Every attempt since OpenMoko proves the market doesn't care.
And in what concerns the mainstream desktop/laptop market, macOS Linux VMs, WSL, ChromeOS, versus GNU/Linux OEM devices, proves most people doesn't care either what they can get at regular computer stores, otherwise GNU/Linux configurations would not be online only at very specific shops.
Mobile is a massive chicken-and-egg problem. The main purpose of a smartphone these days is to run apps. Nobody is going to buy a smartphone which can't run the apps they need in their day-to-day life. On the other hand, no company is going to write apps for a platform with basically zero users.
OpenMoko & friends are selling devices which basically only run Firefox, and sometimes make calls as well. The only people interested in that are diehard FLOSS enthusiasts, which means they have to use ancient hardware because new stuff doesn't have open drivers, which means that even if you ignore the app ecosystem they compare incredibly poorly to mainstream smartphones. No wonder they keep failing.
Interestingly, the desktop/laptop market is heading the other way. The move to cloud SaaS products means a decent number of people now only need a browser. What's keeping a lot of people on Windows is often literally one or two applications. Valve's push for Proton is the perfect example of this: the Steam Deck is providing a huge incentive to fix those last few bugs keeping a game from running on Linux, and with the way Microsoft is screwing up W11 it is now ironically the gamers who are moving to Linux.
What you are seeing in "regular computer stores" is mostly irrelevant. That market is basically dead. Corporate gets its machines directly from Dell/HP/Lenovo, PC enthusiasts mostly get custom builds, and casual people stick with smartphones and tablets. In-store PC sales is now reduced to a university student's Google Docs machine - and Microsoft is doing a pretty good job bribing the manufacturers to push Windows there.
What I see is regular people buy their computers at Media Market, Cool Blue, Saturn, Fnac, Public, Dixon, you name it.
Most of them have no clue that something like System 76 or Tuxedo exists in first place.
Likewise on corporate world, I have long moved into Windows/macOS as official desktops for the last decade, GNU/Linux is only available on VM or servers, and usually it is the cloud provider's own distro.
Those customers where IT allowed the use of GNU/Linux desktops, it was with zero support from them, it was up to us to deal ourselves with any issues preventing our work, and to deal with upper management, in case it impacts delivery.
Until SteamDeck gets rid of its dependency on Windows as source, it is pretty much irrelevant. Games developers will keep using their Windows workstations, while a community smaller than Switch, will get those games thanks to Proton.
And it remains to be seen for how long Microsoft will tolerate Steam, or use their weight as OS vendor, and one of the biggest publishers.
> Games developers will keep using their Windows workstations, while a community smaller than Switch, will get those games thanks to Proton.
Mobile GNU/Linux might end up in a similar situation if projects like Waydroid[0] can be well-integrated into the system, or if the mobile hardware becomes powerful enough to run it well.
OpenMoko phones were too underpowered to run Firefox, but they could run a ton of other apps. I was running non-AI automated human language translation on the thing.
You know, I could do without the telephone and SMS features nowadays. I just need a data SIM. Then the device just needs to run a Linux distro with a mobile UI.
I'm pretty sure my Linux desktop version of Signal runs great on small screens.
> Every attempt since OpenMoko proves the market doesn't care.
It's because people like you are constantly repeating this mantra of security nihilism [0], instead of spreading the word about true alternatives existing today, Librem 5 and Pinephone.
How much does Librem 5 cost? Are they able to deliver reasonably up-to-date set of features that general population care? Can you still buy them? Will they deliver in a reasonable amount of time? Will they be able to stay afloat? Can they make enough money to invest in features? Can they support an ecosystem that not only support FOSS but proprietary software too? Can they make contracts with operators to have earlier access to newer tech? Does the cost reflect the value that the customer gets out of them?
The answer for most of those questions is no for both Librem and Pinephone. You cannot even buy Pinephones anymore. This is not nihilism.
> Are they able to deliver reasonably up-to-date set of features that general population care?
It doesn't matter. We are not on a mainstream website, we're on HN. You and me can use it as a daily driver (I do). Nothing becomes mainstream and usable by public at the launch (except things advertised by the big tech of course).
> This is not nihilism.
Did you read the linked article? It's not about getting to 100% security/freedom without any effort. This is about giving up, as you did.
> How much does Librem 5 cost?
Yes, it's expensive. If you can't buy it, you can help in many other ways, e.g., by spreading the word or contributing to the free software.
It doesn't matter: The phone runs the mainline kernel and not locked down, it will be able to receive all updates even without Purism. You can install any other OS, too.
> Can they make enough money to invest in features?
Seems like no, because virtually nobody knows about them, even on HN. And, again, it doesn't really matter.
> Can they support an ecosystem that not only support FOSS but proprietary software too?
Why?
> Can they make contracts with operators to have earlier access to newer tech?
This is pure nihilism. Only Apple and Google can do that, so we're all doomed, right? However Purism have been trying, not without some progress, https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/
> Does the cost reflect the value that the customer gets out of them?
Which aren't that great user experience for normal users anyway, with the apps and games everyone else on their friends circle is using, or needed for work.
Security not only matters, we are still far away from the same liability as in other industries.
GNU/Linux also had as baseline what other UNIXes were capable of, and even that had to grew for ACLs, NSA's LinuxSE, and containers.
And yeah, you can even buy phones with a non-android linux pre-installed, e.g. from pine64. But they come with all kinds of "for early adopters" warning labels. Deservedly so, in my opinion.
Hope there's a timeline in which banking and corporate apps can run/be enrolled on that. If the current geopolitical mess from the USA isn't a good-enough reason to make it happen, I don't know what is.
Why are all commenters on HN ignoring the only smartphone running an FSF-endorsed [0] operating system, Librem 5, and only list everything else? I just can't get it.
Because it was a kickstarter that was run like a scam, was years late to deliver the first device, the hardware was already not good at the start due picking an automotive SOC, the form factor was bulky, and the software was really buggy.
GrapheneOS is a much more practical open source OS to use Linux on a phone.
GrapheneOS is not solving the actual interesting problem (running on an entirely mainline kernel, just like on x86). It's effectively a hardened variety of LineageOS/AOSP, hence entirely reliant on device-specific downstream kernels/BSPs that will never see a feature update.
BTW, hardware support on postmarketOS "community" class devices has seen some nice improvements as of late. Once these improvements meaningfully stabilize (avoiding the risk of regression/breakage; there's been some of that even in the recent testing for the 2025-12 stable release) it's quite possible that some "community" devices might finally reach "main" class, marking them as OK for daily-driver use. Something to watch for as we approach 2026-06.
>GrapheneOS is not solving the actual interesting problem
Consumers don't care how interesting the developer's problems are. They want their own problems to be solved and GrapheneOS does a better job of that.
>running on an entirely mainline kernel
Google already did that work years ago. Android will work on a mainline kernel. Just like with x86 the mainline kernel needs to support the hardware e you want to use though.
And while Linus allows Linux to be open source. A benefit of open source is that you can fork it if upstream decides to stop development or go closed source.
>This doesn't work with GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS can use free drivers too. It literally is using Linux.
> GrapheneOS can use free drivers too. It literally is using Linux.
Except there is no device with free drivers that it supports. They just refuse to support Librem or Pinephone without a good reason. (I strongly disagree with their "security" arguments.)
> A benefit of open source is that you can fork it if upstream decides to stop development or go closed source
Android is already semi-closed (see this submission). Are GrapheneOS developers forking it? (No)
That's not how it works. GPL only prevents old versions from becoming closed source. If Linus added code to the kernel which required a $100k license to redistribute then people could no longer freely distribute the code of the kernel. People could not freely distribute compile kernels because they would need that license. GPL doesn't magically make all licensing issues go away. He could also make a required kernel module that was not GPL licensed that Linux could require to operate.
>Except there is no device with free drivers that it supports.
Having a working system providing competitive value to others is much more important.
>They just refuse to support Librem or Pinephone without a good reason.
The good reason is that those devices can't provide industry standard security.
> Linus doesn't release a linked version of the kernel
Linked to what? Any new change in it must become open, which is the whole point of "viral", copyleft GPL license, in contrast to permissive ones.
> They work more for users than other organizations that you would try and replace them with.
They put their users in dangerous dependence on Google. This is not what I would consider more useful than alternatives. It may be more useful in the short term, since it still works, but in the long term it's dangerous. In this sense it's not much different from good proprietary software like MacOS.
> I don't know what you are referring to.
GrapheneOS didn't completely fork Android. They still follow Google's development strategy, which only benefits Google and not users.
Because it's prohibitively expensive for something that isn't guaranteed to be a usable daily-driver for most people. Also IIRC the hardware isn't quite worth the price tag in-and-of-itself.
> We need a third alternative, based on freedom with your device.
We does not refer only to HN users, and there is no implication as such.
The default assumption is that 'we' refers to the general population.
However, even if I'm charitable and go with your assumption that 'we' referred to HN users, I will confidently say most HN users also don't care about FSF approval.
You like to post a lot of HN links without ever giving an indication of what they point to. As a habit, I don't waste my time clicking random links that people post without context.
Most HN users don't know about the alternatives, just like the public. If you say that those who know don't care, I will ask you for some evidence.
In my linked post I explain why the public doesn't matter at this point of time. Also I explain that the public doesn't need the alternative before it works flawlessly, i.e., before it becomes popular among technical users.
> Most HN users don't know about the alternatives, just like the public.
That's a rather ridiculous assumption on your part. As a tech-literate crowd, it's quite likely they are aware of them, if for no other reason those alternatives make the front page semi-frequently.
> If you say that those who know don't care, I will ask you for some evidence.
As soon as you provide evidence for the premises for your argument. As my position is simply saying yours is false, the onus is on you to support yours.
> "we" are aware of the problem and care about the freedom.
Sure, maybe, but caring about freedom isn't the same as caring about FSF approved software.
My evidence is simple. Topics about outrageous actions by Apple and Google appear on HN almost weekly. Almost every time somebody in the comments suggests that we should have a third alternative. And practically never anybody, except myself, mentions Librem 5 and Pinephone.
Your "evidence" is nothing more than your own personal anecdotes, and even then they don't support your conclusion. If people keep asking for alternatives, and this crowd obviously knows about the FSF and continually discount your FSF approved suggestions, then clearly they do not care for them.
> Even in the news related to FSF, people didn't mention the Librem phone:
Because people don't care. It isn't good enough for most peoples needs. You only push it because of your hyperfixation on free software, but most people balance caring about free software with other concerns.
> I participated in most of them.
And you think that makes your evidence not anecdotal?
> prefer to just dismiss all my arguments.
I'm saying your evidence is poor and your reasoning is shoddy and explained why. I'm not dismissing out of hand or for no reason.
Now, you made a statement without even anecdotal evidence. I received quite a few upvotes for that comments, indicating that people do care. Nobody said they didn't care. Yes, it's anecdotal evidence.
>> I participated in most of them.
> And you think that makes your evidence not anecdotal?
It might be anecdotal. You are free to count how many other people commented on Librem 5 yourself and disprove my claim.
> Now, you made a statement without even anecdotal evidence.
Kind of...as I said rpeviosuly your evidence actually supports my point, but even if you disagreed, I'm refuting your positive claim, not making a positice claim of my own. The onus is on you alone to support your claim.
> I received quite a few upvotes for that comments, indicating that people do care. Nobody said they didn't care.
Sure - the point was most people don't care.
> You are free to count how many other people commented on Librem 5 yourself and disprove my claim.
Pretty easy, just look at the ratio of votes in the last 10 threads you advocate for those phones in, where you maybe get 2 or 3 which is very low compared to the amount of comments and commenters, and then look at the amount of comments you get expressing a negative opinion. You get more negative and neutral feedback combined than positive feedback, indicating people don't care generally or if they do, it's to disagree with you.
> I do not have a particularly strong trust for the (modern) FSF, so their validation adds nothing, IMHO,
Most upvoted reply says:
> having FSF validation doesn't prove anything but rather may be detrimental,
The second link no one is discussing the FSF certification at all, one guy mentioned it in passing and every other hit for 'fsf' is from your username.
Third link only hits for 'fsf' are from your username.
Final link 'fsf' returns no hits.
I think you are conflating interest in an open source and/or free phone with something FSF approved. My claim above was that most people don't care about an FSF approved phone, and your links here don't show otherwise.
I agree there is an interest in an open alternative to Android/iPhone, but that doesn't require FSF approval.
FSF has a very strict idea about what constitutes freedom which many people that care about freedom do not share. Hence, people can care about freedom, and not care about FSF certifications or even opinions.
You can sell the phones alright, and they might even work, but the fact is that participation in society - especially if you live in a city - will be much harder without Android/iOS.
Note, not impossible: You can always carry cash to avoid phone-based bank payments (which would be needed at e.g. my local farmer's market, where nobody has a card payment terminal), some taxi services (Yandex Go for example) provide a web view with some of the features, you can open map services in the browser ...
But for the browser-based cases the experience will be even worse than the standard app experience, and friction is overall much higher.
As a result, only a very small fraction of nerds are committed enough to buy and use these devices. You then have a chicken&egg problem about getting a third option to work.
The only way this has been done semi-successfully in recent years is Huawei's HarmonyOS - and they did it by way of a) already being an absolutely massive phone company, and b) keeping around an expensive Android-compatibility core for many years.
Yes, the chicken and the egg problem. But here is the thing, the more adopters there are the more likely to get support. Not to mention the userbase will be mainly in the EU.
The EU is entirely dependent on US services, which don't much care about a fringe phone OS some fraction of people in the EU use. It's like adding duck/egg, crow/egg and other similar problems into the dependency web, too.
The European Commission, as well as many individual countries, are starting to see that as a problem in need of urgent solving, as they've realized it's strategic suicide for a country to be dependent on the goodwill of the (potentially, now turned likely, and going for almost declared) enemy.
It’s a circle that needs to be broken. It has multiple parties even without device manufacturers.
Users - there is a broad scope of users. For sustainable eco-system you need also user interest and support of such.
Developers - that sounds funny. I know. But you need enough leverage to get apps or services to be open.
Companies/Software - a modern mobile device takes place in almost any interaction. Commuting, payment, banking, grocery shopping, social messaging, doom scrolling.
Biggest hope for the future is ensuring PWA becomes standardized enough.
That way the OS lock-in could be reduced.
> It’s a circle that needs to be broken. It has multiple parties even without device manufacturers.
Well, you're right, however badly I don't want to admit it. Google broke that cycle once with Android. I'm sure that Apple would have too, even if they were not the first mover. And there's no question that their wealth and influence had a massive role in it - something an open platform cannot match realistically.
But the current situation is simply untenable anymore. I want out, no matter how many others don't care for it. The open platform has to be just functional enough (including app support, even as PWAs), for us to break free from this duopoly. Just like how Linux and BSDs are on desktops. I'm able to do everything on it from work to netbanking. I would hate it really badly if I was forced to use Windows or MacOS these days.
We need a hardware attestation vendor who isn’t also selling ads on the same device. Something like, I dunno, an identity module which you could maybe insert into the phone?
We never had one on desktop; no real issues. Hardware attestation is primarily in the interest of the vendor, not the user. The user relies on chains of trust. This is how the world works.
This is because of legacy. And even now lots of people assemble and build PC.
My worry is one fine day Microsoft, Samsung Apple, and Google (rest of SV Media companies like Netflix etc) will join hands in bringing security and force a ChromeOS or macOS type totally- we decide everything for you.
But that's exactly why I advocate that the hardware attestation module be separate from the computing device - so I can be in control of what and when I attest, not the vendor.
Can you elaborate. Say I buy parts myself and install a fully FOSS OS on my machine. Let's say I want to access my bank, and they demand attestation. You propose I'd buy an off-the-shelf, universal attestation module of my chosing (free market). But how would that work from an implementation standpoint? How would the module help put e.g. my bank at ease?
Those actually exist. Yubikeys, Nitrokeys (complete FOSS FW) or bank-approved code generators (For Germany these exist: https://www.reiner-sct.com/tan-generatoren/) are basically that. They provide independent assessment. So regardless of the OS or the browser both parties can make secure transactions.
Ah, so the computer doesn't need to be trusted at all, it's just an untrusted medium, just like when using encryption when sending data. All the trust would be at the vendor and inside external hardware device.
With bank key generators yes you are correct. With Yubikey and Nitrokey, their logic is standardized. With Yubikey you trust that their implementation is good just like Windows or Mac users trust their OS to implement cryptographic algorithms/TLS correctly (or via external company certifications, if any).
With Nitrokey's open source firmware plus quite a bit CS education (specializing on cryptography) you can check whether their implementation quality is good. However, that is a lot of effort which will probably result in also requiring a third party certification.
Open Harmony? I can't find what I would call authoritative information on how open it is. There's some hedging language about modules being closed source. But it's unclear if that refers to commercial versions of Harmony OS or Open Harmony, or if Open Harmony is open but somehow crippled.
