No previous phones provided real convergence (not just connecting the external s...

pjmlp · on Nov 18, 2020

My point was "They can do everything a computer can do".

fsflover · on Nov 18, 2020

This is not everything though if you cannot use desktop apps, connect keyboard/mouse/screen and install any OS.

pjmlp · on Nov 18, 2020

Just use Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and cast to the screen, done.

Windowed Android apps running on full screen are desktop apps.

As for install any OS, then I guess Apple platforms aren't computers.

fsflover · on Nov 18, 2020

Android apps on a big screen are not desktop apps [0]. Can you run desktop Firefox with all plugins there? Can you run native GNU/Linux applications in a terminal? Can you use the latest Linux kernel?

[0] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

> As for install any OS, then I guess Apple platforms aren't computers.

They are not general-purpose computers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24866279.

pjmlp · on Nov 18, 2020

They look like desktop apps to me.

I am running windowed applications on a desktop, apparently Oxford dictionary needs an update to satisfy your world vision.

I guess all those 8 and 16 bit computers I worked with weren't general purpose either.

fsflover · on Nov 18, 2020

> I guess all those 8 and 16 bit computers I worked with weren't general purpose either.

It's absolutely not what I mean by general purpose. Please read the reference.

pjmlp · on Nov 18, 2020

I have read it, and again I was already coding in the age of 8 and 16 bit computing, with their OSes built-in into ROM, no issues with them.

I also only cared for Linux because Microsoft wasn't serious about POSIX support back in the day and it was a solution for my problem to avoid commuting for an hour to access a DG/UX system.

fsflover · on Nov 19, 2020

If you computer places artificial restrictions on what you can do with it, then it's company participates in the war against the general-purpose computing.

If it's a technical limitation, it's a totally different thing.

I'm sorry that you do not care about the freedom of users. Users who do not know about all these things suffer from unlimited power of developers [0] and cannot do anything to escape various walled gardens and traps of proprietary systems [1].

[0] https://www.gnu.org/important

[1] https://stallman.org/apple.html. Even if the wording there is not perfect, what is listed there is facts.

pjmlp · on Nov 19, 2020

There is a time and age for flower power, rainbows and cheerful music, and I am long past that.

Do you want to do something proper? Start by not using any software with MIT, BSD or any kid of similar licenses then.

Do the walk that follows the talk.

fsflover · on Nov 19, 2020

Staying away from the proprietary software is already hard in practice (I'm trying hard, works in 95% cases). Not sure if staying away from those licenses will help more.