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by bheadmaster 1382 days ago
I'm not saying they can't try, and succeed for a while. But eventually, we will always break free.

Pixel exists (but apparently doesn't count because it's not perfect yet).

Librem exists.

PinePhone exists.

More will exist in the future.

1 comments

The "Librem is to iPhone as Stable Diffusion is to DALL-E" analogy breaks down when you consider that Librem phone works about 10% as well as an iPhone, whereas SD works 110% as well as DALL-E.
Linux also used to be a "hobby" OS. Now it powers the internet. Things change.
"open source" hardware is never going to work the same way as open source software does. Hardware is fundamentally capital-intensive to produce. Software can be produced (compiled) using hardware that many people have readily available. This is a fundamental, intractable difference.

It's the difference between free knitting patterns and free cardigans.

It took Linux a couple of decades to get to that point. And it had immense business value in having such a massive infrastructure open for everyone.

For hardware our world is not there yet and won't be for quite a forseeable future.