No problem 😊 thanks again for explaining.

I mean canonical the word, not company? name.

And ok, interesting to know that PostmarketOS might be what’s closest to that.

Very interesting and informative, thanks for explaining. My understanding was that UT just conveniently copied/reused some hardware interfacing components from Android, since Android uses a Linux kernel too and why reinvent the wheel, especially with the plethora of phone manufacturers available, which you really don’t want to do again. But I didn’t know about it using Android kernel, or needing an existing Android install, which sound indeed problematic.

I still think that it is important to standarize a canonical Linux core, or something like that, that can unify more development efforts, or if not needed, at least a marketing presence to raise funds. E.g politicians usually don’t understand a word of tech, and you’d need something like “The open source interoperable alternative to Android and iOS” to be appealing instead of coming with Alpine, Debian, etc. which will sound just geeky and fringe and it will be confusing which to fund and why, and subsequently none will get any substantial funding.

What’s the pitch here? Initial impression is that it makes the ecosystem fragmented, as now (along with Ubuntu Touch), people have at least 3 different projects to fund. There needs to be a core standard that unifies the efforts and funding.

They need funding. Some people, countries and unions have an increased interest in tech independence.

Then they’re not truly democratic, which is a problem on its own

But what about porn / general nsfw, that doesn’t need a subscription and currently anyone can sign up / just visit those.

Not saying that these are not possibilities, but the technology itself and mistrust of government are, at least partly, different things. This is definitely a complex topic, spanning a lot of topics.

Yes, and governments, at least democratic ones, represent the interests of their people, so at least on paper this is the correct way to structure things. Then you use the channels to government to ensure it’s regulated properly. If this is not possible or there’s no trust, there’s a larger problem.

Okay, it’s 2 topics then, the privacy, and basically adding a mandatory authorization layer to the internet derived from your real identity.

To some extent this already exists for movies or say to buy alcohol, getting a driving license etc. in the real world, where people often also have to verify their age. So here it could be asked on what exact basis the internet should work differently.

That sounds great. I don’t follow the topic closely (probably I should), so wasn’t aware of these developments. This should be brought up in all discussions about age verification, so everyone knows there are better options.

Some people will feel that it’s not ideal, as you still have to trust the government, opposed to full anonymity, but that is a bit of a separate problem.

So there should be a rebuttal demanding a privacy respecting age verification token, instead of just arguing against age verification, which technically does have a point. This way it’s disabled as excuse to sneak in the other things.

I mean a dedicated, government issued age verification token that doesn’t reveal any data to the third party other than you are allowed access age wise.

Personal ids can also be used by non-owners, not much different than this theoretic age verification token. But yeah, ideally it would have a security layer to sufficiently confirm ownership.

Why is there no privacy respecting solution for age verification? Like the government giving you some sort of token that says you’re over 18 and that’s it?

For those considering, always remember that you don’t have to „move“, but can simply use the platforms in parallel. It’s a good compromise if leaving the more active network feels too heavy.

The political problems driving the push for independence are fairly recent, so the current state is unlikely to be extrapolable.

There are devices using these operating systems that are also gaining popularity, like Jolla, Volla and Fair phone.

Time to popularize Linux phones. I read that the security model is lacking, but especially given that Android is Linux too, it shouldn’t be too difficult to catch up. The EU is also interested in tech independence, so that could be one of the sources of funding. And there are a few viable early projects, like Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish.