of corporations deciding what apps I can install, from where, and what data they are allowed to collect. I am done with enshittification and the gradual disappearing of all useful information, either behind a paywall, or replaced by monetized content.
The last straw was when Google Maps decided to replace the “gas station on the route” feature that sent you to the cheapest gas station to some other logic it didn’t disclose, but that stinks of affiliate preference.
Absolutely, fully agree here. An Open Source widely applicable phone OS would benefit millions of people. Possibly billions.
The frustrating part of this is how much of the smartphone world is dependent on companies playing along.
I have a Venmo business account I use from time to time. I tried to log in on it from my laptop yesterday to check my balance. I was met with this:
We used to complain that apps are just worse versions of websites, but increasingly, you’re being forced to install an app just to do basic things.
Is there any way to guarantee every app will be available on a linux phone? We can grab APKs at the moment off sketchy websites, but I don’t know how much longer that’s going to work after Google kills sideloading.
Can you not just log in on a mobile browser in desktop only mode?
No. This is literally from a desktop browser. That feature is only available on the app.
Let alone open source!
Can someone ELI5, why the phone landscape is so different from PCs? Why can I take a Linux iso and install it on basically any x86 pc from the last 25 years, but if I want to install anything on my phone, I need an image specially tailored for my specific model.
PCs have a BIOS/UEFI that provides hardware discovery and abstraction to the OS, while phones lack that and need the OS to know what hardware to expect.
20 years ago when the predecessors to modern smartphone hardware were being designed, there probably would have been meaningful costs to adding that kind of flexibility. There probably wouldn’t today, but there’s also no motivation for phone makers to do it.
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/e/OS is just another android rom, and unlike calyxOS or grapheneOS, /e/OS isn’t very privacy focused. There’s some weird stuff regarding a hidden “license id” and some of their services rely in openAI. You might as well just use a “real” privacy-first android rom if you’re trying to get away from tech giants, their tracking and closed source software.
Same!!!
RISC-V by far.
I’m going to have to say OpenStreetMap, it’s always going to have a place in my heart.
PeerTube. It’s a video sharing platform with ActivityPub federation and with peer to peer video sharing like a torrent (it is one I think) which lightens the load on instances. An alternative to YouTube is NEEDED right now. A good way to make it grow is to simply start a channel and post videos. It’s currently very underpopulated. Some YouTube channels such as The Linux Experiment mirror their channels to PeerTube, so if you have a YT channel, mirror it to PeerTube.
Also to me it seems like Matrix could be the messenger of the future, replacing WhatsApp, SMS/calls, and social media DMs.
The general mobile Linux space is also interesting right now. Year of the Linux phone when? It’s not currently fully ready but it’s advancing. Also the FSF announced the LibrePhone initiative so there’ll probably be more advancement.
Meshtastic. I don’t use it yet, but it is something interesting that I’ve kinda been low-key obsessed about.
Eventually, telecoms are gonna require IDs, internet service will require IDs. Computers will have DRMs and “AI” scanning your device to censor stuff.
Meshtashtic could be the backbone of a new “internet”. One that’s free from corporate control. We could build a forum on top of it.
Lol, I’m pretty deep into meshtastic but there is no chance that LoRa could be the backbone of a new internet. Bandwidth is far too low
Reticulum would be much closer as it supports many different forms of networking
And Lora is by itself proprietary isn’t it?
Correct, I do believe there is an open source alternative but I haven’t done any reading on it
Who needs Bandwidth
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⠤⣚⣻⣥⣴⣶⣶⣯⡕⢄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠔⣡⣾⣿⡿⠟⠛⠛⠛⠻⠛⠻⣦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣚⣿⣿⡏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⣿⣯⠞⣻⡆⠀⢀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣼⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢠⣿⡿⢣⡾⢻⣷⣾⣿⣿⣿⡟⠻⣿⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⣿⡇⢸⣼⠯⢿⣯⡙⢋⣡⣄⣀⣈⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⡧⠤⠉⠉⠙⡦⢙⣿⣯⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡿⢷⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⣼⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⡏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⣀⣴⡏⠀⠸⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣯⡅⠒⡄⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠾⠛⢋⣠⣡⡆⠀⣳⡀⠀⠀⢠⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣇⠀⠀⣆⣈⣗⣄⠀ ⠒⢿⡶⢾⣽⣧⣼⠁⠈⠉⢚⣿⣿⠏⠋⠘⢻⣿⣿⣿⣤⣤⣽⠘⣿⣿⡦
when you can just send ASCII Memes?(Roll Safe, aka: “Guy Taps Forehead” Meme)
🤣 how many chars is this? Would it make it past the 200 character limit?
Home assistant!
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve touched it, but godot is always going to have my favor. It works very well, doesn’t have any bullshit.
I just need more motivation to finish my existing project, and keep the desire for a new one at bay.
I’ve recently heard of Bevy, which is a new FOSS game engine made with Rust! I don’t know a lot about it but my gamedev friend is excited about it. He doesn’t care as much about it being FOSS (he’s using Unreal for his current game) but it’s supposed to just be good. Unreal is an absolute pain to work with.
That said, it’s still in early stages. It’s usable from what I understand, but even their quick start introduction warns about it and advises people to use Godot if they’re looking for a mature, stable engine.
Exciting enough for me to use on a daily basis, and I’m actively following their development progress. Not contributing, mind you. Nobody wants me of all people touching their codebase.
FreeCAD - The open source alternative to various proprietary parametric CAD and solid modelling software such as Solidworks, Fusion360, OnShape, etc. This recently passed its milestone 1.0 release at which point it could finally be considered actually broadly functional for actual real world use. Among various other widgets, I prominently used it to make this and this. Yeah, you guys know how it is.
I consider FreeCAD pretty important coming from the 3D printing hobbyist’s perspective because its the lone bulwark (well, okay, maybe also along with Blender and OpenSCAD) standing firm against the tidal wave of predatory bullshit being peddled by the commercial modelling software options, all of which at this point are genuine full-blown instruments of evil desperately trying to strangle, gatekeep, and paywall humankind’s ability to just make some goddamned shapes to 3D print.
In other news, I complied UZDoom from source the other night because somehow I missed that zdoom.org has precompiled binaries on their site, which I haven’t had to visit in years, but the UZDoom Github page doesn’t. We live and learn. UZDoom is pretty exciting because it’s a continuation of GZDoom with the added feature of kicking its insane former lead developer off of the project, or rather forking it out from under him. And everybody loves to play Doom.
Haiku. We need a more modern OS to compete against Linux.
Haiku is cool
Ladybird because Mozilla is killing Firefox as fast as they can and I refuse to use Chrome or one of its forks.
At a slightly lower level, I’m excited about Servo. Activity died off for a bit but it’s gaining steam again. Still behind Ladybird progress-wise, but it will make a very strong foundation for a new web browser.
Linux of course, it’s been headlining lately in terms of improvements particularly on the gaming front, but also FreeBSD based on how quickly it’s been moving in terms of improvements on the general desktop front, FreeBSD is at the point where it’s a viable third option on the desktop if you’re not gaming, although that’s assuming you’re running its
CURRENTbranch since that’s where the latest development happens.Plasma Bigscreen. I would love to replace my Apple TVs with something more open.
Bitcoin as it is so disruptive and a blueprint for how to truly run a decentralized service that cannot be controlled.
You should look into XMR.
it’s actually untraceable, unlike bitcoin, and I’d wager a major reason why ‘the powers that b’ want us to avoid cryptocurrency altogether.
I think everything going on with the open source phone space is very exciting, also I think copyparty is very cool.
A buddy and I were playing with Sonobus this morning. It lets you collaborate on music remotely.
Musicians will know already, but if you’re not aware, the latency (lag) between participants makes it impractical to play in time together. But if you can get it below 30ms then it’s roughly equivalent to playing with someone across the room. Needs a hard wired connection and the other people probably can’t be more than 500 miles away. But for me eliminates a two hour round trip to work on a song.
I’m currently compiling a list of open-source audio streaming solutions and I think Sonobus is not on there yet, so this is a pretty useful comment to me. Thanks.
You’re welcome! I’d be interested to see your list if you share it somewhere.
