Comment by another_comment | Hacker News Reader

Comment by another_comment | Hacker News Reader

another_comment

I agree that general purpose computing is endangered. And that bothers me a lot.

However, if you are going to take a stand for open computing, you are going to have to make sacrifices. You will have to give up a lot of conveniences. As a technologist you will have to give both time and money. Apple and Google are not going to give up their billion dollar industries voluntarily. You will have to stop giving them money. And you will have to stop using their services.

My solution? I built myself a phone out of a Raspberry Pi 3 with a Touch Screen and a Logitech Headset. It does SMS/MMS and voice only. I've been using it for over a year now as my daily driver.

I'm going to open source the code. Check out https://github.com/another2020githubuser/thepyphone for more details. Right now there is just a README out there, the real code exists in a private git repo. I'm reviewing the code and stripping out private details so I don't end up doxxing myself :)

If you like the idea, please star the github project. I could use the encouragement. Thanks.

> Apple and Google are not going to give up their billion dollar industries voluntarily. You will have to stop giving them money. And you will have to stop using their services.

If you believe Apple and Google need to give up their cash cows, it's clear that's never going to happen by convincing people to make lifestyle changes. It's like trying to stop global warming by convincing people to stop driving their cars. That plan won't succeed, period.

The only way is to get laws or regulations passed that force these companies to comply. For example, passing a law that says any device with an App Store must allow 3rd party app stores equal access to the OS. I'm not saying I want this law passed, but if you believe Apple and Google's business model needs to be stopped, a law like that is the only way it's going to happen.

>> If you believe Apple and Google need to give up their cash cows, it's clear that's never going to happen by convincing people to make lifestyle changes.

I'm suggesting people will stop giving money to Apple/Google when there is an alternative. And we, as tech folks, are going to have to build that alternative.

>> The only way is to get laws or regulations passed that force these companies to comply.

Google and Apple have billions to lobby Congress, so I'm not confident that will happen any time soon.

I think undermining them from the bottom up with a cheap open source alternative is probably more practical.

There are other companies that have large incentives to make that happen too.

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