oh great, yet another platform that will use free software to restrict what people can do with their computing devices 🤮
how is this supposed to be a good thing? 🙄
I’m not sure how this is in any way different from android? Android is free software they use to restrict the computing they devices they sell to push more ads and junkware. This is just a different one. Amazon sucks, so I don’t see what move they could make that could be seen as positive. Just don’t buy their garbage devices.
With any luck they’ll probably introduce some new exploits to free up the device.
I am in dire need of decent linux smartphones that aren’t android. Can Valve just get to it please?
how is this supposed to be a good thing?
Well you see, it makes rich people more money.
The author is exited but I’m not. I am not a big fan of corporations taking the free work of FOSS developers and turning it into a proprietary dystopia.
This is the correct response.
GPLv3 fixes that
Nice! And they will probably differentiate from the competition by allowing GPL applications and sideloading, and having a total control for your privacy and no tracking, right?
Right?
In the beginning? Sure. Later? Well, you know, security and all, think of the kids!
Probably will just be more like their own flavor of Android where they lock down the OS and insert all kinds of malware.
Check out these great special offers in GPL applications and sideloading!
I already tried an Amazon Fire tablet, Amazon. No thanks. I returned it. I don’t need a locked-down console that spies on me. Windows is well on its way to becoming that already.
I tried to get one since it was 30 bucks, so I’m not too surprised this is how they operated. They are locking down jindles real hard too. Probably going to make a lot of ewaste.
I know it won’t happen, but it’d be nice if Linux switched to GPLv3. That would at least help somewhat here
Won’t ever happen, Linus is very much in favor of companies being able to use drm, when needed.
I kinda sorta agree because without it Linux wouldn’t be able to do anything requiring dr.m
This is misleading, since regular desktop DRM would still obviously work, which is what the end user really cares about
I haven’t looked into it for a while but iirc, certain DRM would require DRM kernel modules which is something that Linus explicitly wants to allow
The anti-tivoization clause in GPLv3 is what Linus is against specifically.
Why?
It is because of the tivo workaround to GPLv2. This was fixed in GPL v3.
Damn that sucks. I think Linux is too “free as in free beer” but hey there is BSD
How would BSD help in this situation? I’m not sure I follow.
Bsd is even less copyleft. Was meant as an even more “liberal” option
While I don’t mind BSDs, that would lead to even worse outcomes though in my view. Companies wouldn’t even have to release the source code, and they routinely don’t.
What we need is more copyleft to ensure companies contribute back to the communities they leach from, not less.
Agree totally.
All I’m hearing is that we might be able to hack these devices and put full Linux on them.
All I’m hearing is a subscription to remove the adverts on the command line.
See, that’s the situation where we just don’t use them. I’m talking about wiping the original OS and putting something that’s really FOSS in its place.
The only thing I care about in this is if they will contribute anything back to the open source ecosystem, be it code or anything else.
No chance. Amazon has a long history of using a ton of FOSS code on AWS and contributing fuck-all.
LMFAO, can’t wait to see Adbuntu.
But thats just a derivative of Debiad.
Most TV operating systems are already non-android linux based. They mostly just run webapps.
They want to harvest the data, without Google’s control, and give none to Google.
That can be easily done with AOSP, to my knowledge there’s no Google stuff in there. Which is exactly what they’re using right now
There still is some google stuff in there, like for example phoning google servers to check internet connectivity among other stuff.
Yes, but those minor traces are easy enough to remove, especially if you don’t care about being “ceritified” by Google (i.e. are not planning to run the Google services).
Yes but people are just sideloading GAPPS and escaping their ecosystem. Might even run custom launchers so you can’t experience their ads.
Right but the topic was about google’s data harvesting and what I meant was that you can’t just grab any AOSP distribution if you want to minimize that, you need to pick one that replaces the parts that send data to google. LineageOS for example still phones google for quite a number of services.
As far as “easy to remove” goes, I think that’s kind of debatable if you want to do it in a way that’s sustainable long term considering the effort that goes into e.g. GrapheneOS or DivestOS.
Edit: here is a list of the kind of stuff you need to watch out for if you want to minimize the data sent to google
I was answering under the assumption/the context of of “Amazon wants to release an Android-based OS that doesn’t contact any of Googles services”.
So, when I said “easy enough to remove” that was relative to releasing any commercial OS based on AOSP, as in: this will be one of the smallest tasks involved in this whole venture.
They will need an (at least semi-automated) way to keep up with changes from upstream and still apply their own code-changes on top of that anyway and once that is set up, a small set of 10-ish 3-line patches is not a lot of effort. For an individual getting started and trying to keep that all up to do date individually it’s a bit more of an effort, granted.
The list you linked is very interesting, but I suspect that much of that isn’t in AOSP, my suspicion is that at most the things up to and excluding the Updater even exist in AOSP.
What are the chances this will not produce wrong doing?
This is the question. Nevertheless, can it be worst than Google?
Has the potential to be as bad as…
Oh so I won’t be able to sideload streaming APKs onto any new Amazon devices? Guess you can fucking keep your shit hardware then
But that would also mean you can sideload a whole another OS, maybe?
Locked boot loader says otherwise
A third competitor for Android and iOS would be amazing. But not if it’s Amazon…
I just read an article about how they’re increasing advertising on their Fire TVs. Rest assured, an Amazon OS is an Advertising OS.
Although, from what I’ve gathered of public opinion online, there’s LOTS of people willing to forgo their privacy in exchange for free shit.
Edit: Oh…
They say they expect Vega to begin shipping on Fire TVs early next year.
And that article https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/after-luring-customers-with-low-prices-amazon-stuffs-fire-tvs-with-ads/
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No difference to Google then
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Apple would sell for 10 but would deny until death that it sold, and still convince you to believe that it didn’t sell.In addition to giving it a “cool” name like DNA Titanium Protection XDR or something like that,
OOnly if it is Libre Software. We are tired of proprietary rubbish
Android is already free software, and see how far that gets you. The kicker is that you’re tied into their services (with all the data harvesting, targeted advertising and monetisation that that involves).
I use GrapheneOS. Not all android is born equal
Yes, because it is permissively open source, not only are these companies free to build what they want - we are entitled to that same right. We therefore created LineageOS and GrapheneOS, and its really great.
There’s also a lot of motivated people getting regular Linux distributions running on mobile devices too, so we have that as well
If you’re tied to their non-free services, then its not free software.
Hahahaha cool, Linux with ads and tracking and all the spyware you could ever want.
So just like android ?
Minus the sandboxing and security improvements, apparently
This is not what I meant when I said we need more Mobile OS competition…
