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Comment by kbolino | Hacker News Reader

I think a bifurcation is likely. You can't program these locked-down devices/systems on themselves. At the end of the day, some of us have to be able to write the code that makes these things work. So I think there will always be "unlocked" or "developer" operating systems and hardware. But those systems will be considered "too powerful" or "too dangerous" for mundane tasks, especially entertainment.

Right now, the legacy operating systems like Windows and macOS are trying to straddle the line. I think in the not too distant future you'll have to choose between being able to run a debugger and hack the OS vs. being able to watch shows, play video games, and access your bank account. I'm not exactly sure how the split will happen, it could be through totally different ecosystems, or an irreversible flag in the firmware, or maybe something else entirely, but it seems almost inevitable at this point.

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Android has already gone this way - certain features like access to cardless payments are disabled if you're running a "not locked down" version of Android in anyway.

I bought a new 2nd hand phone recently and learned that one the hard way when I went to pay for my journey to work. The previous owner had enrolled the phone in the Android beta program, which, this being Google, is remotely controlled and required me to spend half an hour Googling to understand how to unenrol myself and my phone.

What gets me about android is the "have your cake and eat it" way it approaches whether or not it's locked down/secure.

Over time the usage of android has changed as more users and more services adopted mobile, for a lot of people it is an appliance, and I can appreciate that payments and linking to bank accounts is a convincing argument for something like play integrity/safetynet. Where I think there's conflict is that android hasn't entirely moved away from the early days where it was something a bit closer to a personal computer with a high amount of freedom, or at least they haven't been clear or drawn a line in the sand (this is while the issue around third party app stores and if they must be somewhat open is still being resolved).

If you do some unlocking/rooting and what it enables, it either gets the bare minimum CYA notification or doesn't get flagged in the UI at all as presumably the users is meant to know what they're doing at that point, even if cases where apps refuse to run or just crash with no feedback to inform. I'd appreciate it more if they did put up a big red warning "this is happening because your phone is in insecure mode because you did X", but on the surface level it appears as the phone is fully operational but acting weird.

I don’t mind locked down hardware as long as it’s usable. I don’t open a microwave or a tv for fun, but I mind the experience while using them. If you want to do one thing, do it well. And do it even after the manufacturer collapses unless there’s a service involved. What I don’t like is when it’s my computing ressources that are involved, but they want to reassure the mothership that it’s legitimate use.

Let’s take an ereader as example. I can buy it knowing that it can only display books from Amazon Kindle and I need an active subscription or a license for the book. Or I can buy it knowing that I can display any ebook file I have. It’s one or another, or both together independantely.

Which is why I don’t mind the old App Store model. I know that it’s locked down and I can license apps which will be tied to my account. When it’s no longer supported, I can still download the version that work. But now the license is temporary so as soon as you’re not able to pay, the app breaks.

A locked-down device is pretty much definitionally a subscription and not a perpetuity. You cannot fix a locked-down device yourself, so the vendor has to do it for you. When the vendor stops doing that, all of the "benefits" of it being locked down (DRM-protected media, games with anticheat, secure bank access, etc.) cannot continue. I can see the case that locked devices should be easy to unlock when vendor support ends, but then they'll lose most of their functionality too, since the primary reasons for owning them in the first place go away with the unlocking process. An old tablet that can't access any content is little more than a really thin brick.

> I think a bifurcation is likely.

Surely Apple has some other OS used internally for debugging/testing hardware prototypes. I heard rumours that it's Linux, but it might just be something else built on their BSD core. Whatever it is, it's kept secret and not available to the general population.

> I think in the not too distant future you'll have to choose between being able to run a debugger and hack the OS vs. being able to watch shows, play video games, and access your bank account.

This is already the case on Android. Technically on iOS too; you can't run a debugger there at all.

Its a bit of a hack, but on Android apps can loopback connect to the phone with adb.

Also, ptrace works as well.

Yes, I'm taking the current situation on mobile and extrapolating it to be the future of desktop computing as well. Tablets and Chromebooks are already there. But Windows and macOS are headed in that direction too. Will there still exist unlocked or at least unlockable versions of those operating systems? Or will developers have to use what will then be specialty hardware on which they can only run Linux (and other free operating systems)?

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