DEV Community

Discussion on: Why isn’t mainstream Linux available for mobile?

Collapse
 
akashkava profile image
Akash Kava

Its not only the dev environment that is missing, you can probably get many things on to it, but I really don't like Mobile companies using us as Guinea Pigs for their AI training, collecting huge information about us.

You can run node on Android, github.com/LiquidPlayer/LiquidCore

Collapse
 
mjgs profile image
Mark Smith

I wonder if governments will make it compulsory for data gatherers to explicitly disclose what data they are gathering.

All the data gathering could still happen on Linux. What makes you think it would be any better?

Thread Thread
 
akashkava profile image
Akash Kava

It will be open source, BSD or some strict license will be force everything to be open source. This will at least make it transparent.

Data gathering is not bad, if you have choice to move from one provider to another. Just like you can change your telephone network we should be able to use OS and different data company.

Thread Thread
 
mjgs profile image
Mark Smith

I’m a big fan of open source. In theory you are right that if the code is open then it’s transparent.

The reality though is that you need many years of experience and learning before you can even read the code, so it’s not much different from using a closed source OS initially.

In both cases though, whether closed or open, I think it would be useful to be able to see the data that is being transmitted.

Thread Thread
 
akashkava profile image
Akash Kava

I think it just lacks community support, once a movement starts it will happen. I just wonder why creator of Linux itself is quite on this one. May be he is done with his job and now it’s someone else’s turn to do it.

Thread Thread
 
mjgs profile image
Mark Smith • Edited

I guess he figured android is good enough.

I checked out the link you posted (thanks). It’s interesting but looks kind of weird, “a virtual NodeJS inside an app“, practically how would that even work?

Sounds quite far from a bash shell, which is all I would really need cause I could use vim, oh yeah I would need a web browser too :).

Thread Thread
 
akashkava profile image
Akash Kava

Yes, my problem is other countries will suffer innovation due to private terms of large tech organizations. What Linux allowed was innovation for smaller companies without paying TAX to old established companies.

I am more concerned with countries like India, where we don't have any choice but pay huge TAX to foreign tech giants. Somehow tech giant's policies are more powerful then regional laws. Govt does not have enough time to into details.

I was angry when Govt's own apps were treated as privacy policy violations to track locations of Covid patients and same thing can be done by Apple and Google as its their own platforms.

This is the reason I want a phone, where I or a local regional entity is in control.

Thread Thread
 
mjgs profile image
Mark Smith

I’m not sure what you mean by tax in this context, but the closed source products do cost money, so maybe that’s what you mean.

I’m not sure I would trust local government apps over large tech companies as far as tracking goes.

At least the big corporations have some sort of incentive to build privacy preserving apps, because it could damage brand reputation. It isn’t great but in some places it’s getting better.

For local governments I don’t think they care that much about their brand, they don’t really have a brand.