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Comment by birdsongs | Hacker News Reader

In what ways has the pursuit of perfection harmed the good in their development? (Your words, I don't agree.)

Graphene does everything you're asking, except for the niche fixed location feature you specifically want, which you're welcome to request, or just implement yourself and make a PR.

I'm going to be a bit snarky here, but I always find the entitlement around features in open source software baffling. This isn't a multi billion dollar corporation selling you something. It's enthusiasts making you something (honestly, incredible), for free, in their spare time, outside of their daily jobs. They're doing their absolute best here.

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Our approach is why we have a partnership with Motorola where we're working with Motorola and Qualcomm on improving security of the devices to meet our requirements. It takes longer to get things done the way we want but that's part of the purpose of GrapheneOS. For example, it took us longer to have our own network-based location and geocoding but now we have great implementations of both. Our network-based location currently closely matches iOS but is going to have full offline support developed for it. We're working on our own local model text-to-speech at the moment too, although our focus is currently Android 16 QPR3 related work as a higher priority which delayed it. We do plan to overhaul or replace all the legacy AOSP apps, but our priority has been working on things people can't simply replace by installing more apps.

> In what ways has the pursuit of perfection harmed the good in their development?

Their lack of device support means I am still running Google's Android and will continue to be until a GraphineOS-supported device that meets my needs becomes available. This means I'm not just lacking in security, but I'm also stuck with Google and all of their anti-consumer practices.

Running GraphineOS without all the security features they want would be better for me than what I currently have.

When the complaint people have about a product is "I can't use it and I really wish I could", I feel like it's a good problem :-).

> Running GraphineOS without all the security features they want would be better for me than what I currently have.

But then it would be like running LineageOS, which is a great (but different) project. Why not using LineageOS?

And this is somehow harming who?

You're free to fork it to adapt it to your device.

The expectation that the entire project brand must be diluted (by lowering the security) to support you specifically, or you feel wronged, is a little, my apologies -- absurd.

Nobody is harmed by their pursuit of perfection. But the adoption of GraphineOS has certainly been hampered by its lack of device support.

I personally believe the project would achieve more overall good if they supported more devices - assuming they are capable of doing so without sacrificing software quality. That includes support of devices which do not meet the project's current security standards.

When did I make any demands of GraphineOS? I have no expectation that they support me. I'm not entitled to benefit from the work they've done. My opinions are merely opinions and those who maintain and contribute to GraphineOS are not obligated to value them.

Yes, but do these enthusiasts care at all if it meets some need for the users? I suspect that they do.

And how can they find out how well it meets that need other than receiving (respectful!) feedback?

I don't follow. The poster above my comment complained that graphene os was lacking a list of features is already has, so I corrected that.

> Yes, but do these enthusiasts care at all if it meets some need for the users? ... And how can they find out how well it meets that need other than receiving (respectful!) feedback?

What makes you think they don't? Can you point to any instances of them ignoring the community at large?

You can open an issue in any of the open source repositories and request a feature. Others can vote and comment on it. Or you can discuss it in the very lively forum. All methods used to steer the project towards the desires of the users.

In case you can't find them: https://github.com/GrapheneOS https://discuss.grapheneos.org/

This whole conversation just feels weird and specious to me.

I want them to implement a feature where the phone prints money.

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