Nice! And they will probably differentiate from the competition by allowing GPL applications and sideloading, and having a total control for your privacy and no tracking, right?
Right?
In the beginning? Sure. Later? Well, you know, security and all, think of the kids!
And the grannies!
Best we can do is exclusive Amazon deals related to what you just talked about with your spouse.
Check out these great special offers in GPL applications and sideloading!
Lol
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I wonder if it’s going to be as terrible as their Fire OS.
They want to harvest the data, without Google’s control, and give none to Google.
That can be easily done with AOSP, to my knowledge there’s no Google stuff in there. Which is exactly what they’re using right now
There still is some google stuff in there, like for example phoning google servers to check internet connectivity among other stuff.
Yes, but those minor traces are easy enough to remove, especially if you don’t care about being “ceritified” by Google (i.e. are not planning to run the Google services).
Right but the topic was about google’s data harvesting and what I meant was that you can’t just grab any AOSP distribution if you want to minimize that, you need to pick one that replaces the parts that send data to google. LineageOS for example still phones google for quite a number of services.
As far as “easy to remove” goes, I think that’s kind of debatable if you want to do it in a way that’s sustainable long term considering the effort that goes into e.g. GrapheneOS or DivestOS.
Edit: here is a list of the kind of stuff you need to watch out for if you want to minimize the data sent to google
Windows Phone: Electric Boogaloo
Apps are going to be written in React Native
So despite the desire for one, Vega won’t be an Android-killer, won’t bring an influx of big name apps to benefit regular Linux distros, nor see Amazon do something crazy cool like create its own Linux tablet UI.
You know how much overhead Electron apps are? Well, here’s React Native! Enjoy all the annoyances of mobile development with the ugliest that is React!
(I kid. Or am I?)
Apps are going to be written in React Native
Idk if I’m the only person who thinks this, but I feel like React has gotten worse over the last couple of major versions. Not only does the code look a lot messier when you use their new syntax, but the end result seems unreliable. Facebook is barely even usable now. Their history management is laughable, and it’ll drop you out of the site randomly when using the back buttons. I used to think React was really neat, but I’m not a big fan anymore. There’s too much re-engineering for problems that were solved decades ago.
hopefully they’ll design some package manager incompatible with android at the most basic level - and then double down when it’s proven to be a huge mistake. a good tick upwards for dev jobs, but the time for actual competition was over 10 years ago. this will fail miserably.
The author is exited but I’m not. I am not a big fan of corporations taking the free work of FOSS developers and turning it into a proprietary dystopia.
I think that having a strong public domain is good for everyone. For instance properties like Sherlock Holmes really took off once it was in the public domain and people could write spin-offs and whatnot without worry that a copyright lawyer would come along and sue them.
Linux is the same thing, Amazon using the kernel and stuff to build an OS on doesn’t take anything away from anyone else who uses Linux as a desktop or server environment, and in fact can lead to some good pass back, even if it is just that the devices are easier to root. Take a look at the Open-wrt project, where Linksys built their router on top of a Linux kernel and it led to a whole ecosystem of open routers. People went out of their way to buy a WRT-42G just with the intent of rooting it, and Linksys got their money either way.
If it were anyone other than Amazon or Apple.
Speaking of which, isn’t MacOS Linux based these days? How much have they contributed back? (Genuine question)
A quick search confirms that MacOS is based from proprietary BSD UNIX code. It is not compatible with Linux
It’s pretty annoying you replied to someone’s nice, well thought out comment with your own bullshit. Then speculated about something you could have googled in 7 seconds max.
I’m devastated they didn’t choose to pick up webOS for this.
Well, they don’t want a mobile Linux. This is going to be a minimalist, locked-down distro that does nothing more than start a webrenderer.
Nobody’s gonna see the underlying Linux system.
It’s kinda like how my car entertainment system is running Linux. You wouldn’t know it if you don’t read the license file that comes with it.
All I’m hearing is that we might be able to hack these devices and put full Linux on them.
All I’m hearing is a subscription to remove the adverts on the command line.
See, that’s the situation where we just don’t use them. I’m talking about wiping the original OS and putting something that’s really FOSS in its place.
Ugh I don’t know which is worse. Next timeline, portal gun.
Hahahaha cool, Linux with ads and tracking and all the spyware you could ever want.
So just like android ?
Minus the sandboxing and security improvements, apparently
A third competitor for Android and iOS would be amazing. But not if it’s Amazon…
OOnly if it is Libre Software. We are tired of proprietary rubbish
Android is already free software, and see how far that gets you. The kicker is that you’re tied into their services (with all the data harvesting, targeted advertising and monetisation that that involves).
I use GrapheneOS. Not all android is born equal
I just read an article about how they’re increasing advertising on their Fire TVs. Rest assured, an Amazon OS is an Advertising OS.
Although, from what I’ve gathered of public opinion online, there’s LOTS of people willing to forgo their privacy in exchange for free shit.
Edit: Oh…
They say they expect Vega to begin shipping on Fire TVs early next year.
And that article https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/after-luring-customers-with-low-prices-amazon-stuffs-fire-tvs-with-ads/
Amazon would sell your DNA for 25 cents if they could.
No difference to Google then
Google would sell it for 20 cents
Apple would sell for 10 but would deny until death that it sold, and still convince you to believe that it didn’t sell.In addition to giving it a “cool” name like DNA Titanium Protection XDR or something like that,
Oh so I won’t be able to sideload streaming APKs onto any new Amazon devices? Guess you can fucking keep your shit hardware then
But that would also mean you can sideload a whole another OS, maybe?
Locked boot loader says otherwise
oh great, yet another platform that will use free software to restrict what people can do with their computing devices 🤮
how is this supposed to be a good thing? 🙄
how is this supposed to be a good thing?
Well you see, it makes rich people more money.
For some reason I thought they had already made a nix OS
Fire OS