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Comment by Shywim | Hacker News Reader

I like competition, but regarding "Google-less Android alternative" why everyone want to do his own project when this is a niche market with few developers who want to use their time to do this, and even less in the long run?

Why do people don't join their effort to put up something better, faster, safer?

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Same reason you now have 200+ Linux distributions: people have opinions and disagreements plus free software means everybody can fork a project and do their own thing.

Meanwhile, Windows is still king of the desktop and Android is king of mobile for years to come.

Windows lost that crown years ago. Nowadays many people are using Macs. And most are using Android or iOS for a lot of the same things we used to use Windows for.

Anyway, the last sentence is irrelevant. I honestly don't mind whether you're using Windows or Mac or whatever. Why must it be phrased as a competition? I can use the system most suitable to me and my goals, and you can use the system most suitable for you and yours.

Can you imagine someone saying "There's so many different kinds of bread because people have opinions and disagreement, plus traditional recipes and market freedom means everyone can start their own bakery and do their own thing. Meanwhile, rice is still king of the staples."

My choice to eat bread and run Linux is independent of your choice to eat rice and run Windows.

The point is; if this mission to create a Google-less alternative is so important and necessary, why not join force with the people who are already working on said alternative? Surely, having all these developers working on one project would be more effective than having all of them working on multiple similar projects?

> Windows lost that crown years ago. Nowadays many people are using Macs.

Only rich people in North America and Western Europe, there are many other countries out there, where average salaries hardly reach 500 euros per month.

Mac market share is insignificant outside North America and Western Europe.

Because phones have in my opinion become a privacy nightmare. I think we all got used to it as the new normal because it happend in lots of tiny steps. However, 30 years ago people would have screamed at being constantly and at every step under surveillance, all their contacts recorded at every moment. I simply don't think that modern life with smartphones and internet must be like this. I'd like to have my private life back.

Edit: I recently signed up for LinkedIn and it was outright scary which contacts I got suggested. There were people that don't have my email address nor have I ever been in electronic contact with - I just met them plenty of times in real life. Best explanation is that smartphones correlate location and/or bluetooth MAC addresses. In other words, my phone is spying on me. I don't see any reason to give this information to unknown 3rd parties without my consent.

You didn't answer the question though. There are a few dozen linux smartphone projects. Why not join one of them and make it better. By making his own phone OS he is duplicating the work that all those other projects are doing instead of moving a head.

I'm not saying he is wrong for doing this - I know of many competing projects, but nothing more. Maybe there is a good reason not to join them. However my guess is not invented here which holds us back.

Why are there many restaurants often one next to each other? Why can't people get their money together and hire the absolute best chef in the world and build 1 huge restaurant?

That's just how it is.

Also, he's not duplicating anything, he's using LineageOS plus new stuff that will be open source.

The mission statement of the project is "privacy with ease of use but without zealotry" and the project is 99% based on existing projects. That looks to me what Ubuntu is to Debian.

Just by chance I looked the other week into installing LineageOS on a slightly older LG but then decided it was too much hassle - although I have experience with Cyanogen, i.e. it would not be the first time for me to install a custom ROM.

All I use on my phone are maps, email, messaging and a browser. I can easily do without Google Play Services and I am sure there are many others.

He is french and in France there are many people thinking like him. It is easy to get press coverage and therefore should be possible to create a user base of a few 10.000 people with little investment.

The stated purpose of this project is a phone for non-technical, privacy focused users.

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