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I think the conversation needs to change from "can't run software of our choice" to "can't participate in society without an apple or google account". I have been living with a de-googled android phone for a number of years, and it is getting harder and harder, while at the same time operating without certain "apps" is becoming more difficult.

For example, by bank (abn amro) still allows online banking on desktop via a physical auth device, but they are actively pushing for login only via their app. I called their support line for a lost card, and had to go through to second level support because I didn't have the app. If they get their way, eventually an apple or google account will be mandatory to have a bank account with them.

My kid goes to a school that outsourced all communication via an app. They have a web version, but it's barely usable. The app doesn't run without certain google libs installed. Again, to participate in school communication about my kid effectively requires an apple or google account.

I feel like the conversation we should be having is that we are sleepwalking into a world where to participate in society you must have an account with either apple or google. If you decide you don't want a relationship with either of those companies you will be extremely disadvantaged.

Genuine question and some random thoughts please downvote if you think I am ranting too much: one argument played by Google on this is that they want to protect users from malware, specially for banking apps, etc. However my queations/two cents regarding this:

Banks offer web frontends and many make you use 2FA and even hardware keys, which work on phones. We have been doing e-banking even before smartphone phones existed. We still do. On our full of malware and virus windows desktops.

These mobile apps are in reality web frontends disguised as mobile apps with biometrics on top of it. Nothing else really. I develop an iOS app for a bank. It’s really like that.

Despite that I have to obfuscate the binaries, check for cydia, make sure I am not jaibtoken and all kinds of useless stuff.

When you buy a PlayStation you are buying a piece of hardware that Sony sells you at a break even or a loss so that you can buy their games. You are not buying your hardware. You are buying means to run video games on a piece of hardware Sony is selling to you.

When I buy an iPhone I am paying a lot of money for my pocket computer, my internet communicator. The margins are so big, it doesn’t even make sense to squeeze more out of them.

When I buy an Android phone I fail to see the end game except that Google wants to have absolute control over everything I do in my life.

I cannot really deny them their right to do whatever they want.

Still I can’t see really how they want to protect users by having full control. That’s a big lie.

> In this context this would mean having the ability and documentation to build or install alternative operating systems on this hardware

It doesn't work. Everything from banks to Netflix and others are slowly edging out anything where they can't fully verify the chain of control to an entity they can have a legal or contractual relationship with. To be clear, this is fundamental, not incidental. You can't run your own operating system because it's not in Netflix's financial interest for you to do so. Or your banks, or your government. They all benefit from you not having control, so you can't.

This is why it's so important to defend the real principles here not just the technical artefacts of them. Netflix shouldn't be able to insist on a particular type of DRM for me to receive their service. Governments shouldn't be able to prevent me from end to end encrypting things. I should be able to opt into all this if I want more security, but it can't be mandatory. However all of these things are not technical, they are principles and rights that we have to argue for.

We need both options to coexist:

1. Open, hackable hardware for those who want full control and for driving innovation

2. Locked-down, managed devices for vulnerable users who benefit from protection

This concept of "I should run any code on hardware I own" is completely wrong as a universal principle. Yes, we absolutely should be able to run any code we want on open hardware we own - that option must exist. But we should not expect manufacturers of phones and tablets to allow anyone to run any code on every device, since this will cause harm to many users.

There should be more open and hackable products available in the market. The DIY mindset at the junction of hardware and software is crucial for tech innovation - we wouldn't be where we are today without it. However, I also want regulations and restrictions on the phones I buy for my kids and grandparents. They need protection from themselves and from bad actors.

The market should serve both groups: those who want to tinker and innovate, and those who need a safe, managed experience. The problem isn't that locked-down devices exist - it's that we don't have enough truly open alternatives for those who want them.

I think we really need to discuss whether IP/copyright protections were a mistake. A LOT of our "modern" problems stem from IP protections. Whether that be not being able to own media, right to repair, DRM, censorship, a lot of monopolistic behavior, medicine prices, etc. And no wonder, IP protection is government sanctioned monopoly, and it is generally recognized that monopolies are bad; is it such a surprise that government enforced monopolies are bad?

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These things are never thought through. Sure, Apple could unlock the whole thing, tell everyone to go nuts. Who's writing the damn drivers? Apple's certainly not obligated to open source theirs, I also can't imagine them signing someone else's. So we end up with a bunch of homebrew drivers, devices crashing, getting pwned, and the dozens of people who install a third party OS on their iPhone write furious articles that get voted up to the front page of HN.

The context of "ownership" is more nuanced when it comes to hardware devices - and even software.

What do you think when you say ownership?

I think - "this is totally mine. Nobody else's. I can do with this what I want. It is entirely up to me."

Do you own your passport? In fact, you probably do not. Most passports have a page stating to the effect that "this passport remains the property of <relevant authority>".

DO you own your device? I feel like I own my devices. I will defend them from theft, or loss. Because they are "mine". But ownership in a broader or legal context implies more rights that I don't think I have. I don't own the IP to the hardware and software on the device. These components have licenses to which I agree and am bound simply because I possess and use the device. These contracts restrict the things I am allowed to do. So my "ownership" also comes with certain "responsibilities" - which I personally don't believe I ever think about. But they exist.

For instance, probably somewhere in these contracts something is said to the effect that I cannot reverse engineer, reproduce and resell components or plans for these components. And myriad other things. Designed to protect the business and investment and people who invented and built them.

"Ownership" in the age of complex "finished products" that result from trillions dollar global supply changes of incomprehensible complexity is more nuanced than the idea that I found a log in the forest, and now the log is mine.

Here's the deal for you young'ns. Richard Stallman (rms) had it right on this topic and alot of people had to fight to have the limited stack we have.

It's not enough though.

All we can do is make all the decisions possible to keep an open stack as viable as possible - even though what we have now is woefully incomplete. We need to push for this within our teams, within our companies, within our governments, in civil society, and everywhere else that we can because the corporate crowding out of a free technology stack will crowd out everything else if it's allowed to.

13 years ago, Cory Doctorow warned us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI

So basically market forces and profit optimization is at work here as always.

However, if we can still unlock the boot loader and install Lineage OS or something like that and have a way to pay for developers to release their apps on stores like f-droid we can use the hardware.

The biggest problem with having freedom to use our devices is that the model is broken for the developers who support them. You "can donate", but from the numbers I've seen it's like 1 in 1000 donate. No pay == developers can't invest their time to improve the software.

So if there is "really" a substantial number of enthusiasts that are ready to pay for the freedom they crave, then companies like Librem will have enough customers to create decent and usable products for this audience. Want digital freedom - prepare to support the people who provide it.

Yes, that might mean that we'll need to have 2 devices, 1 for "banking/government services" that is "certified" and one for our own usage. Shitty but we'll be forced to do that sooner on later. The efficiencies for the government to enforce the policies is so strong that they can't helps themselves. And corporations like to have more data to squeeze every cent from the customer.

So if there is a working business model for "freedom" we might have a partial freedom. If there isn't we'd be just a digital farm animals to be optimized for max profits and max compliance.

This makes the point that the real battle we should be fighting is not for control of Android/iOS, but the ability to run other operating systems on phones. That would be great, but as the author acknowledges, building those alternatives is basically impossible. Even assuming that building a solid alternative is feasible, though, I don't think their point stands. Generally I'm not keen on legislatively forcing a developer to alter their software, but let's be real: Google and Apple have more power than most nations. I'm all for mandating that they change their code to be less user-hostile, for the same reason I prefer democracy to autocracy. Any party with power enough to impact millions of lives needs to be accountable to those it affects. I don't see the point of distinguishing between government and private corporation when that corporation is on the same scale of power and influence.

> It should be possible to run Android on an iPhone and manufacturers should be required by law to provide enough technical support and documentation to make the development of new operating systems possible

As someone who enjoyed Linux phones like the Nokia N900/950 and would love to see those hacker-spirited devices again, statements like this sound more than naïve to me. I can acknowledge my own interests here (having control over how exactly the device I own runs), but I can also see the interests of phone manufacturers — protecting revenue streams, managing liability and regulatory risks, optimizing hardware–software integration, and so on. I don't see how my own interests here outweigh collective interests here.

I also don’t see Apple or Google as merely companies that assemble parts and selling us "hardware". The decades when hardware and software were two disconnected worlds are gone.

Reading technical documentation on things like secure enclaves, UWB chips, computational photography stack, HRTF tuning, unified memory, TrueDepth cameras, AWDL, etc., it feels very wrong to support claims like the OP makes. “Hardware I own” sounds like you bought a pan and demand the right to cook any food you want. But we’re not buying pans anymore — we’re buying airplanes that also happen to serve food.

100 percent agree.

I’ve given talks on how various jailbreak exploits work in order to teach people how to protect their own software but also with the suggestion that we should be able to do this.

It’s nuts that personal computers aren’t personal anymore. Devices you might not think of as PC’s… just are. They’re sold in slick hardware. And the software ecosystem tries to prevent tampering in the name of security… but it’s not security for the end user most of the time. It’s security for the investors to ensure you have to keep paying them.

The author doesn't seem to understand that you don't need your PlayStation 5 to travel, pay your rent, or authenticate to government services. That's the fundamental difference and why it is valuable that Android is open

I agree that there is currently no expectation for Sony to open up their OS to run just any software (such as pirated games). Nobody said that. There should be an open widely supported mobile OS because that's fast becoming about as fundamental to modern life (in my country at least) as roads and electricity are

Android being so easy to make software for is what hooked me as a teenager, after failing to develop for my previous Symbian phone. Taking that away is possible now because the alternatives are all gone. Where are you going to migrate to without making major concessions in your life? You'll have to forfeit popular messengers that your family, friends, landlord, etc. are on; no more mobile banking; extra fees to use online banking at all; extra fees to legally use public transport; no downloading of episodes or music from streaming services for offline use; no phone calls depending on your country's 2G status; etc.

EU is dropping the ball here. Instead of mandating open hardware they trying to force companies to comply with random stuff, mostly censorship and spying. In theory EU can mandate open bootloaders like EU mandates USB-C charging, but they won't. Open hardware is the enemy of the EU, since that means everyone would be able to bypass the chatcontrol of the day.

There’s something weird about it. My phone needs to be hyper secure, and a lot of companies went to monetize that and introduce insecurities with their software.

That’s why I love my iPhone, but I’m not super happy about what happens with my Mac.

There’s something in the reality that it’s the app developers not the user that are being restricted by Apple. Apple keeps the app developers from doing things I don’t like for the most part. I don’t feel very restricted.

But I don’t want my computer to become a walled garden. It’s only OK for my phone.

As other comments have pointed out, this statement (one I 100% support, BTW) is a little naive. I can see how it might be unreasonable to expect companies to publish documentation, build infrastructure, etc. to support running your own code on the hardware you own (which 99% of people will never need to do).

However, I strongly believe that - should one choose to do so - you should not be stopped from jailbreaking, cracking, etc. manufacturer restrictions on the hardware you own. Companies aren't obligated to support me doing this - but why should legislation stop me if I want to try? (You can easily guess my thoughts on the DMCA.)

I want my less tech savvy family members to be able to buy locked-to-the-company-store hardware, that they can’t run other things on, as it protects them from one avenue of scams and hacks. This protection can and will be worked around if it can be easily disabled.

Fully open phone systems consistently fail to sell enough to make a difference, which is a bit of a shame, but honestly at this point the market has spoken.

Perhaps we should stop viewing iOS/Android devices as true general-purpose computing devices. They are merely gadgets, like Walkmans, portable CD players, game consoles, blood pressure meters, car infotainment systems, etc. They contain CPUs with enough power and RAM to act as general-purpose computers, but Apple and Google did not design them for that purpose. However, Windows and macOS were designed as operating systems for general-purpose personal computers, and restrictions on the software you can run are also happening there. To me, this is more worrisome than the openness of mobile OSs.

In my country two groups most hated by educated, civilized and self-labeled liberal people are miners and farmers. There are good reasons to not like them, especially miners (they have lot of privilege and cost a lot of money, whereas our (coal) mining industry is useless), but I came to the conclusion that the actual reason behind the hate is the fact that those two groups are able to force government to do their will, even though they are a small minority in the overall population. They achieve this by blocking streets, burning tires and causing overall mayhem, and are very consistent about it. At the same time those educated, civilized and liberal people can helplessly complain between each other, and maybe write some hateful article in the newspaper.

Forgive me this seemingly unrelated introduction, but when I read such threads I don't have much hope something will change, for similar reasons. People that care about computer user's freedom and agency will write blog posts and create hundreds of comments about how things should look like, how government and corporations want to enslave them etc. And then do nothing to give those adversaries even a smallest inconvenience. Some will create a new "privacy-oriented" and "freedom-focused" project on GitHub, naively thinking it will solve problem that is not technical at all.

Those without power always become victims. If it is all bark but no bite, no one is going to back down.

It's a matter of ownership vs. licensing. You own the hardware you buy, but you license the software. I agree with the author that as long as you use that software, you should be subject to the constraints of the license.

The key is that if you choose not to run that software, your hardware should not be constrained. You own the hardware, it's a tangible thing that is your property.

Boils down to a consumer rights issue that I fall on the same side of as the author.

I think fighting for the ability to write a custom OS for a phone misses the point.

It should be possible to participate in the modern economy using standard technology.

To this end, I think there should be a mandate that all govt and commercial infrastructure apps offer a progressive web app with at least feature parity with proprietary phone apps.

Want me to use a phone to pay for lunch, EV charging, parking or a toll? Great. It needs to be doable with anything running firefox, safari or chrome.

The inevitable conclusion of this battle is an acknowledgment that you never really own an iPhone or android in the first place, and the companies stop selling the hardware at all. You’ll only be able to rent a device as part of your service plan.

If I cannot degoogle my phone or maintain my apps with F-Droid, I'd need to install the Huawei HarmonyOS. Technically superior and already usable. Plus I don't care what China spies on me because they won't share their data with my home country or neighbors.

As long as the hardware vendor and teleoperator are able to run arbitrary, closed-source code on baseband processors without the user even knowing that it’s happening, no mobile device is truly free (libre).

”In March 2014, makers of the free Android derivative Replicant announced they had found a backdoor in the baseband software of Samsung Galaxy phones that allows remote access to the user data stored on the phone.”

I didn't buy a box of transistors, I bought a "smart phone", a pocket sized computer.

The OS and hardware are parts of the whole.

So you're phrasing it wrong.

I should have the ability to run any code I want on my smart phone that I own.

And to my clear, I own my smart phone. You own your smart phone. Any EULA to the contrary should be null and void.

So many people paraphrasing Stallman and GPL, and so few realizing that without legal enforcement these problems will keep happening over and over again.

Yet there is more BSD and MIT code than ever.

Android is full of open source stuff. GPL3 would have prevented this. We've all been bamboozled and we are starting to realize it.

I wonder if any project will start switching license. Unlikely, but one can dream.

These phones are more powerful than my laptop used for engineering in college. And stop calling it side loading, it's installing software on a computer.

Installing software on a computer

This might be controversial but I'm not sure you should be able to install whatever you want on "hardware you own". Reason being (and I was trying hard to explore an "other side of the argument" and whether there was/is one) examples like Kindles, where I think originally Amazon had it as a loss leader to sell ebooks. I reckon they brought a great product into the market and established a new category (mass market ebooks and ebook readers) and if they want to restrict us from rooting it then so be it (they could not sell it at a loss if it was super easy to root and not even use it as a Kindle initially) as long as they're clear about the restrictions up-front. Thoughts? :)

We have always had the ability to make or run any application.

If we allow this, then we will never be able to make or run apps again.

Do your part in any way to stop this.

Talk about this with your family and make them aware.

Seems like >=2026 will be the year I'll start buying stuff again that has been replaced by mobile phones during all the years (Camera, Mp3Player, etc.) With this coming, buying a flagship mobile phone simply doesn't worth for me anymore. Currently i own a S24Ultra, my next mobile phone will probably be the cheapest Chinese crap I can get, just for the mobile things i "have" to use it.

This feels like an arbitrary level of abstraction for how much control a user should have. When you buy a phone, you're buying a combination of components designed and paired for that manufacturer's software. Can the user potentially replace that software? Sure, but should they be expected to?

If they just wanted hardware, they could buy their own and piece something together, if we're exploring those kinds of hypotheticals. But buying an Apple or Android device is a different choice and I think, within that context, a user should be able to run the software they want.

The author makes a good point but for the wrong reason I think. The fact that companies lock down their software, and hardware (looking at you Apple), is their choice just like it is yours to give them the finger.

However, at least in Sweden, a smart phone is practically mandatory since it has become a means of identification used by banks, police, our IRS counterpart etc. Even our physical mail is slowly being digitalised, and these services practically require you to own a smart phone. You can get by without one, but it’s a real struggle.

Therefore there should be laws requiring more transparency of these devices, in my opinion.

IBM didn't want their PCs and OS APIs to be open and for IBM compatible clones to exist either, they were just bad competitors. I think the relative user freedom we have on PCs is quite exceptional in the truest sense of the word.

I want there to be the same openness on devices too, don't get me wrong.

One of the biggest problems (if not the biggest) is that this desire is still a niche desire. If non-techie people would somehow be convinced that indeed hardware/software freedom is a basic right no matter the device we would be in a different position to pressure governments.

How can people be convinced about it is the hardest part. How do you convince people that have no idea about how technology and corporation interests work that the little device that you carry is bascially a brick at the mercy of its vendors?

Not defending Apple, but when they restrict sideloading it's because they made both the software and the hardware. They didn't exploit thousands of open source developers who basically worked for free making Android what it is right now, only to be hijacked by Google. I used to use Android but I did notice a huge decline around 2015, which was around the time when the Android creator left Google.

Or:

One (a big entity with enough resources) should take this as an opportunity and create a new, third truly open alternative to iOS and Android (no, I'm not talking about an AOSP fork, I'm saying something totally new) and let iOS/Android have their thing as they want, letting consumers decide between the three instead of forcing vendors into ridiculous business decisions like forcefully opening their own platforms for others.

I can't recall a post staying at the top this long. I hope this is a sign of how hard we're going to reject Google's stance.

I know it's not quite the point of the article, but just to push back on the phrase

> I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own

There's a few cases where this definitely seems wrong - you can own a radio transmitter but it's super illegal to broadcast in certain frequencies. So while you're "able" to in the sense that's in physically possible, you're not "able" to because it's illegal, and I think most people would want it that way.

In a similar way, it's illegal to modify your car or especially guns in certain ways. I could see a similar argument saying "I own this machine, I should be able to modify it mechanically however I want". Yes you own it, but as soon as you bring it in the world then you also need to account for how it's going to impact everyone else. You can't even manufacture certain hardware on your own without the right approval.

If it's "I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own if I accept the risks of doing so" then that seems more balanced, but also doesn't seem too desirable because you're adding more footguns into the world that average consumers wouldn't want to run into accidentally

Including cars, TVs, and home appliances -- those are the items I really want to hack.

Start with buying the right hardware. Fairphone offers more control over the hardware:

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/104924762388...

https://www.fairphone.com/

> If you want to play Playstation games on your PS5 you must suffer Sony’s restrictions, but if you want to convert your PS5 into an emulator running Linux that should be possible.

This is what Sony did with the PS3, but afaik Linux was then used as a backdoor to jailbreak the "PS3 OS" and sideload games.

I guess, this is why Sony abandoned the idea of allowing Linux on their consoles. Kind of sad, but understandable.

You don't own the hardware, it's now a license just like the software..... problem solved.

Easier said than done. The main reason companies don't allow it is sadly for security reasons, it's a cost/benefit.

If the government would enforce laws about computer security, tech companies would not have to restrict user freedom.

Obviously this situation benefits those tech companies, but honestly the solution is not as easy as it seems.

Of course it's a different story for the right to repair and DRM.

Capital doesn't want you to own anything, it wants you to rent everything. In the absence of any pressure to the contrary, it will continue to turn everything into a rental or a license. Because it's a feedback loop, the more capital accumulates, the more market (and political) power it exerts and the faster it accumulates.

I think a different perspective on this is required. This requires taking Google in good faith (for the arguments sake). The requirements are being rolled out first in countries with high amounts of scam apps. Let's assume it's causing a real issue for the people, which then is a bad look for Google because all these apps are hosted on their store. I could imagine in the future a country sueing Google for allowing these apps on the store. So due to image issues and potential future litigation, Google feels like it has to do something so they do this.

I think the real problem is that these countries are abdicating their duty to govern. Why are they not jailing these people running these scams? Or if they are in another country, using political and economic pressure on the other country to crack down?

I don't believe that Google's intentions are actually that great, but there is a real problem in these countries with scams and people's lives being harmed by them.

I worked on a product where we tried to keep it open for end users to modify what they wanted.

To be honest, it was way more of a problem than I ever imagined. The average user who tries to mod their system isn’t as proficient as you imagine they would be. As an engineer you imagine other engineers approaching the system as you would. In practice, it’s a lot of people with a lot of free time who copy and paste things into terminal sessions from forum posts and YouTube video comments. When it doesn’t work, they try to get your customer support team to fix it. They will deny, deny, deny when asked if they’ve modified the system because they want to trick support into debugging it anyway. When customer support refuses to handle their modified system, they try to RMA or return it for a refund in protest.

Over time, it drains you. You see the customer support request statistics and realize that a massive support burden could be avoided by locking it down. You see the RMA analysis and realize a lot of perfectly good devices are being returned with weird hacks applied. Every time you change an API or improve the system you have to deal with a vocal minority of angry modders who don’t want you to change anything, ever, because they expect the latest updates to work perfectly with all of their customer software.

It’s tiresome. I think the only way this works is if customers have to log in to a system and agree to surrender all customer support and warranty service for a device to enable the free-for-all mode for them. That doesn’t work, though, because warranty laws require that you service the device regardless unless you can prove it was the modification that caused the RMA, which is a model that works with vehicle service but not the $100 consumer hardware device.

So I get. I wish every device could be totally open, but doing that with normal customer service and support is a huge burden. The only place it really works is devices like Raspberry Pi where it’s sold as something where you’re on your own, not something where customer support agents have to deal with what the product was supposed to do before all of the different mods were applied.

I recently bought an iPhone (Pro Max, on a secondary number) to have one on-hand to better tutor and troubleshoot for my parents. I just had to provide an instance of that this weekend on a phone call.

My daily driver is a recent Pixel Pro. If Google takes away the already limited additional flexibility it provides me over an iPhone, I don't see the need to provide them my money nor my attention, going forward.

Actually, I've been thinking about carrying some sort of Linux device and relegating the phone to being a hot spot for it, plus traditional calls and texts (and "necessary" apps, I guess). I don't really want to schlep more around with me, but even less so do I want to be squeezed into the box of BigCo corporate approved activities.

Some things shouldn't be left to amateurs to repair. Just because you "own" the hardware doesn't mean you're equipped to fix it safely or securely. Modern devices are tightly integrated systems -- tinkering with them can make them less reliable, less secure, and sometimes outright dangerous. Manufacturers lock down certain layers not just out of greed, but because risk management protects both users and the people around those users.

If you agree with this article, do you also agree with these statements?

* "We should be able to repair our firearms with freely available full-auto conversions kits."

* "We should be able to repair our own cars, and add software like Volkswagen did to bypass EPA and state inspection testing."

* "We should be able to repair our own homes and offices, and ignore building codes and ADA guidelines."

> An iPhone without iOS is a very different product to what we understand an iPhone to be. Forcing Apple to change core tenets of iOS by legislative means would undermine what made the iPhone successful.

Rules for thee, not for me. Every typical Apple lover's argument.

For a technical user, being able to install any software you like means you have full control. But another perspective is that if someone else installs the wrong software (such as if a housemate installs spyware), your phone could betray you.

Security-conscious people might actually prefer to own hardware-limited devices. An example of this is having a camera with a physical shutter, or a light that shows camera activity that can't be disabled by software.

Similarly, some people might prefer to own devices that don't allow side-loading at all, since it disables a potential vulnerability. Maybe it would be best if Google allowed this to be a configurable option when buying an Android phone. (I suppose they could buy an iPhone, though.)

The question is: What's ownership? How do I ascertain that I own a device and not, say, the guy who just robbed it from me at knifepoint?

From a government perspective, I think the issue is anonymity. In the long run, governments cannot accept ownership of a thing without being able to attribute usage of that thing. From that perspective, as much as you cannot anonymously own a warehouse, you cannot anonymously own a programmable radio device.

From the corporate perspective, it's even worse: They cannot accept you using a device freely if they license you software or data. They would probably be fine if you could prove to them that you were not violating the terms (or vice versa, they could prove when you did), but that probably has a massive impact on privacy.

The only way this happens is if people & organizations vote with their $$.

My immediate follow-up to people who take this position: Are you using Framework laptops, pinephone or other OSS devices already? If not, then it's just empty air -- vote with your $$.

Where do you draw the boundary between code and hardware? System code has become more like a firmware. Vendor sees it as device, not as code + hardware. It's like a TV or a cassette player. There is no code. You can bring your content and "play" it. Any additional ability that you build on your own (you want the cassette player to play DVDs?), would void the warranty. But you can buy a DVD module from the vendor that is made to fit into your cassette player.

In reality, what you are expecting is, to be able to use your common tools to modify the device. But the vendor uses some weirdly shaped screws for which you don't have tools to work with. That is the real complaint.

I know I'm going to get downvoted to hell for this, but I genuinely think it's OK for a device manufacturer to say: "we are building this device to run this software. If you don't want to run this software, then don't buy this device. There are plenty of other devices out there that will run other software, you can buy one of those if you want to run other software - our devices are designed to only run our software, and we're only going to support that".

I think that's a huge difference from the sideloading issue, though. Which is effectively saying "you must purchase all your software for this device from us, even if it's not our software, and even if it's available elsewhere for less".

I get how one statement creates the monopoly that allows the other statement, but I think they are still two separate statements.

Absolutely must have the right to run any software on hardware we own. It should be mandated for hardware built by large companies, who are soaking up the capital and labor that’s available. It’s sensible regulation.

So a broader philosophical take,

Before the middle ages, you'd make your own product. That turned into local production, mass productio, but still devices could be desicected and analyzed how they worked. A car from the 60's as an example.

So for the most part of our society, reverse engineering was possible. It is only the last decades with closed source software that the opposite is occuring. But did 'we' ever made this a consious decision? Or our we sucker punched by progress

Personally, I'm not demanding to enable tinkering on everything if that's raising prices, it could be as simple as having some "This unit is serviceable" label, I'd let people to value it and manufacturers to follow it.

TBH, I think most people wouldn't care, specially in USA, it is way easier and cheaper to replace than to repair, workmanship is really expensive here.

But If a manufacturer shuts down a Cloud service that bricks my device they should open the interfaces and protocols to make them functional.

This ist what the four essential freedoms are all about.

The hardware aspect is quite irrelevant to the whole point: the hardware only runs with software that does not respect your freedom and there's no feasible way to make the hardware run software that does respect our freedom. And of course our banks and streaming services and whatever else we need also don't offer us any software that respect our freedoms. So no, it's not about hardware, it's about free software. Always has been.

"We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own"

When it comes to my views, this relates to a recent Nintendo Switch 2 post.

At the end of the day, it is up to the purchaser to know if the product they are buying is going to do what they want. If it doesn't... ie do not provide the freedom they want with the hardware (or even software) then you are also free to reject it.

However - we don't normally know what the restrictions are until we get home, generally speaking. The rules in place are not under public scrutiny. It is typical complaining when you reach a certain point. We moan but we try to continue best we can. If we can find a workaround, we will.

Focusing on the Switch 2 (again) who knew about the restrictions until they had purchased it? It is an assumption that whatever Nintendo has done with their previous console (and older ones) would continue the same ruleset. As we all know -- atleast now -- rules change.

Moving away from Nintendo, we also have Google, or Apple... or Microsoft. It is not to any surprise (atleast from me) that these companies will do whatever to claim control. Little by little, a right or freedom is taken away. The older generations are likely to cry the loudest and the cycle repeats itself.

I guess a lot of this boils down to convenience vs freedom.

It is convenient to have a feature easy to use on.. say.. an Android, that starts to make things harder when you stop... or those that never participated but slowly forced to use or go in that direction --- because everyone else is.

As I mentioned in a recent comment -- I am always reminded of Windows 95. The End User License Agreement. It basically reads similar to "You have the rights to use the software" -- You do not own it.

> building new operating systems to run on mobile hardware is impossible, or at least much harder than it should be.

Why isn't there a linux flavor for phones with an app store?

I think there are two issues, that maybe we should point out to help the debate:

- As a user sometimes I want to sideload legitimate applications (the question now is why can't these apps get approved on the appstore?)

- As a user sometimes I want to be able to use different devices from different vendors, I don't want to be forced to stay on Apple because airdrop or the keychain or login with Apple or my airpods pro don't work on Android anymore.

I'm two days into switching my Pixel 6 from Android to GrapheneOS. No issues so far. I haven't set up my banking app, but it's supposed to be supported.

I don't think government should be involved here, but what they can do is (a) always provide alternatives where interacting with government doesn't require a smartphone or apps, and (b) mandate the same for regulated or essential industries like banks and airlines etc.

I'm not convinced there is some inalienable right to load an OS onto any hardware but said hardware/OS should never be on the critical path to anything a citizen needs to do.

> It should be possible to run Android on an iPhone and manufacturers should be required by law to provide enough technical support and documentation to make the development of new operating systems possible.

Why?

The author doesn't explain why and I've yet to see any justification for this other than, essentially, "because I want to" - usually evoking supposed freedoms and rights that exist only in the realm of wishful thinking.

Once we have a decentralized trust protocol that has been widely adopted, it will hopefully solve most of these problems. As it stands right now, we can validate control, but not actual ownership. As such, ownership has to be proven via KYC and other centralized methods that rest on state authority. Not a good solution for those who care about privacy and individual freedom!

> When Google restricts your ability to install certain applications they aren’t constraining what you can do with the hardware you own, they are constraining what you can do using the software they provide with said hardware.

No. Incorrect. Because the argument that we should be focusing on software is a distraction. They use restricting the OS as an argument to restrict the Hardware. Their is pressure put on on hardware devs to toe this line.

You can see this with secure enclaves. If they didn't care about what software was running on their hardware, they wouldn't be designing hardware to restrict the kind of OS you can run on the hardware. Secure Boot/UEFI is going in that direction and Mobile devices are already there to some extent.

This whole argument is a distraction designed to lure people away from the real problem. That all technology (Hardware and Software) is being designed to restrict freedoms. If you are focus on this distraction, you are missing the point.

The situation we have is fine. You can make hardware with features these people want, or you can make hardware with features those people want.

Why not launch a new startup focused on building an open smartphone? This is HN after all, with the right pitch someone will throw money at it.

I don't really agree with this take.

I do think that it should be easier for people to build and install alternative OSes on their phones.

However, building your own mobile OS is just really hard. And on top of the technical challenges, the UX challenges, the overall polish challenges, there are non-technical challenges that are often impossible for alternative OSes.

* Industry connections problems. As an example, no open source mobile OS has a contactless payments app, at least not one that is generic and can support more or less any credit card out there. That is, you can't build an Apple/Google Wallet analogue and have it work.

* As much as I wish Jobs had stuck to his guns on the "no iPhone SDK" thing, and had instead developed and improved the mobile web stack, that's not the reality today. There are many things you just cannot do current mobile OSes through its web browser. Native apps are required there. And so that means companies need to choose the platforms they build for. Today that's easy: iOS and Android. But getting governments and banks and various companies to build apps for your niche mobile OS is going to be essentially impossible. And with closed-source kitchen-sink libraries like Google Play Services, it's incredibly difficult even to get a lot of Android apps running properly (and consistently reliably) on "de-Googled" Android phones.

Ultimately the real problem is that there's no capable, standardized, OS-agnostic platform for building mobile apps. The web platform could have been it, but it's not, and now Apple and Google have a vested interest in ensuring that it never can be, because building native iOS and Android apps locks people and companies into those ecosystems.

Ultimately^2 the real problem is that free markets are a myth, and don't work. Companies want to become monopolies, and want to bar new entrants. I would absolutely love some mandate/legislation/whatever that made it mandatory that we have a fully open source mobile OS, and that all the players involved need to be allowed to build equivalent functionality into it that Android and iOS have. I know that sounds radical and like government overreach (and current governments wouldn't go for it anyway). But the alternative is what we have today: monopolists that don't care about the rights of their customers. There's really no "free-market" way out of this.

It has never been easier to realize your own open source hardware platform. Those dedicated to freedom can chose to offer alternatives. The challenge is we don't live in a post job society and people need to make money to survive. Until that changes, practical professionals will gravitate towards non-ideal systems that optimize for short term value over freedom.

In order to create a new type of right, we need a term that can be promoted. For exemple "The Right to Digital Autonomy".

Much harder to make a secure device that is resistant to getting pwn'd if you can run any code you want. I personally prefer my iPhone to be more secure than to be more open.

Buy a more open phone if you want one, but stop trying to use legal means to force the software on my phone to be worse for my use-case just because you want to have your cake and eat it too.

It is interesting, that when Apple, with small steps, slowly disallowed any kind of sideloading merely nobody took notice of it... and now Google is doing the same, and whole internet protest. Who knows, maybe fact that now there is no alternative for tech-savy, and people are angry now it is good thing in longer perspective for both platforms.

This reminds me of the early days of gaming consoles where modchips were a grey area. The iPhone jailbreaking exemption in DMCA was a rare win for user rights, but we've seen that precedent hasn't extended much beyond phones. The technical capability exists - it's purely policy/business decisions blocking it.

I would say also that if Google and Apple control what you can install, they are responsible for it if there is a problem.

The first step is legally mandated unlocking of bootloaders.

More and more phones are locking them down until exploits are found to unlock them.

The first thing that came to mind when I heard hardware we own was vehicles like a Rivian where they do run a lot of software. I can understand why they'd not want people to run software in order to avoid bad press. If someone writes something and things go wrong, it will look bad for the manufacturer, even if they're not at fault.

Where does this stop? Should i be able to run any code i want on my robot vacuum cleaner hardware? How about my washing machine?

I am not disagreeing with the wider point but for a policy suggestion “hardware” should be clearly defined.

tbh I don't even care about support, just give me the keys

but ultimately it doesn't matter, if the market could bear the additional cost a competitor could emerge... but they barely do anywhere

honestly at this point in life I think it would be easier to change society to be structured in a way to make the people running these companies want to give it to you

> It’s through this control of the operating system that Google is exerting control, not at the hardware layer.

True, but many phones use the hardware layer to prevent you from installing a different OS. It's all part of the same system designed to deny us real ownership of the computer we paid for.

18ish years after the 3rd version of the GNU General Public License, and tivoization is now the norm.

As for the new Android restrictions I assume my Galaxy S20 will be immune to them because it's not getting (major) updates anymore. I'll continue using it as long as I can to avoid this. Does anyone know the most recent Galaxy phone that will be safe from this? I want to get a backup.

You already have that ability, afaik there is nothing stopping you or your friends from loading and running whatever software you want except your own technical ability.

If you want the government to force other people to do the work to let you have your cake and eat it too, I can't support that.

Governments should be protecting consumers not companies. Every time that company tries to limit consumers in any way, government should step it and forbid it.

That's the whole benefit of having strong central government, that it can curb ambitions of smaller local tyrants.

For anyone saying otherwise:

There is ONLY ONE valid way to check trust - it is called keyring.

All linux distributions do use it.

Think on how you use SSL certificates on your browser, now remember that you can always import your own Certificate authority.

As simple as that. Unless you have nefarious purposes.

I think it's time we start revoking our agreements to these terms and conditions or altering them after the fact, taking non-self-destruction of the service providing firm as an explicit acceptance of the new user-defined terms.

We as tech enthusiasts killed a viable 3rd option. For all its warts Microsoft created a great mobile os, but we killed it. If we could convince them to bring it back to be the true alternative to the existing duopoly in might fix these issues.

Hardware vendors should be separate from software vendors, hardware vendors should not be allowed to provide an OS, there should be an ecosystem of OS vendors to choose from.

Anyone who doesn't agree with this is a collaborator and should be publicly shamed.

Why are folks so worried about this. If necessary we build a new generation of phones.

If sideloading goes, so does their OS.

Realistically there would be a non-zero cost to allowing this, tech support, or compliance issues, or even PR issues when somebody’s modified hardware does something bad. So few people actually care or want this, it doesn’t feel like a fight worth having as a unilateral mission.

This seems counter intuitive.

All nflix da should require is the interfaces outer needs.

Network stack CODECS CRYPTO stack (DRM)

The OS seems irrelevant.

I mean sure you worked be limited to whatever interface a browser could provide.

It's not as if certification of a certain operating system means anything other than the certificate.

Netflix used play4sure beck in my days at Apple, and literally t out was a tick box for them to assure the content owners they had DRM.

Nobody certified apple's netflix app for ATV back then, I know, Ben Lee and I wrote it...

We desperately need OS research, exokernels should be a thing by now, at least then the question becomes moot.

Windows, (alphabet)OS, Linux and BSD all provide operating systems that enable productive work but there's a lot of cruft

We need a Linux like OS for mobile devices!

These arguments always suggest that the hardware/software divide is rigid. A cell phone does not have a single OS, it has many.

But we can't. Not on PS5, not on Iphone..

> Forcing Apple to change core tenets of iOS by legislative means would undermine what made the iPhone successful.

Successful for whom? If you're talking about the commercial success of apple through lock down behaviour, sure. But there is *nothing* that would prevent them from providing the exact same experience while adding a toggle in settings "allow sideloading". You want the "crisp" experience that comes from apple's strict review process, just use the official app store.

Looking at android till now, it is still possible to offer a "certified" os that is flexible enough for you to use foss stores. The argument pretending that removing sideloading is customer centric are borderline fallacious. I don't think that playing on semantics between hardware and OS changes any of that

Relevant XKCD - https://xkcd.com/86/

there are plently of choices for hardware you can buy which freely allow any software you want to run.

no, however, bootloader muck be unlocked and software must be open sourced when device reaches EOL

Nope. The masses have voted with their wallets for the walled garden approach. Maybe if the Linux phone wasn't as terrible or worse than bottom contender Android devices the argument could stand. In an era where move fast and break things is business as usual, we've correctly chosen the devices that just work, even when we must sell our privacy to make it so. The days of IBM/PC compatible are ancient history.

alternatively, we should have the ability to run [doom] on hardware we own.

Truly logical thinking to me :D

I just want to wake one day and install desktop Linux on my iPad.

Right to repair and right to modify

Is this your human right?

You can’t run any code you want on the phone because of the radios.

You can. You can jailbreak your iPhone. I assume you can do so with Android. Problem solved.

Oh, you want to jailbreak it and use it as an authenticator? No. That doesn't seem like a reasonable requirement.

no, we must.

Run meant run ok and that meant support if it not running … should have the ability meant we can do it on our own … does it major any sense in general. No.

You can agree on anti-monopoly but to say we (who is we here) can do this without any resource consideration is not thinking but wishful thinking.

Open source is not wishful thinking but until the user pay …

Termux

My PS5 is lying around being useless for me now.

Cuda disagrees with you !

I agree with this take, but my view is that it is one step detached from the root cause. The right to property is fundamental and inalienable. A person who can't own things isn't free, they have no claim on liberty.

That said, service providers, corporations and the like should be allowed one remedy: They can refuse future services and business to anyone if that person violates whatever b.s. rule they came up with.

However, the government (any government) has no authority to police post-ownership activity in a manner that deprives the owner of their property rights. In other words, they can say "You can't own an AK-47" or "You can't generate sound over certain dB" , but they can't say "You can't shoot your AK-47 on your property, even if it pauses no risk of harm to others, but you can own it", and they can't say "You can't use your speaker at maximum volume" (they can police the sound you generate but not the usage of your property, if the speaker passes the legal threshold then the speaker isn't relevant, the sound generated is).

This also applies to free (not commercial) sharing of property (copyright laws are fundamentally invalid).

The problem is, I am talking logic and reason which doesn't translate well into real-world scenarios. In the real world, the guys with the biggest guns make up random rules and pretend it is just and valid.

The reason I'm stating all this, is in the hopes that I can convince anyone who reads this and maybe if enough of us agree, some day democracy might work and laws can change.

The government can prevent ownership of things. It cannot however pass laws that dicate you can come into possesion of things and by all reason it is your property, but as a matter of technicality it can't be considered property and is subject to arbitrary usage laws by the government or rules by third-parties.

That said (I promise, my last one!), access to network services is special. If someone made some software where to function it requires some network service, and they came up with random rules on the network service side, then that is also their right, since that service is on their property. The remedy people have for this is to avoid that service. And if that service is the only one of its kind and using it is required, then the government has a natural obligation to protect the public against monopolies.

I had a hole other post/thread that got negative feedback and some interesting discussion about Google, Android and their sideloading policies. If you glean anything from this post of mine, please let it be that I am advocating for solving of the root causes of these problems. It is all too easy to be reactionary and fall into these rage-baiting events. Solving root causes is never easy, but good solutions are often simple. If reasonable minds can have a healthy discourse to find these solutions then many problems are solved, instead of playing whack-a-mole forever.

Run doom on my Air conditioner?

Can't you with enough effort?

Ha-ha.

Android doesn't even let you access your files. It has famously blocked acess to the subfolders of /Android/data - every app has a subfolder there where it sfores files. And you can not visit these subfolders since Android 11.

A buggy app accumulates gigabytes (literaly, i am not exagregating) of temp files there, but i cant visit the folder to delete them.

Google explains that "it's for you safety".

I have to call it with the strong word "idiotic".

There are apps now where storing files in a shared, accessible folder is a payed option.

And in this world you want to own your hardware.

I like the idea of course, but such legislation would also be very disruptive, because it affects the entire supply chain. Every maker of any gadget, be it random white label android smartphone, set top box or smart home camera would have to negotiate with all their component suppliers to obtain full documentation instead of just driver and firmware blob. So would these suppliers with their suppliers. For mor niche components it seems plausible that no proper hardware spec exists and it’s instead through a combination of hardware descriptor languages, the driver code and good old tribal knowledge. Forcing Google and Apple to allow side loading on their OSs just requires them to flip a switch. I think there are also compelling reasons why smartphones are special. It’s a duopoly and most people have got to have one to properly participate in modern society.

the Android change doesn't impact your ability to plug in your own device and run your own code or someone else's code

the change impacts closed source software distributed without verification which is by definition unknown so the "want" is not possible - i.e. you can't know if you want to run it.

The editorializing of this article title changes the meaning, please restore it.

But to answer the claim, no, only software that you own or are allowed by the software owner to run, is obviously what should be allowed. And clearly illegal and harmful software should not be allowed at all. It's a no-brainer.

A gentle reminder to the readers here at HN that it doesn't have to be this way. Computer Security is a solved problem[1], and has been so since the 1980s[2]. It's my strong opinion that the only methods you've seen to this point[3-7] were deliberately chosen to be ones that don't work, and make things worse in the long run.

There's no reason we shouldn't be able to run what we want on our hardware, without having to trust anything other than the microkernel inside the operating systems.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_operating_sys...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppArmor

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_permissions

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module

We need web back!

That doesn’t benefit the corporations, so it’s communism.

apt Pkg install nmap

Sorry, but I was thinking that Apple was forced to allow side load? And now you're telling me that Good Guy Google is disallowing this? How this is legally possible?

We’ve got a solution to that.

What makes you think you can own hardware, you fascist capitalist pig dog!

If you share the post opinion, it means you believe there is value in an hardware that provides enough details in order to run any software we want on it. If that is the case, go build a company that builds such an hardware.

Going to be contrarian.

Why not build your own hardware and run your own software on it, instead of screaming at clouds of big tech.

There is Fairphone as an example so it is possible to build/buy hardware directly.

We need a law to have mandatory storage of precise and complete technical specification to be able to write drivers for hardware peripherals. With heavy fines if they are incomplete.

Programmers make the same Faustian bargain with all these "safe" languages.

No, please, don't let me touch memory! It's too dangerous. Give me a nice bubble wrapped playpen to "program" in.

Technically true, the worst kind of true.

The original phrase is good as is and much better than this nitpicking if we'd like to see actual movement on the issue.

“I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own”

> Forcing Apple to change core tenets of iOS by legislative means would undermine what made the iPhone successful.

Even if this is true… so what? Perhaps the App Store monopoly has helped make the iPhone successful, but that doesn't make it a good thing.

> If you want to play Playstation games on your PS5 you must suffer Sony’s restrictions, but if you want to convert your PS5 into an emulator running Linux that should be possible.

Why? What if Sony's restrictions are bad? Why are we ceding corporations the right to treat us however they want, so long as we're using their software?

You shouldn't have to flash a new OS onto your hardware in order for it to respect you as its user & owner. You shouldn't need to be tech-savvy, either. The happy path for the median user should be privacy and freedom.

Free/libre alternatives to consumer software are always going to be second-class, because respecting users is at odds with making money off them. If we people to be treated well by tech, it's not enough to provide an alternative ecosystem. We have to deny corporations the option to treat users badly in the first place.

No, says the man in Hollywood - those cycles belong to the MPAA

No, says the car manufacturers, those cycles belong to us

No, says the nerds in Redmond, your computer belongs to us

Interesting perspective but unfortunately with smartphones you'll have cellular carriers lock down their bootloaders because of bogus "security" reasons.

Hardware vendors are like creepy ex's that won't let go. You sold the device. Move on. It's not yours anymore.

It is depressing having a government that facilitates and support the mass rape of the populace. I thought the entire point was to lift people up

This is a relatively obvious universal sentiment with no suggestion as to how to make it happen.

isn't that google just make the android reach parity with iOS???

this is happening with apple ecosystem since forever and people fine with it, so what is the issue here???

oh I know, people mad because someone take what they been able used to

not because they cant sideload. you can (just need an developer account for that)