<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2011/3/4 Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bre@pagekite.net">bre@pagekite.net</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Matt Willsher <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:matt@monki.org.uk" target="_blank">matt@monki.org.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div></div><div>On 4 March 2011 20:09, Tracy Reed <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:treed@ultraviolet.org" target="_blank">treed@ultraviolet.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
On Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 10:53:13AM -0800, Tony Godshall spake thusly:<br>
<div>> both the above have a remote sysadmin.<br>
><br>
> named Apple and Google.<br>
<br>
</div>Only in the same sense that my Linux box has a remote sysadmin named CentOS or<br>
RedHat. Apple/Google never directly ssh into your phone. Although since you are<br>
running their code they can do whatever they want just like RedHat can<br>
theoretically do whatever they want with my servers.</blockquote><div><br></div></div></div><div>RedHat has no remote kill switch for your apps. Apple does for iOS, Google does for Android. </div></div></blockquote></div>
<div>
<br>At least in the Android case, replacing the Google firmware with something that lacks this backdoor is not terribly hard. Now, I'm not saying we should advocate everyone reflash their phones - but the devices themselves are quite capable and are being mass produced already. As such, they are a very interesting development platform.<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>My experience with other firmware is that they are unstable and buggy. Even the vendor firmware's aren't great. </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div>Cutting a deal with one of the manufacturers would be within the realm of possibility for an organization like the FreedomBox foundation.<br><br>A better argument against using phones as a basis for FreedomBox development is simply cost. Those big fancy touch screens are not cheap and for a server device that is probably wasted money (unless it doubles as a clock or picture frame or something). But prototyping on a phone and assuming that when mass produced the screen and battery will be replaced with a wall socket and charging circuit could be a completely sane strategy for this project.<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Does debian squeeze even install on this hardware? That is the basis of what we're doing here. We're not building on Android, or even using Android. </div><div><br></div>
<div>The argument against phones as development platform for a server is that they are not servers. They are designed to be phones, have all sorts of functionality we don't need or in some cases want (GPS in a server? No thanks!) </div>
<div><br></div><div>Why would we even want to prototype on a device that costs $$$$ when more appropriate devices are available for $$? </div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div>I'm not saying it *should* be, but I really think you are being overly negative here. And if we end up with something that *can* run on refurbished mobiles (cracked screens are a common failure mode), taking advantage of built-in bluetooth and 3G and wifi, then that's not a bad thing, now is it?<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>No, I'm being practical. Sure, phones are getting powerful, but they are just not there yet. Maybe in a year or two people will be wandering around with their main computing unit in their pocket and will dock it at home in their laptop profile device. Maybe it'd be able to do some serving. But it's nothing like a server. That future is significantly further off because, as the original mail on this thread pointed out, the software isn't any where near ready. </div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote"><div></div><div class="im"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div>For most people it goes via a proxy and there is little that can be done about that until there is a wifi mesh and then you've going to want either mobile IPv6, VPNs or dynamic DNS so the clients can find the 'server'. </div>
</div></blockquote></div><div><br>All of these problems apply to some degree to other in-the-home consumer devices as well.<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>So the users also need education as to what constitutes a trust worthy, competent ISP and they need to vote with their feet. If competent ISPs aren't an option then yes, Freedombox needs to sit on top of that and augment it. But for the next few years, or decade, or two, ISPs are still going to be the main access to the Internet for most users. If a user is quite happy to trust <insert name of crappy, untrustworthy telco here> then are they really all that interested in their freedoms anyway?</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>There are all sorts of ISPs out there and as I've argued on other threads, assuming that the FreedomBox will be a router with a routeable, unfiltered IP address will exclude a massive number of users (myself included). As the IPv4 crunch gets worse it may even exclude most people on the planet - if it doesn't already.<br>
</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I would hope that at least the early adopters would be interested in the concepts of freedom and decentralisation enough not to be stuck with the type of ISP I mention above. If they have no choice, Freedombox in it's early stages should provide techniques to help facilitate access but it can't be developing new projects or trying to shoe horn current, alpha quality mesh software onto the end users.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I think there needs to be a bit more realism on this project. There is some very good mesh software coming along. There are some very interesting distributed/shared what have you social network and storage products. But there are none, or few, that are any where near ready for consumer level production use.</div>
<div> I think the Sheeva plug platform is the sort of level we're aiming at now. It'll help his the $29 far quicker than using some ARMv9 based smartphone without a screen.</div><div><br></div><div> </div></div>