It's time for us to concede defeat

[BeeThank]

Everyone, rejoice! Our dreams of liberation have been smashed to the ground!

- Despite some success on the desktop, the free software movement has entirely failed in the next frontier: mobile. Smartphones and tablets have only gotten more restricted over time. And I'm terrified to think of what cyborg implants will be like once they're available, which is already on the horizon...

- Fantasies of a free and open Web have been shattered now that it is totally controlled by Google; Mozilla, formerly the Web's guardian angel, has lost most of its market share and has devolved into an anti-user husk of its former self, only kept alive by Google to avoid antitrust charges.

- Cryptocurrency has failed become a viable everyday money, has benefited primarily the affluent, and has been a disaster for the environment.

- Even after Snowden's revelations, and despite the flood of dystopian fiction, it is still virtually impossible to persuade ordinary people to care about their privacy...

- Worst of all, our will to fight is completely gone. Remember how the entire Internet erupted in protest over SOPA? Governments are proposing even worse legislation today, and the response has been deafening silence...

It's time to face reality: from here, it's all downhill. The brief period of liberty we've had thus far is coming to an end...

[Trihexagonal]

In time you will grow to love your Robot Overlords.

Overlord_No1.png (391.45 KiB) Viewed 4056 times

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

@BeeThank thank You for this post - it means that still there is a hope for us, because not everyone gone crazy.

[kedaha]

- Despite some success on the desktop, the free software movement has entirely failed in the next frontier: mobile. Smartphones and tablets have only gotten more restricted over time.

hi,
About the smartphones, e.foundation/e-os looks promising.

[LE_746F6D617A7A69]

About the smartphones, https://e.foundation/e-os/ looks promising.

Unfortunately, not really - see the history and problems with CyanogenMod, then LineageOS - they can't support any of the new smartphones - because of hidden HW specifications, unlike in case of PCs.

The only way to change the situation is to vote by wallets - but most users are too stupid / too lazy to realize that they are used as an experimental rats, and Google is not even considering any change in this topic.

The only benefit of having Google as a hegemon on the mobile market is that Microshit and others are much worse ...

[canci]

I wish I could say this is more of a conspiracy theory, but I have to say it's become worse in the last 10 years.
Where in 2010 there was still somewhat of a hope that there might be at least a third player in the mobile market that might even use truly free software without tracking -- Nokia or even Canonical -- that never happened. Meanwhile, I worry about how a lot of average people want to suggest an app for pretty much everything: Want to report that your heating isn't working? The nice person on the hotline will first ask you why you just didn't use the app that won't start on LineageOS, because for some reason it needs Google Play to even start. Have a problem with wiring money over Western Union on your browser? The support person will try to make you install the app even though you kindly declined twice already! Want to donate to some cause but you only want to do it in cash? No way to do that at all. Or if there is, the person will keep a spreadsheet about your payment with all your personal data on Google Docs.

But that's not even the most egregious thing. I expect corporate offerings and laypeople to be using invasive proprietary crap. What's actually hurting is this creep of corporate crap in free software as well. Debian had to actually debate about the fact that upstream systemd set Google DNS as a default for some thankfully optional feature. I mean, of course it was changed for Debian, but the fact that it even had to be discussed and that a lot of people within Debian didn't even understand what the issue might be, is staggering to me. Or how about the fact that a lot of Matrix servers use Google Captcha.

Meanwhile, using a truly ethical free software alternative like Parabola or OpenBSD is becoming increasingly harder. Whereas it was relatively easy to get fully open hardware 10 years ago, there's for instance hardly any laptop nowadays that will give you the power to do most tasks while not requiring firmware blobs for a lot of stuff.

[arochester]

Who is us?

[jmgibson1981]

In a world that revolves around money and power the concept of open and free simply doesn't fit. It can exist but it's not on top of anyone's list and would be foolish to think it ever would be. Is to be expected really. Just do what one can if one feels it is worth the effort. Take comfort in knowing that you are doing the best you can and that is it. Changing the world doesn't happen easily and is near impossible if you can't remove the motivation of greed and power. Humanity in it's current state simply lacks that capacity.

Is why I don't jump through too many hoops anymore. To tired to care. I try sometimes but it's exhausting for nearly zero tangible rewards. Everything I do these days with open source stuff is for personal knowledge and growth. Nothing more. Even that is getting tiring.

[Fossy]

A few years back microsoft and google gave me nightmares .
Debian and Firefox saved me from this .
Sometines politics comes to spoil my peace of mind, no later than a few months ago:

https://www.hln.be/buitenland/de-croo-o ... ~a3b0ee53/

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) :

“ Prime Minister Alexander De Croo met with Microsoft Chairman Brad Smith yesterday afternoon in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Two themes dominated the conversation: closing the digital divide and cyber security “ …

Lucky us ,
1/ the belgian state still supports the use of Debian among other Linux distros for the interactive communication / administration with his citizens :
https://eid.belgium.be/nl/linux-eid-sof ... nstallatie
2/ we are still free to ignore google and work with Firefox :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... lgium-eid/

Until now …

[NFT5]

Oh Gawd! The tin foil hat brigade are at it again.

In a world that revolves around money and power the concept of open and free simply doesn't fit. It can exist but it's not on top of anyone's list and would be foolish to think it ever would be. Is to be expected really. Just do what one can if one feels it is worth the effort. Take comfort in knowing that you are doing the best you can and that is it. Changing the world doesn't happen easily and is near impossible if you can't remove the motivation of greed and power. Humanity in it's current state simply lacks that capacity.

Other than the final sentence, this pretty much sums it up.

The EU are doing good and positive things for security and privacy, backing up their words with some pretty big (yeah, ok, could be bigger) fines. Other countries are following, but their politicians need prodding to understand that these issues are important. Leaving it to someone else will see you joining the HongKongers in finding all about "Democracy with [insert your country] characteristics".

If you want to do something about it then contact your local Member/Senator/Representative. They can do a lot more than the readers of this forum. Or, even better, support Debian by becoming a Dev and writing Open Source software to replace the firmware that is the only choice in most cases. Debian is desperately short of Developers, not cash.

Or you could get out the soldering iron and removing that pesky wifi chip that needs firmware to run. No? Didn't think there'd be too many takers for that option, apparently the fervour trickles out when it means doing without the features.

[Onsemeliot]

Giving up doesn't accomplish anything. We might lose but we certainly will lose if we stop trying.

And concerning the lack of open hardware and adoption of free software: Android was a joke concerning functionality and practicality compared to the first iPhones. Certainly most didn't care if Google or Apple was behind it. But it still got big. The quality of the product obviously wasn't relevant. It was cheap, available and most importantly pre-installed. Very few people actually try to replace something that already works well enough for their needs. If we want to have a significant market share of desktops running free software we need to provide devices pre-installed with it that people can cheaply buy everywhere. We as a community need to gather the funding for developing and producing an adequate open chip design (possibly based on Risc-V) which can be used as the base of a new generation of devices that can be run natively with entirely free software.

This might cost billions and take a decade but it surely would be worth it. The problem is to agree on a common strategy and to focus enough resources and talent for actually achieving it.

[Hallvor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[jmgibson1981]

If you want to do something about it then contact your local Member/Senator/Representative.

Not to bring politics into it but I'm not sure what country you are in. In the states those so called representatives are so disconnected from their constituents it's ridiculous. They can't even come together to solve problems about environment and mass shootings where lives are concerned. They can't be bothered to attempt to try to solve stuff like that but you think they will do something about software privacy and security?

[canci]

If you want to do something about it then contact your local Member/Senator/Representative.

Not to bring politics into it but I'm not sure what country you are in. In the states those so called representatives are so disconnected from their constituents it's ridiculous. They can't even come together to solve problems about environment and mass shootings where lives are concerned. They can't be bothered to attempt to try to solve stuff like that but you think they will do something about software privacy and security?

I wouldn't say this is completely pointless. For instance, the new privacy laws in the EU are a huge step forward to before. It doesn't solve all the problems and individual EU governments don't really have privacy as their end goal, or maybe only in specific instances, but, e.g. I don't have to use Whatsapp or unencrypted SMS at work, but instead, my employer uses Threema Work with encryption. Or, I can go to my superior and ask him to stop using Google Docs for documents at work that contain private data, and there are ways to report that behaviour -- sometimes within organisations and companies, but definitely with state actors. Being able to sue someone for abusing your data is a great step forward. But I understand the hesitation about including politicians. A lot of them come from non-STEM backgrounds and have little interest in technology beyond appearing on Twitter, and a lot of them also aren't opposed to trusting companies keeping their data safe in clouds.

[ticojohn]

....The problem is to agree on a common strategy and to focus enough resources and talent for actually achieving it.

Good luck with that. As long as there are those that have money as their main motivation there will always be divisiveness.

[Onsemeliot]

I am uncertain if the GDPR the EU introduced did have more positive than negative effects. Many companies and associations got advised to switch from own operations on premise or smaller contractors to huge corporations like Google and Amazon just because it became almost impossible to provide those services without huge data centres and legal departments. The danger of getting into trouble because of a minor flaw is just to great. Big corporations might not protect our data but they are equipped to deal with such scenarios. In the end the introduction of the GDPR might have even increased the amount of data processed by these few big players.

[canci]

I am uncertain if the GDPR the EU introduced did have more positive than negative effects. Many companies and associations got advised to switch from own operations on premise or smaller contractors to huge corporations like Google and Amazon just because it became almost impossible to provide those services without huge data centres and legal departments. The danger of getting into trouble because of a minor flaw is just to great. Big corporations might not protect our data but they are equipped to deal with such scenarios. In the end the introduction of the GDPR might have even increased the amount of data processed by these few big players.

I see what you mean. German companies have also claimed that they need Cloudflare, Google etc for all this, but then suddenly there are local companies that said: "Wait a second, we can do the same and we were specifically financed by the government for this scenario"
But somehow, people just can't imagine using anything online without GAFAM companies anymore.

[fch]

Smartphones and tablets have only gotten more restricted over time.

Come on, I have been using a pine phone for the last 12months, amazing experience with mobian, there are many other distros available, like post market OS, arch and etc.

https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

https://mobian-project.org/

I am very optimistic despite all bad things, oppression and censorship, there seems to be a counter reaction very strong.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I have been using a pine phone

Has it caught fire yet?

https://xnux.eu/log/#017

[fch]

I have been using a pine phone

Has it caught fire yet?

https://xnux.eu/log/#017

No, it was getting warm in the beginning, now it's much better, specially after flashing the open source firmware for the modem, but if you want something more premium as hardware get the pine phone pro. Be a part of the solution.
https://www.pine64.org/pinephonepro/
the foss firmware: https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk
btw yesterday there was a new release of this modem firmware, making the temperature problem even better, check the changelog: https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_m ... /tag/0.6.6

For every problem there's a solution!