I just come across a new smartphone OS effort called PostmarketOS. It is a Linux based OS with the idea that it will have 10 years of support. It is early days, but I hope that they will succeed! They mention how one can help.
What is the purpose of this?
It’s a Linux-based OS to try to provide broad support for 10 years for a wide range of Android smartphones long after their ancient Android installs are end-of-life. Seems pretty clear when you click through!
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On this page they say “We can fix this as a community.” Yes, they said community! 
I kind of think it won’t get anywhere without.
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but @jonobacon would balance the argument by asking if it could Blender ?
although sorry you were gull`ed 
Er, I have no idea what you mean here? Can you explain?
In reality I was talking about desktops (see down below §); although endlessm stopped talking about phablets many moons ago.
apologise for the randomeness @jonobacon - I has a monkey-brain sometimes 
§ your chatter about packaging with endlessm members was about flathub packaging (and possibly file-formats) although again, I have gone off-track once more. I was just describing how ascertaining the usability of advanced weighty applications is the go-to query that seem to get asked.
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No worries, thanks for explaining.
OK, so this is different to Android. It is a Linux distro that works on phones.
Seems like a big ask: there is no chance I would install a Linux distro on my phone and lost all of my apps that I was using that phone for…unless they support Android apps.
Also, this image:
I sure as hell hope they are not planning on having traditional desktop windows here. They will need to have a mobile-centric touch experience (potentially uTouch).
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So this OS isn’t for you.
If you read the site, you’d see this isn’t the case; they’re evaluating Plasma Mobile, ubports, and libweston. They’ve discounted Sailfish because closed source.
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And probably only for 50 enthousiasts around the world, which is way too small for healthy development. I expect it to be a very rough OS at best, which I will likely never see in the wild.
Just like I don’t expect anything from this initiative: Librem 5 – Purism
Which is a very secure, open-source kickstarter phone.
I think we, as a community, should direct our efforts at making the existing OS’s and Apps as secure as possible to make this mainstream, otherwise these kind of ideas keep popping up and fade into oblivience.
How do you achieve that when you have zero control or direct influence over design and implementation choices for either iOS or Android?
You are probably right in that it will appeal to a very small number. However, this will only work if it is a community effort. I like the idea that I could have an old phone, like a Galaxy S3, that support is a long distant memory, and put a 10 year supported OS on it (of which I think is quite ambitious, but thing again, it would have to be a community effort). And it came with a replaceable battery! This isn’t a project intended for some kind of new hardware.
The usual: vote with your wallet, create awareness with your peers, and above all: be patient.
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Yeah, that hardly ever works.
Luckily, you have all the answers.
You learn quickly, grasshopper. 
I disagree: often companies are able to break into a market and change the game because people like what they do and buy it.
In this case though, yeah not going to work. 
Tell me the last time that worked with a multi-billion dollar revenue multinational, and I’ll admit I was wrong.
Thanks for mentoring me
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