The only thing that really got me going was small applications I had some interest in. Writing games I will not play never kept my interest up for long. So I’ve been building mini tools I used for teaching numerics classes in meteorology (Python, Julia, Fortran, C) or code I would be using for some tinkering with microcontrollers or similar (Python, C++) when using new languages. For me personally, some iconic projects were a CO2 sensor with an attached display, or very simple internal gravity wave ray tracers. But that’s likely not what you’d be interested in. So without trying to suggest specific applications for you (many good examples in the responses :-) I’d advise to do something you’ll have fun with. Get yourself a small project that generates added value for you specifically (and fun is great added value in my eyes).

Link to app repos, both contain the disclaimers: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-ios-wallet-ui https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-android-wallet-ui

Maybe the security expert could read the readmes in the repos first. From the iOS app repo:

The initial development release has reduced security, privacy, availability, and reliability standards relative to future releases. This could make the software slower, less reliable, or more vulnerable to attacks than mature software.

And further:

If you're planning to use this application in production, we recommend reviewing the following steps: […] The Pin storage configuration matches your security requirements, or provide your own by following this guide Pin Storage Configuration […]

So the text hints not at design flaws but at facts that are already stated in the readme. Plus, the major source for the article is Pavel Durov, who’s messenger is of course a standard in security and privacy.

So there seems to be no news but a lot of speculation by Durov instead.

Clouds.

• polar stratospheric clouds play an important role in creating the ozone hole
• the highest clouds on earth are about 80 km high
• in the mid-latitudes most rain is cold rain, that means it leaves the clouds as ice and melts on the way down
• pure water droplets without an aerosol inside (cloud condensation nucleus) freeze at about -40°C, sea salt aerosols make cloud droplets freeze at about -38°C, …

And there’s much more to be found.

/rant Advertising broke the internet in so many ways since it became the number one way of monetizing “free” online services. Most popular means of communication (email, messaging, …), news distribution, or any other digital interaction (social media, neighborhood platforms, …) are driven by either selling users stuff they didn’t want from the service in the first place first place or by helping others do that through gathering huge amounts of data not needed for the service. So participation in the digital society partially forces us to play the game as non-profit open source solution typically only cover smaller portions of society. I’m so sick of it. /rantoff

I was wondering if blocking ads and switching off location services would even limit the impact on Webloc much. It’s always surprising how much information ca be pulled from seemingly harmless interactions.

Not a legal argument but what is the possibility of modifying and redistributing the software worth of the entire branding (!), etc. have to be kept intact. Doesn’t that impose limits on modifications in the first place? Doesn’t feel much like the idea of a viral copyleft license. Also, if the first thing after a prominent fork is starting a legal fight over subtleties in the license with the goal of preserving one’s brand, I’m not so sure why the software was distributed with an AGPL in the first place. The whole thing doesn’t seem to add up.

Nice. I wasn’t aware they managed to assemble all parts with Linux drivers. From all I read (not an expert at all) that seems quite tough. What remains is a runtime environment/infrastructure for everyone who’d like to run Android binaries/packages on the phone.

SFOS is not an Android fork. As many classical Linux distros, it controls sessions through systemd, the compositor is Wayland and the standard c lib is glibc. However, compatibility with the drivers of many hardware vendors and certainly also running binaries build for Android require Android libraries and abstraction layers to be present. Sadly some Android libraries or suitable replacements where available are absolutely necessary to run a phone nowadays. Both hardware and software producers are so focused on Android that drivers / binaries for alternative systems are not offered. That also underlines that this is indeed a niche product. Disclaimer: I ordered one of the phones.

I'm glad to hear that lack of time/resources for code reviews are more common. Also for clarification: I was the author and requested reviews by my colleagues. In reverse, I did not receive requests to review PRs so far. Tbh. I would really like such a review culture as it is already standard in scientific publishing and it would have avoided some obvious bugs we did encounter in the past. Having that said, as I did not receive any review at all and I would appreciate low(er) quality reviews better than none.

It was more a question of finding the time within the daily business of doing science. I suppose it is also a culture issue, the priority to do a review is usually low. In other words, there was de facto never a review.

From a scientific modeler perspective: Always trying to do 5 (or 4), but I’m having difficulties getting a culture of reviewing each other's codes going. Many times I was asked to “just merge” months after submitting a PR. In the context of operational or large community codes, 5 is usually strictly enforced. Weather services don’t appreciate broken code.

Of course one would have to trust Jolla. But then again, isn’t that always the case for everything that isn’t 100% open source? And even then, there could be compromised code somewhere. SFOS is in use for many years, there is an active community around it but the closed source parts of the OS, including hardware vendor drivers, are, well, closed source.

But then that’s just it. Whom do we want to trust? There is no 100% open source phone and SFOS seems the only persistent Linux-based OS for phones around.