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Comment by AshamedCaptain | Hacker News Reader

It has to be said that I find the ties to the Russian government most disturbing for a "privacy"-focused OS, specially after I realized it's not actually OSS.

EDIT: Emphasis on the non-OSS part. I couldn't care less as long as it was actually fully open.

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Can you point to references about Russian gov involvement? I see from the Sailfish page that it's deployed widely in Russia, but Jolla themselves are Finnish (https://jolla.com/about/), not exactly the most Russia friendly country around. That their OS is used in Russia isn't the same as it being Russian developed, which it doesn't appear to be(?)

> Russia trusts in Aurora OS

> One of the first customers for OMP was Russian Post

https://sailfishos.org/cases/

> The product was soon re-branded to Aurora OS. Aurora OS is an independent, “standalone” product and derivative work of Sailfish OS, and property of Open Mobile Platform LLC.

From your link. Is there any evidence of them pushing code back upstream?

Yes, the latest release have seen some code contributions from Aurora. Some well-known people in the community even work for Aurora, like coderus.

To be fair, without the Russian investor, there would be no Jolla anymore :)

They probably meant this: https://blog.jolla.com/new-strategic-investor-joins-sailfish...

The open source part is basically a middleware layer that uses libhybris to work with downstream AOSP kernels and device drivers. This might have been useful at some point, but we have better choices now, like forward-porting these supported devices to work properly with a mainline kernel and userspace.

A great deal is FOSS. Look on github. All my apps are gpl. The move away from libhybris is just a matter of time. And jolla has more experience in the space than anyone.

No, you're wrong like I was. It's not just the hardware parts that are closed (what's under libhybris). It's also the entire UI toolkit (the library that they have on top of Qt) and most of the built-in applications that are closed source.

Yep, "Always has been" sigh

Hmm. Don't use the built ins, but i do use silica. My focus is to do dev, and convince them to open more as the external devs generate more value. See the obs build service... Etc.

You do not even use the builtin phone dialer? It's closed. Settings app? Closed. Etc.

Well, i do use contacts and dialer and the broken settings interfaces. Yep, it us all just one grand experiment. I rdcdntly had to ask where in qml land to hack my event screen. Well, that was hackable. I dint buy marketing bull from anyone. I wasnt and am not interested in the privacy angle as long as google and apple are the norm.

Also, closed source shoos that actively promote patching are ok by me.

They promised the world, their management didn't understand what OSS meant. It was pretty bad early on. Their investors also didn't understand OSS and thus made sure that core parts never became OSS. That's why there was NemoMobile, it was (is?) a true and fully open source implementation, replacing all the proprietary Sailfish bits.

It could have been great, but many mistakes where made in many places, not just by management. Now it's a fringe OS, with a closed source UI and no noticeable market share. Let alone growth in such.

NB: This is based on my personal involvement up to 2015-ish.

The ui bits atop qt, silica, is indeed closed. But you can develope for sfos without silica. I have a pure sdl app. Still, they are trying to find a way without going the data hog way. As they are doing license foo in automotive space, i'd guess it'll take time. But it is also the value in jolla. Excellent industrial design.

"The ui bits" is an understatement, because UI & builtin apps is actually where the meat is, and they know it. The kernel, Qt, the standard desktop stuff, etc. they are _forced_ to open, unless they want to violate the GPL. But whenever there is anything they're not forced to open, and someone else could potentially have an interest to actually see the source, then they keep it closed. It's actually less open than Android!

You can also have pure SDL apps on WINDOWS, out of all platforms, so what is the point? And sure, there is also value in that, but "privacy" value?

The point i was making us that you can build apps without silica. That will result in your apps looking like they do on apple, ie whatever. I could fake most of silica if i wished, but i hope jolla finally turns the corner and can stop being so tight fisted. I believe they will. Othwise i would not develope there. I will of course work to make my apps run everywhere. Quite a few do.

So guess we're left with librem then? Ubuntu touch, plasma, mobian, etc are not useable. For my part I'll keep working on opening it up. Like my local school system, city hall, etc. All of which have lock in with private companies that hold the ip close to the chest. It's a lot if wirk, it is.

There's still KaiOS, but it's closed-source and aimed at feature phones. And seems like Tizen never got anywhere on phones.

At least I won't be extradited to Russia.

I don't see any ties with the Russian government, just that they are getting investment from a Russian telecom.

A Russian state-owned telecom.

This is not true.

Russian connection is just the Russian government decision to use Sailfish as the base for their own Aurora OS. China and India are also somewhat interested.

Rostelecom (Russia public telecom) basically has majority stake in Sailfish. This stuff is not hard to search online, you know.

https://together.jolla.com/question/178875/rostelecom-acquir... https://www.mobileworldlive.com/devices/news-devices/russian... https://blog.jolla.com/new-strategic-investor-joins-sailfish... et al.

But this is not the problem. I would not have any problem with a 100% russian OS, as long as it was OSS. But Sailfish is also not OSS. That is the problem.

"But Sailfish is also not OSS. That is the problem."

I see this posted as a problem often, sometimes even "the" problem. I do understand it is a problem, but at the current moment there has been no better Linux phone then a Jolla or Sony with Sailfish.

So for people shying away from Sailfish, because it is not fully open source, I wonder what people use instead.

Is it an open source AOSP system (with probably binary drivers)? I would not trust that all Google stuff was removed from AOSP, I don't even trust it for Chromium. Or do people use Ubuntu Touch that is probably fully open source on some systems? Everything right now is a compromise. I do hope that it will change in the near future.

My main argument for the last 7 years was that I want a Linux phone in my pocket, that I can order today and use tomorrow. A Linux phone that serves me, with simple root access, ssh access, compiling apps and installing anything, messing about in /etc.

Because if there's something proprietary running on it, how are you going to "install anything" without breaking the proprietary parts? You will not be able to replace the kernel, you will not be able to upgrade any library (not even libssl when the time comes, and it will come), you will not be able to customize the software to your liking, etc.

You lose half the benefits of having an open system in the first place. I will have exactly the same issues than I do when a run Google Android: no control over the device. You're 100% at the whims of Sailfish.

And as for "OSS Android" still having unknown Google stuff, I disagree.

Up till now I was thinking this seemed very interesting and the price point of getting it wasn't bad at all (quickly searched amzn to see what the Xperia 10 II price was) but if what you say is true then it would be kind of worrying.

Edit: For some reason I missed a bunch of words when I posted.

It has to be said that if you are more worried about Russian involvement than you would be Britain, the US, or China you might be ethnist.

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