[HN Gopher] Swinging back to open standards ___________________________________________________________________ Swinging back to open standards Author : jrepinc Score : 70 points Date : 2022-11-17 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (puri.sm) (TXT) w3m dump (puri.sm) | focusgroup0 wrote: | Check out Urbit. It has a decentralized app store that anyone can | publish to. Write once, deploy to all users. | echelon wrote: | Doesn't help with Apple App Store and Google Play Store, which | is how the majority of American consumers conduct their | computing. | | Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as | desktop computing. | | Apple and Google argue their stance is for user privacy and | security, but they can still maintain a central catalog of | malware and remove bad apps by signature. Permissions flags and | controls can work without a store. Apps can be required to | report their provenance, which opens up means for manual or | automated review. | | Google technically allows apk downloads, but they're "scary" | and most users don't know how to perform them. This is as good | as disallowing open installs outright. | | Google and Apple won't ever do this unless the DOJ tells them | they must. | | I would argue that an antitrust action against these two app | stores is essential to remove an undue tax on innovation and to | strengthen the market for competition. It's not like money | cannot be made on devices and services and that neither company | doesn't already have the upper leg on these fronts as well. | intrasight wrote: | >Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as | desktop computing. | | It is the same: open your web browser. | | I really hope the government doesn't get involved. Because I | desire the reverse. Software companies should stop making | apps and just provide a better web experience. If consumers | stopped installing apps, then software vendors would invest | in open standards. | hinkley wrote: | > Deploying software to mobile devices should be the same as | desktop computing. | | When the orders of magnitude change, so too do the solutions. | | We already know how much trouble the general public has | experienced managing desktop computing. We even have app | stores for that now. Market penetration for phones is even | bigger, is a more uniform distribution by age group, and has | many fewer options for troubleshooting if something goes | wrong. | | Running homebrew on your phone is not the same as running it | on your PC (and I avoid doing even that, because I care about | configuration capture) | kitsunesoba wrote: | > Google technically allows apk downloads, but they're | "scary" and most users don't know how to perform them. | | No matter what happens, this will continue to be true for | some percentage of users because they've come to associate | downloading software from random sites with things like | malware and adware, and not without reason; while there are | perfectly legitimate software packages that can't be | distributed on the Play Store for one reason or another, by | far and away the most common reason for APKs not being on the | Play Store or users sideloading is because the app in | question is doing something shady or the user is pirating | apps from dubious sources that turn the apps in question into | trojans. | | Even in the desktop world there's some level of trepidation | with downloading from websites, particularly on Windows where | search results are littered with things like shady SEO- | optimized download sites, and that problem pre-dates all | modern app stores. | | The question is how to solve that. I don't think the answer | is to give up and say it's unsolvable and just has to be | lived with, especially since doing so isn't going to engender | support from those who cling to app stores for safety | purposes. | simonblack wrote: | If you're going to invest in the latest fad proprietary 'thing', | you have to be prepared to lose all your investment in that | 'thing'. | | Companies fail. All too often that proprietary 'thing' they had | becomes non-supported and you have to just throw away everything | you have connected with that 'thing' such as files written in | formats that nothing can access, or hardware that there are no | supplies for, etc, etc. | | When was the last time that you were able to buy a 16-hard- | sectored 8-inch floppy? When were you last able to access that | Wang-written word-processing file? Can you even buy a fresh | video-tape for a Betamax video recorder? | | If you stick to open hardware and open software formats, you can | still find them useful even decades after their makers have | turned to dust. | pphysch wrote: | I think the reason the pendulum swings back is more mundane: | reduced availability of capital. Companies that survive must "do | more with less" and will no longer be paying out the ear for a | SaaS that barely gets the job done. | | Most SaaS will go out of business. Dev cycles will shift | proportionally to working more on enterprise systems and the open | standards that support them. | hinkley wrote: | There's a derivative there with fashions too. When the gold | rush is on people line up to invent a wheel. After a while the | Trough of Disillusionment kicks in and you get either late | adopters or people who expect hazard pay for continuing to work | on things, so at the same time the money is drying up, the | money you do have begins to buy less and less, which is a | feedback loop. | | People are not wanting to roll their own cloud, or index their | own logs. They want to chew on other problems. | marcosdumay wrote: | So, our freedom of association was yet another thing that the | wash of free capital on the US was harming. Good to know. | jancsika wrote: | With regard to Purism the company: | | Folks should be wary about ordering from Purism until/unless | Purism shows clear signs in the future that it will give _timely_ | refunds to customers who do not want to continue waiting for the | Librem 5 device they ordered years ago. (For the purposes of this | post, let 's assign the value of _timely_ to be no more than 30 | business days from the original request for a refund.) | | Worse, Purism continually sets new deadlines which they continue | to fail to meet. | | As it stands, there are lots of reports of Purism telling the | customer that they may only receive a refund when Purism claims | that particular device is ready to ship to that customer. This is | against their original terms of service and AFAICT isn't legal in | the U.S. | | Many users have contacted their state's attorney general to | complain about this business practice. I'm confident I can simply | link to the purism subreddit and readers here will instantly find | relevant reports about the difficulty of receiving a refund: | | https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/ | | To be clear-- my complaint isn't about Purism not being able to | ship Librem 5 on time. My complaint is about their unethical | practice of withholding refunds from customers who clearly and | reasonably request one after patiently waiting to receive their | devices. | | In fact, a number of the complaints on that subreddit were posted | only after the customer claimed they had been emailing Purism for | _over a year_ to obtain a refund for the device they ordered but | never received. | | Edit: clarification with the word "timely" added, a definition of | "timely" provided, and a few other stray clarifications to be | maximally generous. | pessimizer wrote: | I fear this is another setup where you're not buying a product, | you're actually financing a company that is going to pay back | the loan with a product that they haven't built yet. | seba_dos1 wrote: | To add some context: the Librem 5 project started with a | crowdfunding campaign at the end of 2017. The initial | projected release date was early 2019, but the project caught | delays and eventually started shipping preorders in quantity | in late 2020 (early revisions started shipping to backers who | opted in for those at the turn of 2019/2020 already). At this | point, however, the world was well into component shortage, | which ended up severely impacting the production. Right now | the shipping queue is at the preorders from early 2019 (with | some thousands of phones already shipped) and is expected to | reach the present somewhere in the first half of 2023. The | product is certainly "built yet", it's just shipping slower | than anticipated and, in turn, still has a queue of preorders | from years ago to fulfill (I believe the most dense preorder | periods have been handled by now though). | | Disclosure: I work for Purism as a software dev. | monopoliessuck wrote: | Hey I remember that crowdfunding campaign! If the shipping | queue is at 2019, why is my refund for an order from 2017 | not processed? | | First you guys said it was because I had to wait until my | batch was going to ship. I waited. Now no who knows and no | one will talk to me beyond saying "maybe soon?" and | throwing their arms up. I'm a FOSS advocate and loved the | idea of the Librem and even the idea of paying more for an | ethical device, but this all leaves a very bad taste in my | mouth and I'm not alone. | | Any info would be appreciated. The email volleyball doesn't | ever yield any new information month to month to month... | seba_dos1 wrote: | I don't know much about how refunds are handled, sorry. | As far as I'm aware, the crowdfunder preorders were never | supposed to be refundable (as that kinda defeats the idea | of crowdfunded development); the refund policy in the | shop was meant to apply for regular sales of things that | were already available to buy there, which were just | laptops and accessories at that time. I know that some | refunds are being issued anyway, with the caveat that you | have to wait for your phone to be ready to ship | (otherwise the company would have to effectively cover | for your withdrawal, as the components and production are | already financed with that money). That's all I know. | abhorrence wrote: | It's sad though, since the laptop was such a refreshing | experience when I had one many years ago. | monopoliessuck wrote: | I ordered in October 2017. I gave up a few years ago and tried | to get a a refund. I'm in the "queue" for one, but it's just | been years and years of being screwed around with "reasons". I | send an email every month or two asking about it to no avail. | I'm apparently marked "priority", whatever the hell that means. | | I've lost all faith in purism as a company. | BackBlast wrote: | The web is, frankly, the most open and level information and | business playing field in the history of the earth. The ability | for Joe Random to start a business on that platform, run | compatible tools, and get in front of worldwide customers has | simply never been greater or easier. | | Yes, there are a lot of proprietary players today. Particularly | all mobile platforms, and some gatekeepers like search and | attention claiming groups in social media. But the web still | dominates as the primary platform, and it remains quite available | to everyone. | | We don't have to "swing back", it's already here in front of us. | We could utilize it better, and reject some of the platforms | holding us back. But that's up to each individual. | pessimizer wrote: | > The web is, frankly, the most open and level information and | business playing field in the history of the earth. | | What in the world does that have to do with open standards? | This is just Panglossian guilt-tripping about people who dare | suggest that something about the status quo be improved; Dr. | Pinker swooping in to berate us about this being the best of | all possible worlds. | | edit: anyway, why talk about how open the web is when we can | talk about how open x86 architecture is, or how available | textbooks about how electricity works are? How can you complain | about open standards when everyone has electricity piped to | their home that they can do anything they want with? The | fairest of farities, the most opportune of opportunities... | lambic wrote: | Until I can chat with all my friends regardless of which chat | app they happen to use, we need to swing back. | | Open internet standards aren't just about the web. | [deleted] | criddell wrote: | Does the solution to your problem have to be free (as in $0), | or are you willing to pay? Are any of your friends in | countries under sanction right now (like Iran or North | Korea)? | jjav wrote: | > Does the solution to your problem have to be free (as in | $0), or are you willing to pay? | | That's a different axis. | | Solutions need to be open (interoperable) standards. That | means I must have the ability to sit down and implement all | of it myself and it'll interoperate with everyone else. | | Whether you pay or not is separate consideration. If I | implement everything myself I pay nothing other than a lot | of my time. Alternatively I can pay someone else to | implement it for me, or buy a pre-built solution from any | number of vendors, or subscribe to a SaaS solution from | other vendors. | | The key is interoperability between all these. Like HTTP or | SMTP. | criddell wrote: | That exists - XMPP. | mdp2021 wrote: | > _Until I can chat with all... regardless of which chat app_ | | I should remind you that your application and their | application will share your messages but may have very | different privacy policies. | | (Some problems will persist and still require further | assessment and decision and possibly division.) | bamboozled wrote: | There should be no privacy concerns , there should be | encryption | mdp2021 wrote: | ? When your message is readable on the other side, on the | app which we are supposing has a "problematic" privacy | policy, it is unencrypted. Encryption is a matter in | transmission. The data acted upon (e.g. displayed) on the | other application has to be finally unencrypted, or | decrypted. | | Alice sends message "Hi" to Bob through app Alpha; it is | encrypted during transmission; Bob receives it on his app | named Beta - but Beta manages the message in fully | readable form, "'H'-'i'", and does what its coders want | with it. | lrvick wrote: | While it requires some work to setup, Matrix bridges to all | major messaging platforms now. | vkou wrote: | And I won't be satisfied until Emacs can run Windows 95 | binaries [1], but I'm not sure that it's either on Microsoft | or on Richard Stallman to make this happen. | | There is no shortage of open protocols that you can use to | communicate with all your friends. I don't see that you | should be able to compel application vendors, that all build | on top of open protocols into any interop they don't want. | | [1] Emacs is, after all, an operating system with ambitions | of being a text editor. | loudmax wrote: | > But that's up to each individual. | | I'm with you, but my friends and family are all on Instagram | and Discord, even if they're using the browser version of those | apps. There's a lot of interest in Mastadon since Musks' | Twitter antics. I hope it takes off, along with Matrix, but the | network effects are really powerful. | | It's nice to see all the development going into WebAssembly as | it promises independence from proprietary desktop OS's. It also | allows proprietary applications that are even more locked into | a vendor's subscription model than traditional desktop | software. So yeah, more web is great, but we can't assume that | the web and open standards are the same thing. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-17 23:00 UTC)