Open source phone worth supporting

[Red Squirrel]

Just found out about this:

https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

I've said for years there needs to be such project as the current ecosystem for phones is horrible and all hell bent on spying on you and there's nothing we can do about it.

This is a phone they are building from ground up with an OS also being built from ground up. All the privacy OSes now are still android under the hood which is pretty much built on spying.

If I had $600 extra I'd do it in a heart beat, but going to go with a smaller donation for now.

 

[artless1]

huh that does look pretty good if they can pull it off, although imho it would
be a lot more HUMANE to make a decent phone that costs $100 or less 8D

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I hate that the going rate for a phone seems to always be like $600. I'm sure they could make something decent for like $300. $100 would probably be harder though, but perhaps that could also be done. Maybe they could do like a $100 model and then a $300 upgraded model.

 

[Elixer]

While I wouldn't mind playing around with this, I don't think it will get very far, they got a huge uphill battle on their hands. However, I do wish them good luck!

If the price was in the $200 - $300 range, I can see them having more support.
The CPU/GPU choice is also dated. Much rather have them use the i.MX 8X line.

Would love to see a breakdown of how they come up with that price they are asking.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd pay $1k for the phone if it would activate on Sprint, and was easy to replace hardware. Dunno about either of those points.

 

[Crono]

I'd support, but 2019 is a hard sell for me. That's just their given date, too; going by other crowd-funded smartphones, it could easily be months or a year later (or worse) before it actually ships out.

I did bookmark it, though, and maybe I'll consider contributing if/when I have the money to spare.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah that's my fear is that it ends up not making it far. There was one years ago called Open Moko and it mostly died. I really hope this works out though. The issue is most people don't even care about privacy. Trying to sell this to only the few people who do care is a very small market. Most people just get their "free" $900+ phones through their carrier because they think it looks nice.

 

[mxnerd]

If even Firefox OS phone and Ubuntu Touch would't survive, why would this one has any hope?

 

[mxnerd]

Tried PureOS in VMware and it's super slow! Even if I placed the VM on a flash drive.

Opening and closing a window can take over a minute! Don't know why.

Maybe it only works on bare metal machine.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Google, one of the richest companies in the world can't fix android from being a buggy mess. Sorry, I have no faith 20-something people with a kickstarter can make a usable phone.

web apps? Yeah that worked out great for the ubuntu/firefox phone..

Cool to have the option (if this thing will actually work. If..), but I think most people have shown they are willing to give up all their privacy for cheap/free shit. Heck, most people had no problem with the NSA spying on them, and don't even get anything in return for that!

 

[mxnerd]

They are working with KDE's Plasma Mobile. Don't think another mobile ecosystem can survive this fierce market in the long run, however.

 

[mxnerd]

Bill Gates just switched to an Android smartphone with a lot of Microsoft software.

Guess it's Samsung Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition.

Windows Phone probably dead.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/26/16365424/bill-gates-android-phone-switch

 

[mxnerd]

ANDROID WITHOUT GOOGLE APPS? THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES FOR ALMOST EVERYTHING

https://www.androidpit.com/android-without-google-apps

 

[Red Squirrel]

Google, one of the richest companies in the world can't fix android from being a buggy mess. Sorry, I have no faith 20-something people with a kickstarter can make a usable phone.

web apps? Yeah that worked out great for the ubuntu/firefox phone..

Cool to have the option (if this thing will actually work. If..), but I think most people have shown they are willing to give up all their privacy for cheap/free shit. Heck, most people had no problem with the NSA spying on them, and don't even get anything in return for that!

Yeah I don't have much confidence either, but one can be hopeful! We really do need a proper open platform that is privacy centric and not tied to the cloud.

Part of the issue is that there is no hardware standard for phones. On PCs you basically have x86/x64 and then whatever Apple uses now days. So there's only really 2 major platforms to worry about, most of it happens on x86/x64 now days. So it's "easier" to write a OS or Linux distro and have it work on any computer.

But with phones, if you want to build a fully custom OS you either have to pick a phone to design around it or design your own hardware to go with it, or you need to write the OS a bazillion times so it works on all phones. Right now most alt OSes are just remix versions of Android, which still come with all the privacy issues because it's still tied to Google.

 

[Red Squirrel]

ANDROID WITHOUT GOOGLE APPS? THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES FOR ALMOST EVERYTHING

https://www.androidpit.com/android-without-google-apps

The issue is lot of the built in apps it does not let you fully uninstall, so they are still lurking in the background, collecting all your information. Android is designed around this.

 

[mxnerd]

Maybe find a phone that has CyanogenMod ROMs available, flash it to the phone you choose, and then don't install GAPPS package? Since at least you need the dialer function.

I did flash the CyanogenMod ROMs on 2 phones and one Amazon tablet a while ago, but I'm not expert, don't know if the devices will work without any GAPPS package .

===

Seems you can. Some people use CyanogenMod without GAPPS, with F-Droid as package manager.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cyanogenmod+without+gapps

https://www.reddit.com/r/cyanogenmod/comments/4ldbmv/are_you_using_cm_without_gapps/

===

Didn't know CyanogenMod is dead. Now it's LineageOS.

 

[Elixer]

Huh, they did it.

• $1,571,789 Funds Raised (Goal was $1,500,000)
  
• 13 Days to go

I still hope they pick the i.MX 8X line, would hate to see this with an anemic CPU/GPU.

 

[WelshBloke]

The issue is lot of the built in apps it does not let you fully uninstall, so they are still lurking in the background, collecting all your information. Android is designed around this.

Android isn't at all built around that. AOSP doesn't have any Google stuff built in, you have to make an effort to flash the Google services in manually before you can even download and run any Google apps.

 

[ClockHound]

Really love the concept. When I got into smartphones it was for the personal pocket computer possibility, not a mobile consumer tracking and annoyance device. Appears the hardware spec is from 2013 when a 5" screen was yuuuge.

Still...would be nice to have my own phone and not have to share it with Google/Apple.