Hacker News Reader

Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but a popular one that's usable by regular people and with a very wealthy organization behind it.

How do you expect things to be popular without a company with self-interest? Producing a linux phone that people want requires immense capital, they're not just spending that and then releasing as open source forever.

By the time the product becomes "popular", it's then just one more platform that needs to follow investor interest and laws.

Valve is kinda doing that with SteamOS ? It's primarily made for their own hardware, but they also use work time to add features for installs on non valve hardware, and all of their components are open source.

That is exactly what Purism is doing with their Librem 5 phone. Valve didn't offer great experience immediately, too.

Why GNU? I get the appeal of Linux, but Android has that angle covered. What makes GNU a better userspace than Android for phone use? I actually think the Andoid userspace is very good for what it is. If Google's influence were magically removed, Android would be more or less the ideal OS, at least for me.

It's not GNU itself that's appealing, it's the fact that it's not controlled by a company.

I miss my blackberry

It's not the same, it does not run BBOS10, and de-Googled LineageOS will have to do for now (for me).

But at least we can get updated internals for the Q20 (and soon the Passport). It'll be the closest we can get to carrying a BlackBerry for some time, if ever, and I'm happy enough with mine that I picked up a spare mainboard

https://zinwa.com/

While it's not exactly blackberry-alike, a hopefully soon-to-be-released option is the clicks communicator[0] phone. I just ordered their bluetooth keyboard attachment for androids/iphones with magsafe backs, but if it's any good, I may shell out for their phone as well.

I was also a backer for the Mecha Comet[1] earlier in the year, which I'm hopeful about, although that's a couple of steps away from a daily driver phone at this stage, I guess.

I never owned a blackberry, but for me, the ultimate winner would be for someone to copy or licence the layout and form of the dopod838pro[2] (a.k.a. HTC Hermes 100) and pop some newer internals in it... If I had 100 million dollars, that's what I'd be doing...

[0] https://www.clicks.tech/en

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mecha-systems/mecha-com...

[2] https://kaitech.hk/2006/10/dopod-838pro-htc-hermes/

This can be achieved if more people support the effort. If you expect megacorps to offer you a device respecting your freedom, think again.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com