Captain Beyond

Honestly if I had to deal with degooglers and Linux fanboys as much as he did I’d probably go batshit insane. Kudos to him

There are some things that can be described as philosophy of Linux (e.g. “don’t break userspace”, “I only care about the code”), but the idea that “Linux is about [freedom|choice|privacy|openness]” is entirely mythological. It’s just a neat free software operating system kernel that has been used to build operating systems, many of which are free software.

Of course, Linux is “too fragmented” because there isn’t a standard “linux desktop environment” (or package manager, or shell, etc) unless it’s systemd in which case it’s “about choice” and we need “init freedom.”

Personally, as a free software enthusiast, I feel entitled to the “four freedoms” with every tool I use, no matter how large or small. I have no problem paying for free software and have done so in the past. For me the four freedoms are the point. A proprietary license is either a dealbreaker or a very large downside.

So, for me:

Is source‑available meaningfully different from closed‑source?

No. “Source available” in this context is a type of proprietary license. The fact that source code is visible does not make it not proprietary, because it is shared under a license that favors the interest of the rightsholder above those of its users. I talk about this often when contrasting so-called business and ethical licenses with true FOSS licenses. A true FOSS license grants modification and distribution rights and does not impose usage restrictions, a proprietary license imposes usage restrictions. With a FOSS license I don’t need to worry that whatever I’m using the software for somehow infringes the rightsholder’s personal ethics, and it encourages forking and code reuse.

In other words, thinking about it in terms of whether the source code is open or closed or “available” is missing the point entirely for the free software community. The point is what are you are allowed to do with the software and what restrictions are the rightsholder imposing on your usage of the software. Keep in mind most users are not programmers and thus being able to see source code does not impart any direct advantage to them, but allowing the community (which does include programmers) the four freedoms means things like forks and customizations can be spread.

Do you expect small tools to default to open‑source?

As said above I use free software wherever possible. Thinking about it I guess I generally do expect a small hobbyist tool (as opposed to something that exists to be a product) to be free software, but then again I use platforms that are favored by free software enthusiasts. On Windows I suppose it’s more common to see these as proprietary freeware apps.

Does hosting something on GitHub imply a FOSS expectation?

For me it does not, I’ve learned to always look for a license to make sure, but I think a lot of people do not understand that GitHub can host proprietary projects too.

For someone planning a larger ecosystem later, which model is the most reasonable starting point?

You’ll need to elaborate on this more. If you are planning to grow a free software community then using a true free software license is important. Free software and open source licenses are known to not impose usage restrictions that favor the rightsholder’s interests above the user’s, as I have said. On the other hand, if your goal is to create a business around the project, you need to balance your users rights against your business interests. Starting out with a free software license then switching to a proprietary source available license once you have a captive ecosystem will create resentment and guarantee a community based fork of the last true FOSS version.

It should be noted this is not any sort of actual anti-malware tool. By “lists the trackers” it just means it looks for strings in the compiled bytecode. This is prone to false positives (if the “tracker” classes are stubbed out, e.g. in Fennec F-Droid) and doesn’t actually tell you if or how these libraries are actually used.

The silver lining of “AI” is that it’s a convenient excuse to be anti-user. It’s okay as long as you are “fighting the AI”

I expect to be chugging verification cans in 2027

/e/OS is just LineageOS with a bunch of cloud crap and a proprietary map app.

Their voice to text feature uses a cloud server that uses OpenAI on the backend. This is something that could and should run locally, but the local ones are apparently not good enough and instead of investing into developing them they are going to use a cloudy thing.

https://community.e.foundation/t/voice-to-text-feature-using-open-ai/70509

Just use LineageOS

People should start doing so. This “android isn’t real linux” nonsense is actively harmful misinformation at this point

It is also (as far as I can tell) proprietary

Free software is about freedom, not price. It is perfectly ok to sell free software. Even if Voyager cost money to download as long as it gives users the four freedoms it is free software.

As far as I know there are several non-free Lemmy apps as well as a handful of paid apps.

Is mobian still maintained? I had a quick look a couple days ago and their last blog post was 3+ years ago.

October 2025 by my reckoning.

https://blog.mobian.org/posts/2025/10/new-stable-rotating-keys/

Linux, the kernel, is the thing that containers run on top of. The container does not actually contain an instance of Linux, it shares it with the host.

If by Linux you mean “literally everything except Linux” though, then sure. But I prefer to say what I mean and mean what I say

You never needed a VM to run Linux apps on Android. Android can run Linux apps because it is already a Linux operating system. This is like referring to a docker container as “running Linux on Debian” or whatever.

Free software is about freedom, not price. It’s perfectly acceptable to sell it. It being a paid download doesn’t necessarily mean it’s proprietary. He’s not required to actually post the source online for all to access, he can send it only to paying customers. As long as the customer receives it under a free software license it is free software.

However, without mention of a free software license, I am inclined to believe it is proprietary - although it is described as open source on the page, he might mean to say source available.

The “Russian” part is not the problem here

Been a while since I used microG but I remember the Google registration specifically being opt-in. Then again, I also remember reading that /e/OS automatically enables it, so…

I do not have a high opinion of /e/OS or Murena. It is LineageOS but “degoogled” which is a meaningless buzzword considering LineageOS already does not contain Google services/apps (you have to install those yourself). Instead it’s connected to its own “Murena cloud” which itself uses OpenAI for a speech to text service. But hey, it’s not google so it must be okay, right…?

https://community.e.foundation/t/voice-to-text-feature-using-open-ai/70509

It might be opt in (or opt out? dunno) but this sort of thing should not be a cloud thing, it should be a local service.

It also comes with at least one proprietary app built into the OS and their app store offers proprietary apps with some sort of “tracker detection” thing. I do not trust any “app store” that purports to tell me which proprietary apps are “good.”

LineageOS comes with no google apps, no cloud apps, no proprietary apps, etc. It’s just a perfectly usable AOSP system. It doesn’t even have an “app store” but you can install F-Droid on it. I think GrapheneOS is the same (it supports “sandboxed Google services” but it doesn’t include them by default)

As far as I know the only options that exist are LineageOS, GrapheneOS, and maybe non-Android Linuxes if you’re brave enough. There used to be DivestOS which although based on LineageOS brought several security, privacy, and freedom improvements, but that project has been discontinued. None of these “degoogled privacy OS” LineageOS reskins impress me.

Isn’t this proprietary?

It does seem like a bug. I actually have a UnifiedPush distributor but have never configured Fennec to use it (I didn’t even know it was an option) but now Fennec shows me this warning and there is no way to actually enable it in settings anymore.

What makes Sailfish OS unique over competitors like GrapheneOS and e/OS is that it’s not based on the Android Open Source Project, but Linux.

Not only are AOSP and its derivatives also based on Linux, they are actually free software unlike Sailfish OS which contains some amount of proprietary code (I know at least the Android compatibility layer - which I’m told isn’t simply the AOSP runtime (as Waydroid uses) but some proprietary thing).