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1vuio0pswjnm7 2 days ago

"Why is it so complex to have a foss mobile OS."

What does "foss mobile OS" mean

(a) installed on a portable form factor,

(b) integrates with a cellular modem. or

(c) all of the above

For discussion purposes, assume "portable" means pocket-sized and battery-powered

When the RPi first came out I remember a blog where someone had rigged up a makeshift battery making RPi portable. At the time, HN commenters seemed impressed. Today, I connect a "phone" to an RPi running NetBSD^1 and use the phone as a battery

1. Linux provides wider assortment of drivers NB. I'm not using NetBSD to make phone calls

Today there are

non-portable VoIP phones with PoE, and

portable cellular modems running OpenWRT

Tomorrow, who knows

Convenience and control are mutually exclusive; this seems unlikely to change. Choosing the later over the former is personal preference. Every user is different

Trying to control a "phone" might be a waste of time, an exercise in futility, especially when it is running a corporate OS. Whereas controlling a gateway running an OS of the user's choice might prove to be relatively easy. Phones provide convenience, not control