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Free Software Foundation announces a Librephone initiative to develop a fully free and open source smartphone (liliputing.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/hardware@lemmy.world
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[–] 29 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

The trouble with these FOSS phones is support from banking, payments, and government apps, which are also the main things that can't be run from a laptop. They usually also require NFC support, and that implies having the right kind of security certificates that these organisations recognise as well.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Yep, there are also development tools missing (at least at the level Android and iOS have them) and the motivation for developers to support yet another platform with no users (at least initially). A good example is Microsoft which thrown awful lot of money and resources at Windows Phone only to give up eventually. OTOH it'd be interesting if i.e. EU decided to support a new phone/OS, that'd certainly help with those delicate apps at least.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    A good example is Microsoft which [threw an] awful lot of money and resources at Windows Phone only to give up eventually.

    I just want to point out that they started or bought themselves into a Windows phone idea no less than three times before giving up, ruining Nokia in the process.

    Oh. And some of the Nokia handsets were gorgeous.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    They trick is to do what MS did in the early years, provide an API layer for compatibility.

    No reason they couldn't throw on an Android API layer specifically for targeting things like banking apps, etc,(maybe not games).

    Phones have significant power these days.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (3 children)

    You can do your banking on any web browser, including mobile web. You do not need a god damn app for everything. NFC antennas are supported on credit/debit cards that have no screens or CPUs, certs are handled by the non-client device, so it sure as fuck will work on any hypothetical FOSS phone. This is a dumb as fuck take.

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