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Europe… the guys that want backdoors into all encrypted communication… the guys that want to give Google a big fat contract for app attestatio for their age verification apps…
Europe…? You guys thought of Europe? I feel like the entire EU policy right now is anathema to an Open Source Phone
You're right, but it's more nuanced than that.
The EU is like a Hydra. Some heads are consumer facing, others are population control facing.
Success would mean distracting the control heads while wooing the population heads.
No easy task.
I can see that, tbf, thanks for the explanation
"Europe... the guys that want backdoor into all encrypted communications" is a weird thing to say considering that every attempt of such a law failed because they didn't have the majority.
"Europe.... where a minority of politicians have continually failled to get a backdoor into all encrypted communications" would be far more accurate.
The rejection of the bill wasn’t on principle, but technicalities, the bill will be back with edits, Denmark is already aiming for December
Oh interesting, technicalities like? I wrote to a bunch of politicians and I was assured that they rejected it on principle.
Maybe they lied to me. But why would they lie to me but not the general public? Maybe the EU is a bunch of politicians and they all have their own opinions.
Depends on the country, of course there were politicians that disagreed on principle, but the voting on the issue wasn’t done by MEPs , if it’s MEPs you messaged
Europe… the guys that want backdoors into all encrypted communication
Europe... the guys who rejected a proposal to put back doors into all encrypted communication.
The rejection of the bill wasn’t on principle, but technicalities, if you look at most countries that opposed, the bill will be back with edits, Denmark is already aiming for December
Yet every 1-2 years the same proposal comes back with a different name and they have to have the exact same discussions over again because it has already been talked to death so it just depends which EU Parliament members have switched sides because of totally-not-bribary from lobbyists and nationalists.
This time around was razor thin margins.
The fact it has been attempted and rejected multiple times and has to be proposed under different guises supports the idea that the EU is not actually friendly to the idea of backdoors to encryption, and, as you just pointed it out, it is the meddling of lobbyists and nationalists that keeps the proposal coming back.
I get your point but I mean any countries actually lead by people who want better whether it is Europe or other countries such as Latin America, Africa, or Asia. I'm just getting the ball rolling. Genuinely asking, do you know other countries with stronger protections? Also those things are getting blocked from happening even though they keep trying. It still stands they are moving away from big tech and switching to open source alternatives which is an opportunity. Doing nothing won't grow the ecosystem and this is one many possibilities to grow altogether. Very often things worth fighting for are not easy
We can do it with multiple countries as well to make it less centralized of an effort
Well we can organise, set up a non profit (this also lets us bypass CC2 if its ever enacted). I've been thinking about this for a while and already have a framework for statues and a draft for a mission statement. If done correctly there are country and EU grants that can help (yes, I spent some time looking through grant processes). What I mean to say is; you have my axe
Speak friend, and enter. Double tap chest in sign of respect
That's a great initiative to setup. Do you know anyone with experience for that or do you plan to set it up? Would love for that to become a thing and can see many people rallying with you to get it done
More Quotes: What about side by side with a friend? My friends you bow to no one. I can't carry it for you but I can carry you
Well since I'm located in Sweden I've initially focused on how to set up a non profit organisation here. And the process is pretty straight forward. Until you get to taxes, salaries, expences and such. Even if you are a non profit you still need to pay employer fees, taxes on salaries and pensions, if you have employees or any salaried personnel or consultants. If they are volunteers but have expences well they need to be declared. But all that would be normal business for an accounting.(I'm not an accountant)
Basically to get started you need to have a charter, voted on at the first board meeting. After that your organisation is born. Then comes registration, getting an organisation number, setting upp tax accounts, bank accounts, seeking grants and subsidies, an office(for lack of a better word) if needed. Also the non profit needs to have a mission that is to the benifit of society, a bit of a open interpretation here, but it can't just be "let's have a we three men go on fishing trips non profit". Oh and yes it needs to be open for anyone to join (there are exceptions here. But that needs to be stipulated in the charter. Think a historical society, excluding history revisionists, or that dude from ancient aliens).
Hmmm well for what I know so far based on your very thorough you seem capable and will be if not yet. Anything can be figured out and you look like you have done the pre-work to know what to do. Now you just need a team of people to back you up and consistent action to get it done (I'm not an accountant either haha) But I am hopeful you can do it or assist another person who wants to do that to do the same. Whichever you prefer
We'd need to provide a reason for them to want a Linux phone. What use could a politician have for such a phone? We need to find good, strong reasons for it.
Sovereignty is the big thing right now. Supply chain attacks too.
Is there maybe a cost projection we could provide?
But also, how can it tir into other goals? If it's just disconnected from everything, it probably won't get much steam. Crosscutting concerns have to be tackled with a Linux phone. Concerns that's are tangible and not philosophical or ethical.
Tech sovereignty is one of the main 'practical' reasons why the pivot to FOSS is happening in the EU at the moment. I think this would be the strongest incentive, especially with the US increasingly being a less reliable geopolitical partner of the EU.
Those are some great points listed! And ha too true for last one
"Donald Trump won't see your messages".
That is a great way to look at the problem I'll do some brainstorming and see if I can think of anything else
If you can't get the phone from a local distributor/e-shop/carrier, then why bother?
That's a normal people's perspective.
OP seems to be talking about high level institutions collaborating with the opensource community to make linux phones a reality. Those aren't "normal people" but politicians and their ilk. They should be thinking different than the average consoomer i.e not "oh it's shiny and popular, fuck the price".
i'm all for linux phones, android becomes locked down by google, iOS is proprietary and dumbphones seem like an unnecessary burden if you wanna participate in society.
But i oppose the inclusion of any state in FOSS development. The EU is constantly pushing for chat control, Germany uses Palantir and ACTA was a thing. The EU could flip in the next election cycle and make backdoors mandatory or cut funding and cause the collapse of active development which relies on EU funding if their demands are not met.
But i'm no developer, i'm just an active user so i can't have an informed opinion on that.
Governments do not have to be involved in projects to pass laws that impact them.
I would argue greater EU participation in FOSS would improve the situation. One, the number of people in the government that understand how FOSS works may increase and frankly ignorance is often the problem. Second, if lawmakers themselves or the things they care about rely on FOSS, they will be much less likely to kick the legs out from under it.
From a code perspective, the risk is low. If it is just that they add back doors (not because it is the law), we simply create versions without those back doors and use that instead.
I do not think that developers have any greater insight into social or legal issues than you do.
The problem are not the distros, not even the phones itself. The problem is that these FOSS/privacy phone manufacturers don't sell their stuff through local e-shops like Alza. This is what hurts their adoption. Yeah, they lose 30% (or whatever percentage they have in the contract with the store) but this will recoup itself in the long run.
This is doing business 101. Don't think short term, think long term.
Libre Phone is already being started in terms of development. Good ideas though.
Appreciate it! Do you mean the FSF Librephone? It's not a new phone in case you didn't know. They clarified that the project will be to make the proprietary code blobs of a couple android phone into something FOSS so it can truly be used fully for FOSS development