Google restricts Android sideloading

>>fsflov+(OP)
I've got to say, some of the comments here are pretty funny.

> "The sideloading restriction is easily solved by installing GrapheneOS"

> "Unless they block ADB, I wouldn't say it's accurate to claim they're "blocking sideloading"".

Not to pick on these folks but it's like we on HN have forgotten that ordinary people use phones too. For some of us, it's not a limitation as long as we can solder a JTAG debugger to some test pads on the PCB and flash our own firmware, but for most users that's just about as possible as replacing the OS.

>>tdeck+o9
There was some Ubuntu (or Linux) forum where I had asked a question and I wanted an app or something (I can't recall now) which was easier to use and do repeatedly. Most of the people were replying with stuff like "why can't you just do <something that involves lots of CLI and more than an hour ro so>" or on the lines of it.

I, someone extremely new to Linux (hell, new to computers), was bewildered. Then a commenter replied with something that helped me and exactly what I needed. He added a note directed towards others which went something like - the battle for Linux as THE desktop OS was sabotaged by its most ardent practitioners.

>>crossr+Qh

  > the battle for Linux as THE desktop OS was sabotaged by its most ardent practitioners.

This definitely happened with Arch. For some reason they killed the noob guide (which I helped maintain). It was a great guide that helped people go from noob to kinda knowing linux.

You can't have wizards without first having noobs.

Why gatekeep people from enjoying the same thing you enjoy?

Well, I guess all that gave us EndeavourOS and Manjaro. But still, we need more places for people to learn that nitty gritty stuff.

Hell, I'd love to learn more about the hardware hacking the OP is talking about. Love to learn about those GPU hardware modifications people do. I know it's hacker news, but I'd actually love to learn about that hacker stuff. If these companies are going to continue to fight this hard to prevent us from owning the things we buy, it sounds like an important thing to learn. Or else we're soon going to have robot butlers that are just sending lidar maps and high resolution photos of our homes back to these companies. We don't need elitest pricks, we need wizards teaching noobs

>>godels+nn
Regarding gatekeeping, there was one webforum I used to visit when I was a kid, which I think approached this in an interesting way. Most of the boards were available to the public, general users could post in them (other than the one that announced rules of course), but there was a subforum which could only be accessed by those who had demonstrated some minimum level of competency. Specifically this was a forum about programs for bots for a for-kids MMO (said MMO didn’t really have PVP that depended or gear or levels or anything, or a way of trading items or anything like that, so there wasn’t any player economy. So I think these cheats were pretty harmless. Well, except for the people making bots move in arrangements to make offensive symbols.). The process was, one could submit a program one had made that did something interesting, and they would judge whether it was sufficient to be allowed in to the subforum.

I think this had the benefits of:

• allowing people who don’t want to bother with newbies to not have to, if they stay in the subforum

• still having the places for “people who are skilled and willing to work with/help newbies” and “people who are skilled but don’t want to deal with newbies much” be in a sense the same place, while also having the place for the latter be the same as a place for newbies.

• provides an incentive for newbies to become skilled.

_____

Of course, this method doesn’t work if no one is willing to engage with the newbies. But I think it’s probably fine/reasonable to keep outsiders away from a few things provided that there is a reasonable path in.

Though, I’m not advocating that the approach that forum used be implemented everywhere. I just think it is something that a community could reasonably choose, depending on their priorities.

zlacker