I’ve tried to say that I think it is a problem, that is, if the goal is to give the largest possible group of people real privacy. If this is not a goal then I suppose tone doesn’t matter.
Several people have now responded, here and elsewhere, saying they avoid Graphene precisely because of the attitude and tone of the community.
Vocal Graphene proponents who only see things in one way can take this feedback or leave it, but it is a real issue.
That may very well be the case, but that’s their loss. If they expect the entire GrapheneOS project and community to bend to their naive and misinformed beliefs rather than educate themselves, then the GrapheneOS community is probably better off without them.
To continue with @anon69871701’s helpful analogy:
A doctor who encourages getting vaccinated loses potential patients who oppose vaccines, but you wouldn’t blame the doctor in that situation. How is it reasonable to blame GrapheneOS for doing the exact same thing in encouraging people to use factually private and secure operating systems?
LineageOS made me know that alternative OSs existed, and arouse in me an interest in them. This is how I eventually stumbled upon GrapheneOS and later switched.
Of course, it would have been better if I were born with GrapheneOS in the hands, or if I had switched directly from Samsung OS to GOS, rather than flashing Lineage OS on my Samsung.
In my case, I MIGHT never had known GrapheneOS without LineageOS (I didn’t know PG or others). I wish I had known before about GOS.
Conclusion : to awake people’s curiosity about alternative OS is probably the one and only utility of these insecure Android forks.
Just like how Louis Rossman has woken me to the whole privacy issue with Google and stuff, if not for hm I’d likely be staying in that comfort normie area of mine until him making the Google spying (or more precisely the invasive data collection, whatever you wanna call it) video.
Look you can disagree with Louis all you want but you can’t deny it has likely made a dent on people like me
@phnx you’re joking? what part of the post warrants giving a thumbs down? Is someone making a video that then helps other people begin reclaiming their own privacy a bad thing? Wow what a disgrace
I am getting weary of the constant tone policing. I am not sure I have seen anything abrasive in the thread, and most people have been unusually polite previously because the burden of bearing the reputation of “GrapheneOS community”, something you imposed on a diverse group of people just to create an Us vs Them paradigm. It us becoming hard to engage and assume good faith when you misrepresented my statement as being against “anyone who disagrees” and now you claim persecution because you claimed something was valid when it is known to be not.
The idea of people announcing they will do or not do something is an old one, and usually proclaimed by ones that were never going to do/not do the action and just need a justification for it.
I will just say this: GrapheneOS and their community pushing everyone to use GrapheneOS or iOS at the least is a failure only if you think in terms of “I want market share” or “Why not promote mom and pop shop projects over dirty corporate offerings”, and a wild success for people who think everyone should be secure without significant effort.
It is the same thinking that thinks signal’s defence of WhatsApp or endorsement of their use of signal protocol is somehow anti privacy, when it is just happiness that everyone can take benefit of the best privacy and security at scale.
Projects with ideologies, not just products, wish for their ideology to succeed, not just hog money by misleading people (all other privacy phones) or by charging an arm and a leg while providing substandard slop (almost all Android vendors).
I am mostly out of arguments here, which I knew would happen when I said you and I disagree fundamentally. I have seen this same resistance play out in technical and political discussions. It is very unfortunate, but the world will move on and the people who won’t, will be left behind. Xorg will die, anti vax people will be darwin’ed, rust will be adopted, useless privacy phone projects will die, and I will be happy that we can have new discussions with new people with new fossilized ideas that will need uprooting. I of course apologize for being a bit abrasive here, but I would rather the tone policing have a cause than just irritate me.
Security and privacy is a charged topic for smartphones because they’re the eye of the storm given how ubiquitous they are and how much personal / sensitive data they contain.
I get where you’re coming from, but like @anon63378639 points out above, harming users by downgrading on security is totally not cool. I was reminded of this essay by Prof Matthew Green. The whole thing is worth a read, but the conclusion is enough to drive home the point most on this thread are trying to get across:
In a perfect world, US and European governments would wake up and realize that arming authoritarianism is really is bad for democracy — and that whatever trivial benefit they get from NSO is vastly outweighed by the very real damage this technology is doing to journalism and democratic governance worldwide.
…
In the world I inhabit, I’m hoping that Ivan Krstić wakes up tomorrow and tells his bosses [at Apple] he wants to put NSO out of business. And I’m hoping that his bosses say “great: here’s a blank check.” Maybe they’ll succeed and maybe they’ll fail, but I’ll bet they can at least make NSO’s life interesting.
But Apple isn’t going to do any of this if they don’t think they have to, and they won’t think they have to if people aren’t calling for their heads. The only people who can fix Apple devices are Apple (very much by their own design) and that means Apple has to feel responsible each time an innocent victim gets pwned while using an Apple device. If we simply pat Apple on the head and say “gosh, targeted attacks are hard, it’s not your fault” then this is exactly the level of security we should expect to get — and we’ll deserve it.
And billions of unsuspecting Linux Android users truly deserve better.
If trying to make users aware of alternative options via mostly less secure options, it could also give them a negative attitude toward switching to something else compared to the stock OS if they have a bad experience.
It is like food for many people: if they try, say, broccoli and don’t like it, they may not actually dislike broccoli but rather the way it was prepared.
What I think your article fails to capture and what I think “the GrapheneOS crowd” sometimes fails to understand is that these alternatives are entirely different products.
Your implication that these other alternatives are just experimental burger joints implies that they are striving to be like Layers and not quite getting there, when that isn’t what they’re doing at all.
If we have McDoGood’s and Burger Prince and Layers serving up burgers, then these alternatives are more like hot dog stands popping up.
If you just want a meal that isn’t from McDoGood’s or Burger Prince, then a hot dog is actually going to do the job.[1] Perhaps maybe it is even a good idea to get a taste of what food can be like without the ingredients McDoGood’s is using.
The problem that Layers has is that many of these hot dog vendors are advertising their products as burgers. They’re functionally the same, it’s meat and bread, eat our hot dogs for every meal!
Layers has a very strict burgers-or-bust policy, they can’t imagine eating a hot dog in Burger Town. If everyone in Burger Town wants/likes burgers why the hell would they settle for a hot dog? That’s the implication in their Mastodon reply…
It’s not something being aware of it is going to resolve beyond avoiding it.
…they mean that once you know something is a hot dog, residents of Burger Town are obligated to avoid it.
I, on the other hand, think “hot dogs” like LineageOS can have some value and can serve a purpose in society. If I’m typically only supposed to be eating at Layers because I’m allergic to some ingredient that both McDoGood’s or Burger Prince use, well, I’m certainly not going to turn down a hot dog without that ingredient if I’m desperate…
However, if a hot dog stand advertises themselves as “we’re basically like Layers, we don’t use the same ingredients as McDoGood’s!” and someone tries that hot dog and hates it, surely they will get the impression that Layers’ food is probably not for them either. After all, that hot dog guy did say he cooked that hot dog just like Layers’ burgers, right?
Layers is ultimately right that choosing to eat a middling-health burger from McDoGood’s is probably better than choosing to eat a low-health hot dog, but I don’t think there are 0 situations whatsoever where you shouldn’t give a hot dog a try. The real danger arises when you think you’re making a healthy choice by switching to hot dogs, because of the rampant misleading marketing.
To make one final point: In this version of the analogy I would imagine you’d believe that trying a hot dog might convince people to eventually switch to Layers’ burgers. I would probably argue that hot dog consumption has no clear correlation to burger consumption, and they’re not operating as a “gateway” meal towards escaping McDoGood’s and Burger Prince. I don’t think your anecdotal experience of trying one alternative and seeking out even healthier food after proves anything on a larger scale either.
Therefore, I do not think a website like Burger Guides would need to tell people about all the best hot dog stands in the local area 
Although, many hot dog vendors have a troubling history of relying heavily on McDoGood’s supply chain and condiments… ↩︎
Hey ! Thank you for jour long reply, I agree with you.
I lack of imagination or knowledge. What could these situations be please ?
If you are concerned about security and privacy, there are not really any general situations where you should use anything other than GrapheneOS or iOS, which is why we don’t have a list of them. Situations where you’d use something like LineageOS are the exceptions to the rule, and you’d evaluate that on a case-by-case basis.
If you aren’t concerned about security then maybe something like LineageOS could come into play, but lack-of-security is not exactly my area of expertise 
It is important, yes. There is more to it besides horrendous pricing outside of US or NA. If things go south, in reality Apple gets rid of them “dangerous” applications by first government (or any other big entity) request (sanctioned apps such as banking apps, encrypted messengers such as signal, all VPN’s etc.) So in a practical real life bad situation, it is a highly priced secure phone with no privacy applications and CEO under an oath to US military forces. Maybe it is a privacy dream for US citizens, respectfully, but definitely not a dream for the rest of the world.
GrapheneOS is as secure and versatile as it gets but things have changed. Right now, any custom OS device attracts a lot of unnecessary attention, making it really hard to blend in. Not to forget these speculative but publicly shared accusations of GrapheneOS pixel being a criminal’s phone, drug dealer’s phone etc. Any government will easily weaponize this narrative to ban pixels for example. It’s not that big of a stretch. Not to forget Google’s new strategy of slowly locking up the system. For now it works, but we do need to start thinking of another solution imo, before its too late.
One aspect of a proper solution is putting some kind of pressure on Android OEMs to meet the (quite reasonable) security/privacy requirements that GrapheneOS have. Also of course repair the relationship between GrapheneOS and AOSP. Then GrapheneOS has the flexibility of two or three devices across different brands and no one line should garner a reputation for criminal use because the requirements/AOSP improvements would make almost all Android OEM devices much harder to exploit.
I will just note that the original blog post encouraged general adoption of LOS and friends as a pitstop towards using GrapheneOS, which is not what your analogy is about.
Your analogy also assumes users are able to meaningfully consent to using these systems and have educated preferences when in almost all cases the information asymmetry guarantees it is not so. I don’t tell my child to evaluate is security is a concern for them while skating to have helmets and pads, I know they need it and cannot actually consent to risk they do not understand.
If it is people who actually understand the compromises they are making and are okay with it, I can see your point about it having a space (for fun, for experiments, etc. but not general use). But most proponents keep propagating it for general use, when it should be relegated to deep recessed niches, which is deeply problematic and harmful.
I really appreciate so many PG members reading and responding to the analogy. It has been rewarding to see such a big response, also with people building on the analogy itself, which I really enjoyed reading.
As some have pointed out, analogies, stories, allegories etc. risk being unclear, but they’ve also been a part of debate in culture for a reason, in that they try to artificially isolate an issue and create some distance so we can all look at it. Writers of analogies have their own blind spots, naturally.
If in my responses here in the discussion I came across as policing that was not the intention.
I do think the general Graphene community is a bit fixated on comparison to other mobile OS systems. On Mastodon, I was sent links from the Graphene account to past texts /e/OS had written to or about Graphene in response to the story. I was surprised that was the response - who cares what /e/OS had to say about Graphene? I don’t.
The intended crux of the story was “Being so entrenched in the business of providing reliable, hygienic and healthy burgers, they have forgotten what the world looks like to people who only know McDoGood’s and Burger Prince.” I thought about putting that sentence in bold print but didn’t. Looking at the responses above, I guess that point didn’t really come across, as the discussion is primarily about Graphene vs the rest of the OSs.
To me, those are potentially all temporary players. We don’t know if Graphene will last, in part because of it’s heavy reliance on Google’s own hardware, nor do we know how the alternatives will develop or what new products might emerge. I feel most hopeful about Linux hardware and software, but my Pinephone is currently a paper weight.
But as someone who thought Android and iOS were the only options, I am really glad I don’t see the world that way anymore, and that I have been able to show my own kids this too. For me, it’s really important to remember what that felt like, and I hope that having affordable, private and secure mobile systems can be a real part of our future.
Yeah I tend to like analogies if done right and if especially at the right audience like normies which mine does.
But maybe yours wasn’t exactly it considering the responses.
I understand this part of the original blog post, but ultimately just disagree with its premise:
Thank you for bringing this feeling up, because I think it identifies why I wanted to reply to your post in the first place.
To me, it is not surprising that GrapheneOS and their community respond poorly to comparisons with other projects, because the comparisons are unfair and illegitimate. It seems like a very expected outcome for someone in an unjust situation to be outspoken about it.
You’re correct though that the truth is, like you, very few people care what /e/, Louis Rossmann, Techlore, etc. says about GrapheneOS, besides GrapheneOS themselves.
So if your point is that the GrapheneOS community should stop drawing these comparisons themselves and legitimizing them, then I’d agree with you. But it’s not surprising to me that your post failed to get your intended reaction, because it fails to acknowledge the unjust situation GrapheneOS finds themselves in.
It isn’t a natural reaction for people to respond positively to basically being told to “just shut up and take it” from your critics or competitors, which is essentially the message you communicate if you paint those competitors in a way that puts them on the playing field in the first place, when the truth is that nobody is building a similar project at all. There are no other players on this particular field for better or for worse.
What GrapheneOS fails to understand is that the slights against them they perceive truly do not matter to anyone in the first place. They aren’t engaging in long debates against real competition, they’re basically engaging in the online equivalent of kicking a toddler for calling them a silly name.
And, that’s a bad look for them, and the actual reason many people instinctually find GrapheneOS’s rhetoric distasteful.
I guess I just wish for them to not only recognize that this fixation on /e/ and others is bad, but also that it’s immature, and their own immaturity in turn also makes them look bad, so it’s lose-lose all around.
Can you show where they say this? All their communication seems to have supporting evidence or accepted covenants of the field, so this sounds surprising.
There is a difference between “just shut up and take it” and “you are wrong because of these reasons, so you should stop propagating lies”, although to someone intent on spreading misinformation they both may seem the same (since they both deny the “spreading” part of their business). The tone, at least to me, is more rigid than rude, although I can give leeway there since that is subjective.
No, they do matter as I see it. The general users, readers, etc. do not know they are not real competition. There are still people who think Telegram is the epitome of secure and that using Protonmail will protect you from CIA. It is all so vile and disgusting to see the impact of misleading and guerilla marketing on people who do not know any better.
It makes people more unsafe, gets people to consider the other options as alternatives taking potential donations and community attention away, and other issues.
I had seen PG team members chase similar threads across Reddit and social media during the gnarly takeover of privacytools. Is that exempt behaviour, defending themselves often by attacking privacytools? Why did they not leave it because it was not real competition? I do not get this point.
Company A says they are selling a “private” and “secure” phone/OS, then their users flood threads where new users ask for advice, cast doubts on GOS, and parrot the misleading marketing. GOS responds to anyone who tags or compares them to ensure truth reaches everyone, including those who are not chronically online or active in privacy space but might have seen the misleading marketing in the wild. And GOS is kicking the toddler? I notice PG warns against using substandard tools everywhere, does that mean it also is kicking a toddler?
The projects are not toddlers, they are knowingly hurting people. Do assign them innocence as if they do not know better is very weird phrasing and criticism, at least for me.
Good question!
But what you’re describing is more of a Copperhead situation, and Graphene was right to shut that down hard.
We explicitly don’t do anti-recommendations for this reason. There’s no point in giving these projects air.
I don’t see it that way at all.
The GOS team has poured thousands, tens of thousands+ of man hours into their project. They have the right to defend their work. I follow their accounts and I thought they stay factual with their criticism and not immature at all.
I respect an org a lot more for standing up for themselves and engaging their critics instead of hiding behind a wall of fake corporate PR positivity.
However, I also see how it can be off-putting to some as people like to avoid conflict and tend to gravitate to “good vibes only” products which can indicate that it’s a solved problem with no debate.
You know that, I know that, but the people new to the space do not know that.
Again the problem isn’t the fact that GOS defends their project, it’s the way they harp on other projects and even cough influencers and obsessing with the same rationale rather than taking time to reflect upon what can be considered mistakes to be learned from and learning to properly educate people, and even help other projects improve rather than criticizing them face blank and obsessing on them. (For me it comes down to how you handle hardships and mistakes. They always happen it’s only down to how you handle it, Instead of keep talking down to the person or project and do the opposite of what I’m about to say. Hear what they have to say, be compassionate about it and then make the decision. Graphene did none of that instead they do the ladder)
This is the problem with taking what they say with straight face rather than making assessment of your own.
And I want to express that instead of being this divided about it and absolutist, we should come forward with recommendations that everyone feels is applicable to each individual needs rather than obsessing with one thing or another (and yes you can recommend Graphene or Fedora if you feel that is their need, but sometimes you don’t wanna overwhelm them so you may compromise with say Mint or ZorinOS for desktop os or they want something that is like Arc but don’t want the proprietary software which you may then point them to Zen Browser and the settings recommended to toggle for Firefox, and as last time happened, when it comes to Molly, give them the options that are available, no need to complicate it further and no need to say that one thing is best when all options are more than fine). But I know this expression is likely to be ignored but I do hope it does at least makes for a fruit of thought.