If they were to add a simple plugin system, that would take them 0 effort with Qml, it would be significantly better.
There is also an opkg-based package manager and repo with many packages: https://toltec-dev.org/
The binary patching that you talk about is only one mod that can be installed to improve the functionality of the original GUI. It is true that it would be awesome if that had plugin support, as you stated, though.
Extracted? Last time I look at it, they were inserting a patch in the main (and only) binary of the proprietary GUI via LD_PRELOAD, and then all other programs which wanted to draw _anything_ to the screen would basically _directly alter the memory_ of the proprietary GUI binary in order to modify its internal framebuffer. You have to do that whether you want to integrate with the main GUI or not -- since you need this hack to draw anything to the screen.
Literally every other Remarkable update so far has killed all of this.
> Most components are FOSS.
The usual thing: most 3rd party components which they are forced to open anyway are FOSS. Anything that may even be remotely interesting is NOT FOSS. I do not understand why people try to claim this as a positive, cause it isn't.
On rM1 it was possible to write to the framebuffer directly, on rM2 it is not exposed as a device file directly.
> To do their job, both the client and the server need to know the address at which a number of functions reside in the Xochitl binary. These addresses change from one release to the next.
This is absurdly fragile. In fact, it's even worse than I was guessing :/.
I'm still very happy with the device but I'll keep that in mind when recommending it to others.
Also I don't worry about updates. Why would I connect my notebook to the Internet anyway? I just don't install them.
I guess it's a matter of time before fully open source display drivers are available and I can do my part too to make it happen.
When it happens I will have an ownable very nice, thin and responsible e-notebook. It will never be connected to the Internet and I will patch it myself if I will happen to want a new feature.
Maybe you are right and it could be more FOSS than it is, but in a world where you don't really own anything valuable anymore I am so elated about the hackability of this device that I'll take a bit of tinkering with binary files.