angry.md

Nokia is violating GPLv2, and other issues with the mobile phone market

HN,

With some disgust towards the scene of mobile phone market, I write this post and hope some good comes out of it.

The first immediate piece of actionable offense in existence is that HMD, Nokia has Android devices in the market and have done changes to the Linux kernel which they haven't made public after promising to do so several months before. They are hence in clear violation of the GPLv2.

This isn't really the first time a company has done this. Xiaomi has history with this too.

Second, why, pray tell, do Android (distributions) get away with bundling malware and bloatware and not providing us with any feasible way of getting rid of it? I own a Nokia 6 which I ordered from Amazon. Nokia claimed that it provides Android devices with stock OS and no bloatware, yet it comes full of Amazon apps which can't be removed (only "disabled"), just because I ordered it from Amazon? Nowhere while ordering the device was I informed that the device I am getting is compromised in such a fashion.

In general, Android devices owned by friends and family from various vendors suffer similarly. They are all full of Google apps which are impossible to remove. Some of them can't even be disabled (my previous Lenovo had an app called "Step Counter" which supposedly counts footsteps, and it can't be disabled because it is a system service :/). In some time, these devices get slow due to the bloat and the owners have to buy new phones unaware that the hardware they paid for is still sufficient for their needs, if only the software forced upon them allowed them to do so.

I am no person knowledgeable of the law, either in my own country or the first-world counterparts, but as I see it - Android devices being full of Google's apps or a distributor (Amazon in this case) owned apps in a way that can't be removed by the user is a breach of trust with the user. I am not arguing about closed-source vs. free software, I am talking about our current, practical situation - a situation which is right in front of us - that the phone market is full of Android devices which violate the user's rights of operating a device they paid for, in a way that is clearly expensive for the user.

Yes I am aware that Windows laptops have shipped with bloatware and malware since forever - however laptops can be wiped and reinstalled by users feasibly. Administrator access to the OS isn't locked. As of this writing, I see no feasible way to gain root access to a device I own.

I have simple questions:

1. Why is Nokia getting away with violating GPL with the very piece of software, the Linux kernel, which it gets for free and is making profits from?
2. Why are we okay with the illusion of "owning" a device we can't actually control?
3. Why is Amazon allowed to sell me an effectively compromised device without informing me about the compromises made to it?
4. What can you and I do about this?

Attempt to pool purchasing power to get a product that you desire.

Attempt to pool purchasing power to get a product that you desire.

Re 2: Most customers just don't care. The whole advertisement model is cancerous. Then again, it killed off TV, and Netflix seems to be doing well. When you do have control people vote with adblockers. There was just an article that millions had by-passed Spoity's ads.

Re 3: Sellers cater to the market. You need to invert the logic re your point 2.

Re 4: Unlocked devices (not tie to a particular carrier) usually have less junk pre-installed. The last phone I bought that way, a Galaxy S8, was better but still had a bunch of of apps from Samsung that I don't care about (Bixby, Pay etc). I was able to uninstall some (to my surprise), but others you are stuck with. There have been attempts at open source phones, but they have failed as far as I know. You could also look into security focused niche options like the Silent Circle Blackphone.

Re 2: Most customers just don't care. The whole advertisement model is cancerous. Then again, it killed off TV, and Netflix seems to be doing well. When you do have control people vote with adblockers. There was just an article that millions had by-passed Spoity's ads.

Re 3: Sellers cater to the market. You need to invert the logic re your point 2.

Re 4: Unlocked devices (not tie to a particular carrier) usually have less junk pre-installed. The last phone I bought that way, a Galaxy S8, was better but still had a bunch of of apps from Samsung that I don't care about (Bixby, Pay etc). I was able to uninstall some (to my surprise), but others you are stuck with. There have been attempts at open source phones, but they have failed as far as I know. You could also look into security focused niche options like the Silent Circle Blackphone.

You could sue. Companies with unauthorized access to your phone might not be so different, or any more legal, than any other case of unauthorized access to a computer.

You could sue. Companies with unauthorized access to your phone might not be so different, or any more legal, than any other case of unauthorized access to a computer.

There are some GPL violations from time to time, e.g. with ScummVM. They filled a report at http://gpl-violations.org/, were given a laywer and won the court.

There are some GPL violations from time to time, e.g. with ScummVM. They filled a report at http://gpl-violations.org/, were given a laywer and won the court.

https://www.fairphone.com/en/

https://www.fairphone.com/en/