Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software? The former requires a radical shift in consumer behavior and will be unlikely to happen, the latter can be done in gradual steps with a much higher chance of success.
Think of it this way: if you manage to upset me, who is pretty much in favor of F/LOSS, imagine how many bridges you burned with those "on the other side"?
Where did I make this claim? I said that I use it as a daily driver. It's possible, though not for everyone yet.
> Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software?
It's the same goal. Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help much. There are more people using smartphones than computers. I also don't see how one is a "radical shift" while the other is "gradual steps". It's the same to me. People are going to switch to new type of smartphones slowly: first developers, then early adopters, then theirs friends and then the rest. Same for Free Software.
> HN audience is large and diverse enough to the point that it makes no sense to think as some homogeneous group of people who are interested in tinkering with their phones.
This is true, but these people are "hackers", i.e. interested in though-provoking things and intellectually curious. I don't expect that they would just buy a new phone with a new OS without doing any research and believing a random comment on HN.
Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability and no compromises on the freedom aspect. It's only now that you are backing off on the claim by adding the caveat that you can use it as a daily driver.
> Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help anyone.
AOSP is free-software. F-Droid only distributes free-software. So why did you feel the need to interject about
> I also don't see how one is a "radical shift" while the other is "gradual steps".
The amount of people that could be interested in using /e/OS with F-Droid is orders of magnitude higher than the amount of people interested in tinkering with "Pure FOSS, GNU/Linux".
"Google Android -> AOSP + closed apps + f-droid" is a much easier adoption curve than "Google Android -> GNU/Linux"
There is no phone in the world which can run AOSP without proprietary software, at least drivers. (Well, technically, Pinehone and Librem 5 could do it, but it's not ported yet.) F-Droid is great, but it's running on top of a proprietary OS. It's probably a step in the right direction, but you can't just say "AOSP is FLOSS".
> The amount of people that could be interested in using /e/OS with F-Droid is orders of magnitude higher than the amount of people interested in tinkering with "Pure FOSS, GNU/Linux".
Every single change in the society starts like this. I don't see anything wrong or unexpected here. It doesn't mean that one should not promote the change. To me it even proves my point, because more technical people will get interested first anyway.
> The original comment I responded to was complaining about how the Google/Apple duopoly leads to a "pick your poison" situation and the user hostility. My recommendation was to into Google-free Android distros that can be used and do not require big compromises in terms of usability.
In this way you are still supporting Google with your money, it's not the best solution to the problem. Yes, the compromises are smaller and I did not disagree with it. I just noted in my original comment that anything Google-related will inevitably become e-waste, even if you use "AOSP" on it.
> Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability
You are probably right, and I could add a disclaimer that GNU/Linux phones can't do everything yet and are less reliable. But I don't see how those things were implied.
That's why I had my quip about "FOSS purists". In practical terms, people using AOSP (and boo-hoo closed drivers) have a lot more options of free software in applications and all other aspects that matters to them.
> It doesn't mean that one should not promote the change.
We have a quarter of a century of "This is the year of Linux on the desktop", and any adoption that Linux ever got could never be attributed to an increase "technical people" interested in a "pure" alternative. Valve's working on Proton and making gaming on Linux a reality is doing more for FOSS than any "activist" ever will.
The problem of FOSS is not a lack of education or promotion. The problem is that its activists miss the forest for the trees. To illustrate, instead of taking my comment about an alternative that would be miles better than iOS/Google Android and adding to it, to make the message stronger, you decided to "educate" them, and now all it's left is the two of us on a debate that does not help the others in any way.
> In this way you are still supporting Google with your money.
No, I am not. A Google-free Android, is as useful to Google as a GNU/Linux system. Google will only make money if people continue to use its search and see their ads.
Note that we are not on Reddit but on HN. Is its audience ordinary people? My goal is to bring more technical people to GNU/Linux phones.