
Open source, privacy-enabled smartphone operating systems - prince707
https://e.foundation/
======
colemannugent
If anyone from this project is reading this: please just contribute to the
upstream projects your are building off of.

> _We build desirable, open source, privacy-enabled smartphone operating
> systems._

No, the LineageOS team builds them, then you rebrand them. If you want to
actually make a difference, contribute your changes directly to the LineageOS
trees. Device support is paramount for custom ROMs and LineageOS already has
an amazing amount of devices. All this will do is fragment the ecosystem.

> _default email client (forked from K9-mail)_

Please no. Just contribute to K9 directly. I get that you want to brand it to
fit with your whole scheme, but you have the ability to actually improve the
open source Android ecosystem.

> _application repository: an independent alternative place where you will be
> able to choose from thousands of applications, including all well-known
> applications_

FDroid. You're describing FDroid. Again, there is a good application out their
already, why would you make your own? Oh, it's so you can add " _an original
mechanism for users to score applications_ ". Why can't you add that to FDroid
and help everyone out?

My main criticism boils down to this: why reinvent the wheel?

~~~
Fnoord
> No, the LineageOS team builds them, then you rebrand them. If you want to
> actually make a difference, contribute your changes directly to the
> LineageOS trees. Device support is paramount for custom ROMs and LineageOS
> already has an amazing amount of devices. All this will do is fragment the
> ecosystem.

The privacy orientation of LineageOS only goes so far. Yes, you can opt for
Opengapps (that name...) or run your Android device without it but then you're
stuck with F-Droid. LineageOS does not include microG; if you want LOS+microG
you need that fork [1]

> Please no. Just contribute to K9 directly. I get that you want to brand it
> to fit with your whole scheme, but you have the ability to actually improve
> the open source Android ecosystem.

pEp is also a K-9 fork, with material design and opportunistic encryption.

Not that I disagree w/your points though. This unnecessary fragmentation of
forks is harmful. Librem 5 and Sailfish are two interesting ecosystems which
are unique though.

[1] [https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/)

[2] [https://www.pep.security/](https://www.pep.security/)

------
walterbell
This article has a good summary, [http://techpp.com/2018/06/28/eelo-profile-
google-free-androi...](http://techpp.com/2018/06/28/eelo-profile-google-free-
android/amp/)

 _" Duval’s team made use of LineageOS ... [which] doesn’t ship with any
Google apps ... To counter that, Eelo will come preloaded with a handful of
services you would need out of the box such as an email client, a productivity
suite for accessing documents, spreadsheets, a search engine that won’t track
its users, and more. The one application which is being a bottleneck for
Eelo’s potential success is navigation ...

Eelo will have a repository of both open-source as well as other Android apps.
To ensure users don’t install one of the latter and ruin the purpose of using
a privacy-focused operating system, each app in Eelo’s store will have a
security score. Through that users can be more informed about how well a
particular app treats personal data and based on that, decide whether they’d
want to install it."_

~~~
zeta0134
Navigation is really a bear... It's easily Google's killer product, and
extremely difficult for the open source community to replicate in any
meaningful sense just due to the difficulty in acquiring data; we lack the
necessary resources. I'm not sure how to solve that properly.

~~~
Tharkun
Navigation? Really? I don't drive, so maybe I'm somewhat atypical in that
sense, but on those rare occasions when I do use my phone to navigate, I find
Osmand(+) to be extremely useful.

~~~
roryisok
I drive but I never use navigation as the handful of times I have I've found
it distracting and it's led me astray a couple of times. I prefer to just look
at a map. Often that nap is on the phone, but I don't need it to tell me where
I am or where to go

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lovelearning
Why did this project choose such an unsearchable name and cripple its own
acceptability? Can't search for /e/, can't search for 'e', 'e os' refers to
some entirely different OS...

~~~
flatfilefan
/e/ is what happens when you let hackers do the branding.

~~~
dang
Please don't post duplicate comments to Hacker News. Those are signal-noise-
ratio disasters.

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pandasun
Site seems down, here's the archive:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180714103142/https://e.foundat...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180714103142/https://e.foundation/)

And a non-scroll hijack full page screenshot:
[https://my.mixtape.moe/nrdfgf.jpg](https://my.mixtape.moe/nrdfgf.jpg)

------
milankragujevic
Not trying to be a buzzkill, but how (from what I can see from the Google
cache), is this different than LineageOS without Google Apps? Or the recently
mentioned CopperheadOS which already has ROMs available and supports
commercially available devices..?
[https://copperhead.co/android/](https://copperhead.co/android/)

~~~
busterarm
Copperhead is dead. See recent drama.

~~~
A2017U1
For reference:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/copperheados](https://www.reddit.com/r/copperheados)

Purism is next in line.

I really hope they succeed but the track record for these things is amazingly
bad, the forces they are up against are not small.

~~~
cat199
> I really hope they succeed but the track record for these things is
> amazingly bad, the forces they are up against are not small.

\- Linux Fan, 1993

~~~
A2017U1
Quite a distinction between hardware and software development.

Apart from commercial competitors, I'd imagine a few natsec types would
probably try to rustle feathers, they certainly have past form in this field.

~~~
bitL
We need an open, PC-like phone standard? So far we have closed SoCs everywhere
that end up as landfill every 1-2 years without any other possible use. With
<5nm chips it should be trivial to have open SoCs in phone factors.

------
edbaskerville
At first I thought this was a too-subtle satire of other projects that failed
to get traction. But I guess this is an actual project with branding that
almost feels like satire?

~~~
Apocryphon
At least their mockup of a fantasy smartphone OS looks bright and attractive,
if highly derivative of iOS.

------
ryanx435
How do you pronounce /e/?

"Slashy-slash"?

~~~
ThinkingGuy
That's the first pronunciation that came to my mind.

------
iamleppert
First thoughts: the branding looks like it came out of a PC Magazine from
1995. Also I’m put off with the constant donation requests and all I’ve seen
thus far is a bad web site. Release something first, anything, then ask for
money and fire your graphics designer and whoever is doing ya’ll marketing.

------
yontherubicon
/e/, the phone for people who want to hide their ecchi, but let people know
that they're into 2d.

If you don't know, /e/ is 4chan's ecchi board. Ecchi is softcore japanese
cartoon porn.

------
ocdtrekkie
Clarification request: Is this really a new privacy-enabled operating system,
or is it yet another attempt to convert Android into a privacy-enabled
operating system?

------
jhoh
How is this better/different from
[https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/) ?

------
alexnewman
Many have tried and failed. I salute the attempt but I would take a bet
against it. I have tried to get access to high end radios that don't have
strange carrier modes and haven't found them. A usb modem goes a long way in
terms of isolating things but the new tricks are way smarter than the old.

~~~
walterbell
Could you recommend a known-good device, USB modem and OS version combo?

------
Tepix
So, here's a project that wants to 100% focus on privacy (according to their
crowdfunding campaign).

The first task they start with?

Write a new launcher, of course!

------
k_
I wish people stopped messing around with scroll.. This website is a pain to
navigate with javascript enabled and cannot be navigated at all with
javascript disabled (overflow hidden, need to hack css too to make it
bearable).

To see such poor UX on the website of someone developing an OS is a red flag
for me.

~~~
mahkoh
[https://www.linuxfoundation.org](https://www.linuxfoundation.org) is mostly
unusable with a touchpad on linux on chromium because they are using one of
those smooth scrolling scripts.

~~~
lucb1e
Works for me in Firefox with a touchpad. Scroll does not seem hijacked.

------
ekianjo
> Error establishing a database connection

That sums up the situation pretty well.

~~~
jasonkostempski
The penultimate privacy solution.

~~~
JshWright
What's the ultimate one...?

~~~
striking
Not running a site at all.

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kragniz
Currently displaying "Error establishing a database connection".

~~~
milankragujevic
Frome google cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fe.foundation%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fe.foundation%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.944j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

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m712
Even the database has given up on libre smartphones.

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jasonvorhe
> data slavery

Tab closed.

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flatfilefan
/e/ is what happens when you let hackers do the branding.

