| If linux phones are going to be a thing (pinephone, librem) they'll need great cameras and excellent image processing software t be even somewhat competitive with Google Pixels and iPhones and Samsungs. This is a view without nuance. Lots of people don't use, or only rarely use, a phone camera. It also implies that [GNU|other-free]/Linux "winning" a substantial share of the market is a plausible (or even desirable) outcome. [GNU|other-free]/Linux is a terrible phone operating system for the majority of people. I say this as a person who has a PinePhone that's about to ship (and is planning on using it as my daily driver). I also take hundreds of pictures a year. The trick to solve the camera problem is just buying a good camera that isn't your phone. If [GNU|other-free]/Linux gets 10% of the phone operating system market, the amount of malware (both in the literal sense and the Stallmanic sense) written for it will skyrocket. That's certainly not desirable, and at that point it's more or less an Android clone, which defeats the point. The "average" user doesn't understand that they shouldn't download software from any website that offers it, for example. Android is already bad at sandboxing and keeping less-technical users safe. Imagine if less-technical users got their hands on a mobile [GNU|other-free]/Linux distribution. Chaos. By foregoing a high-quality camera, it limits the market share of a device like this. That's good! Non-technical users should be kept very far away from it until it's baby-proofed or education improves. Anything else will harm them. Freeing them is a good goal, but it probably won't come first, and probably won't come for a while. It's especially not something that should have the roadmap shifted around to match. (The separation between "Linux" and "OS/Linux" is relevant here, because without it, there's no distinction between it and Android.) |
Huh...? This couldn't be further from the truth. They may not be terribly picky about the technical details about them, but actual human beings take photos... all the damned time.
> The trick to solve the camera problem is just buying a good camera that isn't your phone.
Coupled with your other view on this, it's not worth discussing how ridiculously inconvenient that would be for what people take photos for: social media.
This may not reflect your own usage pattern, but it sure as hell is what real people do with their phones. Taking pictures of their casseroles and making duck lips with their friends.