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Comment by laksdjfkasljdf | Hacker News Reader

Do you use the text OCR feature?

Is that component opensource?

Note they mean open as in "it runs a random old Linux kernel and you can have the root password", not as in "open source". Nothing whasoever from their software is actually open source, and nothing indicates they may not decide to simply close down the platform in the future (e.g. for "security" reasons)

Sure, but that's miles ahead of almost any other consumer device you can buy today. I'll take it.

Yes, I meant "open" in the sense that you do not need to jailbreak it to run software that has not been approved by the manufacturer, not "open" in the sense that the operating system is open source.

Although, I think a lot of their operating system is open source and on their github page (linux kernel and uboot configuration): https://github.com/reMarkable

Their Qt-based shell software, xochitl, is not open source.

In other words, they open sourced just what they're legally obliged to. The fact that this is surprising nowadays is heavily depressing.

I think it's not as good as you think. There is a difference between "it happens to be open" and "manufacturer cares", and here it's more like the former. The experience here is in fact identical to e.g. using any device whose bootloader has been cracked. You are locked to very old kernel versions, or attempts to run a mainline kernel in various degrees of stability (or lack of). You cannot really modify the existing user interface to your liking, as it is even more closed than Android; it's either take it or replace it entirely. And if you stay on the official firmware then there is a non-negligible risk that they will lock it down. I've been through that route...

It's in no way comparable to a some other devices (mentioned on HN too) where e.g. manufacturer actually cares about it. I agree it's technically better than "locked down bootloader with few chances of ever being unlocked" like some newer devices are, just not "miles better".

Plus the fact that it does run GNU/Linux rather than Android makes it more hacker-friendly out of box, at least for some types of hackers.

> It's in no way comparable to a some other devices (mentioned on HN too)

what sort of devices?

Well, unlike nearly all consumer devices, they did intentionally leave it open and hackable, and promote this on their homepage. I think that makes it likely that they'll leave it open in the future as well. So sure, yes, I'd love it if it was a 100% FOSS project. But I'll take what I can get.

Do they actually promote this in their webpage? I didn't see it anywhere.

This is the thing I'm wary of. That when it does get to mass-market appeal, it'll be targetted by bad people, and then locked down, and this is why we can't have nice things.

I don't want to buy an expensive hackable pad of paper that I then have to fight the manufacturer to keep hackable.

I'm fed up of tech that stops me owning it properly so that idiots can be saved from their ignorance.

I'm waiting for v3. Let's see what happens then.

The CTO is a KDE developer and they use and contribue some KDE libraries (like the KArchirve). They have a github with some projects: https://github.com/reMarkable/ but sadly the software is not open.

It seems not, unless the server code is hiding somewhere publically.

https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000266143...

> Wi-Fi connection and log-in is required

> You need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network and logged in to a reMarkable account (my.remarkable.com) in order to use the handwriting conversion feature.

I would be very surprised if a commercial-grade handwriting conversion tool could run on that device. It sounds to me like they're sending off the data somewhere else to get converted into text.

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