Alcun Atirutan BBS

I wonder if I could drum-up enough support for a privacy respecting mobile device/phone that I could write an O/S for the #pinephone that would make it an option for a lot more people?

Not to knock the software that is out there, it’s awesome and an incredible accomplishment! But what I have in mind is a significant departure from the way contemporary phones work and for a different and perhaps broader audience.

I’m thinking something whose foundation is something like #Veilid so all features and applications built on top of that not only inherit the security and privacy of the #VeilidNetwork but cannot really be built without it. The idea is to make security and privacy as transparent to the user and the developer as things like TCP/IP are today on other devices.

Not only does this eliminate a huge swath of hard-to-solve problems with historical Internet architecture, but it also opens the door for more user-generated functionality as it allows these devices to become more than just consumers of the network. It’s not hard to imagine how many of the most common uses for mobile devices (posting stuff on social networks, sharing photos, etc.) could be done seamlessly integrated into the operating system when the device itself can serve the content without the complexity of DNS, NAT, etc.

I also want to give the power currently reserved for programmers to the user. An O/S that is designed from the start to be more easily “programmable” as to make it not feel like programming at all. This is an area I’ve worked in most of my life and while the penultimate form for my work is self-hosted virtual reality, a mobile O/S that makes it easy for everyone to author their own software if they want to is a great step toward that larger goal.

Damn, I’m getting myself excited just by talking about this 😇

The only way I know to do this without risking corruption is to fund it via Patreon or some similar ongoing crowdfunded mechanism. The reason is that venture capital is out because in my experience they always interfere and their interests will conflict with the goals of the project. Partnering with existing industry has similar problems and a one-shot crowdfunding campaign can’t provide the ongoing support needed for a project that involves discovery and invention and as such an open-ended timeline. All that said perhaps there’s other ways to pay for it that I’m overlooking.

The frustrating part is that I have a lot of the skills needed to pull this off, and most of it is made from things I’ve been working-on for most of my life, I would need help, but not as much as I would if I was assembling a team of specialists that didn’t include myself. The paradox is that I can’t afford to work cheap, so in order for me to work on this is have to come up with more funding than most companies or organizations who are working on other free and open projects (or at least more than what the projects who I’ve approached have been able to offer).

But maybe it’s possible. Maybe the enshitification ( @pluralistic would say) of the mainstream devices and services has become so extreme that there are enough people out there looking for an alternative that they would be willing to chip-in a few bucks a month to gamble on something better in the future. Maybe there are enough of them that a few bucks a month each is all it would take. Maybe because I think this is cool and good I assume that being able to work on it is too good to be true.

Now this is starting to sound like a pitch; I apologize for that.

There was an old theory that if you had 1000 true fans you could make a living as an artist. Maybe that’s a good place to start. I’ll find some suitable way for people who share my passion for this idea to support it on an ongoing basis and if I can find at least 1000 of them I’ll consider the whole thing real enough to pursue doing it full-time seriously.

Related: what alternatives are there to Patreon?

@requiem

It's an interesting idea, and I guess it boils down to how many "lots more people" is.

Would it run the apps that most people want? If not, I suspect you'd have a very tough time convincing those people to move to it.

If it is running on a PinePhone, you'll likely lose people who value a decent camera.

And I wonder how many of those who might be within your target audience are content with something like GrapheneOS.

@neil the devil is in the details eh? 😁. Since any number is fairly arbitrary at this point I’m shooting for 1000. If I can find they many people excited enough to gamble on the idea then I can throw some of my own skin in the game 😇

What I have in mind is definitely an adventure and would probably appeal to those of a more adventurous nature, but a key difference (vs. most folks hacking on pinephone now) is that it wouldn’t require the technical/linux skills needed by most of the current pinephone options.

Still might not for everyone, but also not as limited to technical audiences.

@enot @requiem @neil

I’d back it and boost the signal.

@thegibson @enot thank-you for your pledge! 😀

Sounds like I should get that Patreon setup...

@neil