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Comment by andmarios | Hacker News Reader

Not directly related, but sometimes I do wonder how free software can compete with the services of the behemoths (maps, assistants, etc).

So the other day I hit this article [1] on planet.kde.org about KDE Itinerary, an application that can store your boarding passes and offer some additional services, such as calendar integration or notifications in case your destination has a different socket type, they drive on the left side, etc. It seemed quite useful and some parts are novel. Maybe there is a future for phones with just free software.

[1] https://www.volkerkrause.eu/2018/08/25/kde-itinerary-overvie...

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I have been using only open source apps for the last year. For basic stuff like podcast streaming and IM the Foss stuff is better than the proprietary stuff. For complex things like maps and assistants its like taking a step 5 years back in the past.

OSM and is no where near as good as google maps at most things but its still perfectly usable.

The average person probably won't be happy with a purely foss phone right now but if its something you care about then it can be done fairly easily.

what podcast streamer do you use? looking for alternative.

"SoundWaves" on fdroid. I just searched podcast and downloaded the most recently updated app and it was pretty good.

thank you, appreciate the response. downloading now will try for a week and see if I like, currently use podcast addict free version.

As long as you can run your own software, you can build what you want. Not to say it will have the polish current solutions offer, but I don't want current solutions. I want mine.

There was an article recently here about someone using a RasPi (with golang) to build a custom GPS mapping solution. I've been doing something similar (though using raspi connecting to my head unit via composite video) as well as pulling sensor info from ODBII and currently looking into CanBus.

Money is a big part of it. We still don't have a good way to monetize open source applications.

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