In the specified comment GrapheneOS explicitly stated that they have no opposition against non-free binaries and proprietary programs. Doesn’t Free software requires it to not host non free binaries? This is not even firmware
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It depends where you draw the line of what is GrapheneOS. Everything they do is free and open-source. If you build it for emulator or Waydroid, it would indeed be FOSS: no proprietary blobs in sight unless you count your host’s GPU firmware to taint the whole thing. The build scripts to dump your firmware blobs from your own device, building GrapheneOS, bunding it all back together, sign the build and flash it on your device, all open-source.
The only part where blobs are involved is the downloadable prebuilts which does include the blobs otherwise it wouldn’t boot at all. They’re not including blobs in their project. They’re including the blobs that are already on your device and also downloadable from Google. It’s not like they made their own proprietary blobs they hide the source for.
The GNU guys say that’s unacceptable as any proprietary software is unacceptable, therefore the whole thing is tainted and worthless. They think the same thing of coreboot/libreboot.
In my opinion, GrepheneOS is fine. It’s the best that can be done, and their project in itself is FOSS, even if running it on actual hardware requires a few blobs to be added, and it allows users to opt-in to installing a sandboxed Google package. The same I call Linux FOSS even if it can upload a firmware to my GPU so amdgpu works. At least the entire loading of the firmware is in my control, and I can verify that the blob being uploaded is the one I expect, even if the blob is proprietary.
Nothing that you replace with GrapheneOS is proprietary. The blobs are a no-op. Running sandboxed proprietary code is better. It’s a net positive and reclaims some of your freedoms by being able to control and monitor the sandbox.
But what about endorsing play store when alternatives are available? Yes it’s sandboxes but then also other more open solutions exists
Is it really endorsement to offer the user upon initial setup to install it, along with fdroid?
I’d say that’s just general compatibility, most users have at least one play store app they can’t just stop using, in my case that would be the banking apps I need to be able to pay online.
They are actually against Fdroid and endorse only play store. ONLY play store is available in their official appstore.
Is that a recent change? I somewhat distinctly remember being offered Fdroid during the initial setup as well.
I’ve been using GrapheneOS for about a year and I’ve never seen F-Droid bundled in their installer or app store. They’ve been vocally against F-Droid for quite some time. Other more FOSS focused projects bundle F-Droid.
I don’t think it’s about FOSS-ness as to why they don’t like F-Droid, but security and privacy. They don’t want to give up signing keys and compilation duties to F-Droid, and I don’t blame them. Even with reproducible builds, almost nobody is publicly verifying projects that claim to have them (Signal anyone?).
GNU does not dictate what is counted as free meow :/
in my opinion it can still be counted as free if it plays nicely with nonfree stuff. the whole Free thibg shouldnt dictate that free software is wholly hostile to nonfree softwarez
No, the FSF does define what free (as in freedom) software is. There are different licenses for linking (not running) against non free stuff. But being able to run proprietary programs doesn’t make something not free. Even on GNU certified free distros, one can run proprietary software. It just doesn’t come with it by default.
There’s also a looser (imo) definition of open source software which doesn’t maintained all four freedoms.
i suppose if ur a language perscriptivist it does, but like… idm free OSes coming with nonfree drivers. theyr doing the best they can in a hostile environment
You can install and run non-free applications (like games or the nvidia driver) on Linux distributions. Does that make Linux non-free?
But play store is the only blob that is directly endorsed by devs
Please explain why you think they’re endorsing it.
Not the OP, but there was a time about a year ago (can’t remember if it was pre- or post- Daniel leaving the team lead role) where graphene was very vocal about how they felt that the Google play store security model was superior to that of F-Droid and Aurora. They poured massive amounts of development in to making it possible to use the play store directly in the OS through the sandboxed plag services. They expressed very clearly that they felt the only safe places to get apps was either directly from the developer or through the play store.
Graphene hasn’t been as vocal about this kind of stuff since Daniel stepped out of the limelight, and I did a quick search for the old twitter posts that covered the topic but couldn’t connect to them on twitter. That could just be because I don’t have a Twitter account and Elon is jacking up Twitter access these days.
Because their official appstore has Google play store but not any other FOSS alternatives…
F-droid exists as an alternative. Manually installing APK files is also an alternative. You can have a full and complete experience without ever touching Google Play or Google services.
This is why nobody likes stallmanites. You can nitpick as much as you want with that attitude and find something non-free somewhere in the ecosystem, but that does not mean that the entire project is now non-free. Again, you are arguing in bad faith against the first guaranteed freedom of free software.
I don’t think it is possible to run android without any binary blobs from vendors or other. They try to limit it as much as possible, while still remaining practical and offer compatibility.
Firmware I get. But they also endorse play store too
Yea the firmware always remains proprietary.
Open hardware has open source firmware.
We don’t have all that much of it yet, but it exists.
Yes but were talking about GrapheneOS here and afaik it only supports Google Pixel phones that have proprietary hardware and firmware.
Yeah. Good point.
What we have for open hardware and firmware, on phones, in particular, is very slim pickings.
Ive installed nvidea drivers on many linux distros.
Read the GNU definition of it:
The first part of it correctly explains that the only non-FOSS parts are firmware. The rest of it is unfortunately bullshit, because it claims that because GrapheneOS includes an optional method for installing Google services it’s not degoogled. This makes absolutely no sense, by default there are no Google apps/services at all present on GrapheneOS and it never connects to Google servers. But yes, except for some required firmware GrapheneOS is fully FOSS.
What else are you going to use, Replicant? Let us know how that goes. Pick your battles.
I was saying wouldn’t endorsing play store as an approved appstore is bad? Especially there are FOSS alternatives
Yes but if that’s disabled by default and it warns that’s anti-libre malware, Arch Linux does that and gets people off Windows, so who gives a fuck.
Well they couldv’e given the FOSS alternatives along with the play apps, now only play apps can be installed from the official appstore
Put that in the title if you want comments on topic.
The article that user links is referring to GrapheneOS (and other OSS software) as not being “free software” - and they (GNU) delves into it more here.
Basically, GNU is saying software shouldn’t claim to be free and open source if they contain non free binaries / other non-free blobs.
The nuances between FOSS and OSS can be confusing. GrapheneOS is not claiming to be FOSS.
