Why is the PPP still $400 and no stable OS?

[KNERD]

Why is it Braxman is able to sell a similar, and better phone with a stable Linux and Android OS for only $300 at a profit, but Pine64 with their "but we're a non-profit!" cannot?


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/brax3...artphone#/

[KC9UDX]

For profit generally means doing whatever it takes to be more profitable. They typically produce in higher volume, use cheaper parts, et cetera. Non-profit status doesn't mean more efficient nor cheaper. Most often it's the opposite.

[KNERD]

Braxman is one guy, not an organization with a full team. I doubt he has outsold the number of units Pine64 has. Also the unit has far better specs than the PPP

[KC9UDX]

It doesn't matter how many are sold as much as it matters how many are produced at once. An entrepreneur doesn't intend to recover production costs immediately. Better specs don't always translate to higher cost. Especially these days, newer, faster parts are usually cheaper than long-term-available products, and especially cheaper than old, obsolete or near-obsolete parts.

Again, for-profit has an inherent incentive to incentivise a sale. Non-profit doesn't have this. I'm not saying these are the reasons, but unless other reasons are known, these are things that should be considered. The common idea is that for-profit's goal is to squeeze as much money out of the consumer and non-profit should always be cheaper. Neither of these are necessarily true, and neither is actually very likely. A price-gouging for-profit will go out of business quickly, as will an underfunded non-profit.

Also, one guy is a lot less overhead cost than a large organization; so you may have answered your own question.

[Kevin Kofler]

He has no stock, only preorders (shipping estimated in March, i.e., 2 to 3 months from now).

And the hardware he uses is probably not compatible with mainline-kernel-based GNU/Linux. At least I see no mention of it at all. According to an article, the SoC is a MediaTek Dimensity 6300, which is a brand new SoC from 2024, which does not seem to have any mainline Linux kernel support at all yet. The pre-order announcement promises an Ubuntu Touch port, but since nothing else is specified, that is probably a Halium-based one, which is still the default for Ubuntu Touch. So the device is not comparable with the PINE64 devices at all. At best with the Furilabs FuriPhone FLX1 (but that one at least ships with Droidian preinstalled, not with an AOSP fork, though the underlying tech is still Halium).

He promises a "fully open-source OS", but since there is no mention of device drivers, you can be almost certain that the drivers will not be FOSS, but the typical Android proprietary driver blobs. Which means that GNU/Linux can only work on that device using Halium. So you will still be using some outdated Android kernel (old version of the Linux kernel + Android patches + hardware vendor patches) with proprietary drivers both in kernel modules and in userspace and be fully dependent on the hardware vendors (not only Braxman, but also those he sources the parts from) for updates. And some software such as ModemManager and Plasma Mobile does not (or no longer) support Halium at all.

Making a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device unfortunately means you have only a limited selection of SoCs to pick from, all older and not optimized for smartphones. Some vendors such as Qualcomm are entirely a no go because their SoCs require things such as signed bootloaders and even firmware signed with a device-specific key – those issues are a pain even for those Qualcomm-SoC-based devices (such as the OnePlus 6) supported by postmarketOS: the bootloader can only be unlocked and U-Boot chainloaded, you cannot install U-Boot directly on those devices, and the firmware has to be extracted from the Android ROMs provided by the device manufacturer (e.g., OnePlus) and put into a separate partition, because the device will refuse to load the firmware from the actual hardware manufacturer because it is not signed with the device manufacturer key burned into the SoC (which also means it is impossible to upgrade any of the firmware). So it is impossible for a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device to deliver the same performance for the same price as when using proprietary driver blobs. Blame the SoC manufacturers for this situation. We need devices that work without proprietary driver blobs and that do not enforce cryptographic signatures.

[biketool]

The biggest issue is Braxman using android binary blob drivers you have no OS freedom, ubuntu touch and Lineage/Cyanogen derived distros are tied to google-andtroid kernel releases. Once the releases by the hardware manufacturer for given hardware ends your device is EOLed or at least that feature.component is. The good news with android blob drivers is nearly all hardware and the best processors are supported with great power management at the time of release, the bad news is you have little-to no idea what is going on inside those drivers and the EOL issue. The difficulty in getting drivers is a part of why most android devices will never see normal linux installable or all of the hardware supported, Pine64 has chosen components which are fully open documented(no nondisclosure agreements required to read datasheets) allowing writing of FOSS drivers for all components.
Sure Nokia, an industry giant, was able to ask for and receive blob dirvers for their Maemo Linux devices, but even now clean room reverse engineering of drivers for hardware has not fully succeeded and I am not sure you can make a telephone call on a formerly maemo 5 N900 Linux phone running Duvian derived Maemo 7, it is all about the blob vs FOSS drivers.
This BraX3 hardware is bespoke design but off the shelf chipset and components, easy and cheap especially in the tech center of Shenzhen China, you can have a team design a mobile phone from gerber PCB and solidworks design files like assembling Legos and send them to quick adaptable manufacturing, most of the work is skinning the software available on F-droid for a single target device Android/Ubuntu Touch base makes that easy.

I believe Braxman is doing his best to deliver a privacy-centric-ish phone but the privacy and user security of a properly configured pinephone goes far beyond what Braxman could ever hope to deliver into realistic nation-state resistant paranoia level vs anti-hackerbro, because the user control on a Pine goes all of the way to the silicon vs stopping at the kernel drivers and boot process. I am over 90% certain(today vs late 2022) that the FBI, CIA, or KGB could NOT get into a Pinephone with encrypted root unless they could interrogate the password out of you. while I give near certainty that a plug-in Cellebrite box could crack a Braxman phone in a few minutes because it relies on android based bootloader boot chain with known exploits.
It is like comparing a owned scooter to a rented race bike, two devices with vastly different capabilities and drawbacks.

FWIW Pine64 makes fully documented (FOSS compatible by design vs hacked) hardware for an enthusiast community and hopes that the community will write cool software for the things they sell. Braxman is selling a finished commercial product.

[zetabeta]

Making a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device unfortunately means you have only a limited selection of SoCs to pick from, all older and not optimized for smartphones. Some vendors such as Qualcomm are entirely a no go because their SoCs require things such as signed bootloaders and even firmware signed with a device-specific key – those issues are a pain even for those Qualcomm-SoC-based devices (such as the OnePlus 6) supported by postmarketOS: the bootloader can only be unlocked and U-Boot chainloaded, you cannot install U-Boot directly on those devices, and the firmware has to be extracted from the Android ROMs provided by the device manufacturer (e.g., OnePlus) and put into a separate partition, because the device will refuse to load the firmware from the actual hardware manufacturer because it is not signed with the device manufacturer key burned into the SoC (which also means it is impossible to upgrade any of the firmware). So it is impossible for a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device to deliver the same performance for the same price as when using proprietary driver blobs. Blame the SoC manufacturers for this situation. We need devices that work without proprietary driver blobs and that do not enforce cryptographic signatures.

this is shocking, i thought oneplus was good at opening bootloaders comparing to other android brands. maybe it is, it is just oneplus is less worse on opening bootloaders.

actually, it is not that surprising. in my last android device, which i'm not going to name. i learned that "oem unlock" is not total user control. it is partial control. fastboot or bootloader still have some limitations.

one key element of pp regular and pp pro is bootloader. bootloader feels like user is in control.

---

Why is it Braxman is able to sell a similar, and better phone with a stable Linux and Android OS for only $300 at a profit, but Pine64 with their "but we're a non-profit!" cannot?


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/brax3...artphone#/

in my knowledge, pine organization is for profit corporation like any other, profit margins might be smaller though.

at this point it should be clear for buyers, that pine org provides hardware and not software. software is up to software community to develop. which has some drawbacks.

technically speaking, android is linux. practically, i call android as abuse of linux, which is controlled and manipulated by alphabet inc, with their monopolistic motives.

[zetabeta]

i have this phrase "paying customer is correct.".

i would suggest little critical thinking for rob braxman. i have following he's talking points for some time, and he gets many points correctly. but on some issues he panders certain talking points. i don't go into specifics. he pretends to be impartial and neutral, but his followers are little bit crazy, so it leads that rob is also little crazy. reason is business operation. i don't specify this craziness. if customers like mushrooms, what is a likely hood that business owner also likes mushrooms.

btw, do you remember freedomphone by eric finman ! almost like a scam product. ironically based on mediatek chips. mediatek's chip security was very questionable.

[KNERD]

He has no stock, only preorders (shipping estimated in March, i.e., 2 to 3 months from now).

And the hardware he uses is probably not compatible with mainline-kernel-based GNU/Linux. At least I see no mention of it at all. According to an article, the SoC is a MediaTek Dimensity 6300, which is a brand new SoC from 2024, which does not seem to have any mainline Linux kernel support at all yet. The pre-order announcement promises an Ubuntu Touch port, but since nothing else is specified, that is probably a Halium-based one, which is still the default for Ubuntu Touch. So the device is not comparable with the PINE64 devices at all. At best with the Furilabs FuriPhone FLX1 (but that one at least ships with Droidian preinstalled, not with an AOSP fork, though the underlying tech is still Halium).

He promises a "fully open-source OS", but since there is no mention of device drivers, you can be almost certain that the drivers will not be FOSS, but the typical Android proprietary driver blobs. Which means that GNU/Linux can only work on that device using Halium. So you will still be using some outdated Android kernel (old version of the Linux kernel + Android patches + hardware vendor patches) with proprietary drivers both in kernel modules and in userspace and be fully dependent on the hardware vendors (not only Braxman, but also those he sources the parts from) for updates. And some software such as ModemManager and Plasma Mobile does not (or no longer) support Halium at all.

Making a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device unfortunately means you have only a limited selection of SoCs to pick from, all older and not optimized for smartphones. Some vendors such as Qualcomm are entirely a no go because their SoCs require things such as signed bootloaders and even firmware signed with a device-specific key – those issues are a pain even for those Qualcomm-SoC-based devices (such as the OnePlus 6) supported by postmarketOS: the bootloader can only be unlocked and U-Boot chainloaded, you cannot install U-Boot directly on those devices, and the firmware has to be extracted from the Android ROMs provided by the device manufacturer (e.g., OnePlus) and put into a separate partition, because the device will refuse to load the firmware from the actual hardware manufacturer because it is not signed with the device manufacturer key burned into the SoC (which also means it is impossible to upgrade any of the firmware). So it is impossible for a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device to deliver the same performance for the same price as when using proprietary driver blobs. Blame the SoC manufacturers for this situation. We need devices that work without proprietary driver blobs and that do not enforce cryptographic signatures.

The description in the link says it can run Ubuntu Touch, so I am not sure what you are referring to with "probably not compatible with mainline-kernel-based GNU/Linux."

He has no stock as of yet, but this is his third phone to be made, and does have some stable operating systems to put on it at least, unlike PP and PPP even after 5 years!

[Kevin Kofler]

this is shocking, i thought oneplus was good at opening bootloaders comparing to other android brands. maybe it is, it is just oneplus is less worse on opening bootloaders.

This is unfortunately a common misunderstanding: "Unlocking the bootloader" does not mean that you can actually replace the bootloader. Almost no Android device allows that (and where it is possible, it is typically due to some exploit, not by design). Not even the Fairphone. The way Google intends the boot "security" chain to work is that there is a public key burned into the SoC (specific to the phone manufacturer ordering the SoC) and that the SoC will refuse to boot anything not signed with the corresponding private key. All the mainstream smartphone SoC manufacturers work that way. All that "unlocking the bootloader" means is that the unmodifiable bootloader will actually allow you to boot unsigned operating systems or chainloaded bootloaders, because by default, not even that is allowed by the "security". (The OS signature check in the bootloader is the next link in the Treacherous ("Trusted") Computing "security" chain.) And in addition to the signature check, there may also be hardware write protection preventing you from attempting to install a different bootloader to begin with.

And as I already mentioned, some SoC manufacturers, e.g., Qualcomm, are even worse than that, because at least some of their SoCs enforce the signatures not only for the bootloader, but also for any firmware that goes through the SoC. And since they enforce the signature of the phone manufacturer, it means that you cannot get the firmware directly from the hardware manufacturer as you normally do. (Not sure whether that is an issue for, e.g., the Fairphone, but it definitely is for the OnePlus devices.)

actually, it is not that surprising. in my last android device, which i'm not going to name. i learned that "oem unlock" is not total user control. it is partial control. fastboot or bootloader still have some limitations.

Indeed. The main limitation is that you cannot replace fastboot, so you are stuck with its bugs and limitations. At best you can work around them by chainloading a better bootloader, which is what the "U-Boot on Qualcomm" effort does.

one key element of pp regular and pp pro is bootloader. bootloader feels like user is in control.

The main bootloader-related feature of the PinePhone series is that you can actually replace the bootloader. E.g., you can install Tow-Boot or a distro-provided U-Boot. The PinePhone Pro also has rk2aw available, which chainloads to a distro-provided U-Boot, and mainly makes it easier to use such a U-Boot on a microSD card. (Tow-Boot requires you to hold a button on boot to boot from microSD.) In principle, you can also install whatever you want, e.g., you can make your own fork of U-Boot. There is no signature requirement.

technically speaking, android is linux.

I think the clearest way to put it is: Android "is" (uses) Linux (the kernel), but not GNU/Linux.