If they wanted a secure phone OS that has access to a wide variety of applications without strings tied to "big corporations", then they should have just forked Android.
There is a need for a phone which 1. Has kill switches for any data it is equipped to collect 2. Has auditable code base. Ideally all code would be auditable in code, realistically some binary blobs may exist for some time but they could still be reverse engineered and audited for back doors so long as the blobs are small. Not free software, not OSS, the minimum need is for just auditable software layer. 3. Has the ability to autodetect when an external monitor and power are connected and to run desktop applications in that context while running phone apps in the phone screen context at the same time.
Benefits: 1. Ability to carry your computing device on you at all times. Helps any time you need physical security and do not trust access controls at home. Most common example - you are cheating on your spouse and do not want your computer accessible when you are not home.
2. Eavesdrop security via kill switches. The benefit is obvious
3. Confidence that you will not be served ads via your OS and will be able to install ad blockers and filters at will. This includes easy access to etc/hosts or equivalent
4. An upgrade and maintenance plan for older hardware if you can get a community around it.
This is just the obvious stuff that comes to mind. Right now you can get most benefits of Librem 5 and PinePhone from almost any LineageOS phone by compiling MaruOS on top of it. That gets you Debian running in a container on an external monitor. However the MaruOS community is small, phones already supported are few, and the polish is lacking severely. The big deal with PinePhone and Librem 5 is that they have some hope of sustainable development. And kill switches dont hurt either.
#1 is the problem here. If you want your phone to be your computing device then you need it to run desktop software. The practical ecosystems are linux, mac and windows. So you either need AOSP with a compatibility layer (e.g. in MaruOS the compatibility layer is Linux access via a container) or full Linux on the phone. Another option would be to port all desktop software to Android. That seems like more work somehow. There is also an option to run an OS like linux via virtual machine or in an app. This is te
"Just think of a computer as hardware you can program."
-- Nigel de la Tierre
For who? (Score:3, Informative)
Who is this for? Who is asking for this?
If they wanted a secure phone OS that has access to a wide variety of applications without strings tied to "big corporations", then they should have just forked Android.
Re:For who? (Score:5, Informative)
There is a need for a phone which
1. Has kill switches for any data it is equipped to collect
2. Has auditable code base. Ideally all code would be auditable in code, realistically some binary blobs may exist for some time but they could still be reverse engineered and audited for back doors so long as the blobs are small. Not free software, not OSS, the minimum need is for just auditable software layer.
3. Has the ability to autodetect when an external monitor and power are connected and to run desktop applications in that context while running phone apps in the phone screen context at the same time.
Benefits:
1. Ability to carry your computing device on you at all times. Helps any time you need physical security and do not trust access controls at home. Most common example - you are cheating on your spouse and do not want your computer accessible when you are not home.
2. Eavesdrop security via kill switches. The benefit is obvious
3. Confidence that you will not be served ads via your OS and will be able to install ad blockers and filters at will. This includes easy access to etc/hosts or equivalent
4. An upgrade and maintenance plan for older hardware if you can get a community around it.
This is just the obvious stuff that comes to mind. Right now you can get most benefits of Librem 5 and PinePhone from almost any LineageOS phone by compiling MaruOS on top of it. That gets you Debian running in a container on an external monitor. However the MaruOS community is small, phones already supported are few, and the polish is lacking severely. The big deal with PinePhone and Librem 5 is that they have some hope of sustainable development. And kill switches dont hurt either.
Re: (Score:2)
Every single one of those things can be done with a forked version of Android.
Why reinvent everything just because?
Re: (Score:2)
#1 is the problem here. If you want your phone to be your computing device then you need it to run desktop software. The practical ecosystems are linux, mac and windows. So you either need AOSP with a compatibility layer (e.g. in MaruOS the compatibility layer is Linux access via a container) or full Linux on the phone.
Another option would be to port all desktop software to Android. That seems like more work somehow.
There is also an option to run an OS like linux via virtual machine or in an app. This is te