I don’t think there will ever be a FOSS OS for consumers that is the préfèred option.

There is too many moving targets to ever be “done” and chasing those customers is profitable and requires money. That’s the perfect domain of a business.

I’m ok with this too. As another comment mentioned, once upon a time you couldn’t unzip a file with outpaying. Now it’s standardized and free (as in freedom and beer). Let apple and google and Microsoft fight and spend money tweaking the gui just right and bundling in whatever crap they want. FOSS community will lag behind and pick up the tail freeing everyone not on the bleeding edge.

Imagine if things like unzipping wasn’t free in 2021? How much shittier phones and services would be. Hell even Niche projects like the oculus quest would be a mess without basic tools being ubiquitous.

Unlike some FOSS supporters, I’m ok with commercial interests in software. 2021 might not be free, but it’s still in the making - if 2020 is free, everyone can help build the best 2021 from a more level playing field when we can stand on the free shoulders of giants.

Ps: companies should donate more to open source software development and protection and maintenance.

At least the OSX kernel is open source and easy to port to, Saurik and the early jailbreakers got apt and all the CLI tools on the first gen iPhone.

>There's still no viable FOSS OS for mobile/tablets. Not that they don't exist, just that they don't have the featureset and development velocity of Android and iOS.

Tell me what I can't do with Android that linux can do, I can do the reverse of what I can do on Android that linux on mobile can't. Its there if you want it. All the new Android phones are getting mainline. Check out my thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373106

Sailfish has good Android emulation as well.

I know it's changed recently, but for quite awhile the answer to "what can I do on Android that Linux on mobile can't" was "make a phone call."

That class of product issue is why FOSS is different than the marketplace. It's often behind in creature comforts/UI/UX and lightyears beyond in technical capability. Because FOSS developers spend time on things they care about, not about what the market does.

I prefer when FOSS piggybacks onto larger projects. F-droid is amazing, I have all the comforts of real android and the nerdy stuff from FOSS and root addons. I get the best of both worlds, great hardware for the price, great support from a good UI, and great support from the ports of CLI and nerds who also like to have their android phones be real linux computers.

> There's still no viable FOSS OS for mobile/tablets.

I am using my Pinephone with Mobian/Phosh as a daily driver now. It's a bit rough but getting good enough quickly.