Does Graphene publish reports on its funding and income? I couldn’t find that answered on the site’s Q&A.
I don’t understand the contradiction between not caring what people think or if they never even find Graphene vs caring a lot what people say and think as they are harming the name and diverting potential newcomers away from true privacy.
Not as far as I know. Despite naming themselves a “Foundation” and registering as a “Not-for-profit Corporation” they do not appear to be a charity in Canada[1] and as a result do not appear to have public financial reporting requirements that a traditional, tax-exempt non-profit like us would have.
I suppose you can get some info based on public Blockchain records like for Bitcoin and Ethereum, but I don’t think they publish anything for Monero or traditional banking.
Edit: They are a soliciting non-profit, so… at least $10,000 lol
based on searching List of charities and certain other qualified donees - basic search ↩︎
One potential caveat is that the development community behind GrapheneOS is somewhat murky. As mentioned, a foundation exists to support this system, but there is little information about how the foundation operates beyond an impressively long list of ways to donate. The public registry information shows three directors: Micay, Khalykbek Yelshibekov, and Dmytro Mukhomor, but there is no public information on how directors are chosen or how the foundation uses its funds.
It seems other journalists were indeed not able to find more than I could.
Of course, this is par for the course for any non-charity organization so I wouldn’t expect too much here.
I vaguely recall them mentioning they have millions of dollars in donations which is how they pay a team of full time developers. I don’t know if that was millions per year or millions total accumulated to date.
Again, this is a vague memory, I can’t immediately find where it was written, so take it with a grain of salt.
It was from one time donations by Vitalik of Eth fame and Dorsey of erstwhile Twitter. I think the user base also has good donation history (I personally have thousands of dollars racked up by now) but nowhere close to millions in recurring. Plus Proton and other corporate donations also amount to nice yearly donations.
They have said that they convert fiat to crypto for holding since their last issue with a bank or PayPal (don’t quote me on this though). The developers are 8 in number and seem (from my cursory research) to be from Canada (Micay), India (maybe immigrants and not based in India?), and Ukraine (recently the head dev was drafted) as far as I can see, and the payments are said to be in crypto as well. Everything in this paragraph is speculation.
Someone dedicated can probably track the crypto (someone from chainalysis?), but it is hard with privacy preserving coins.
This thread is prime example of what I mean:
To be clear from the beginning, I do not blame the OP at all. It is the privsec community and “sources of authority” (YouTube, etc.) that have let them down.
The OP has a threat model that does not seem to be from a place where they understand threats. They also compare fairphone and GOS, since OP assumes they are alternatives with equal “either or”, then one commentator feeds into the idea by saying:
The discussion starts with OP (who is curious and asking for opinions) is immediately drawn in by a commentator who starts with false dichotomy of “buying pixel supports google” while “buying fairphone supports reparability”, then plugs in their “tool” that uses insecure tools and weakens the phone overall, and then finally keeps refuting arguments about how it is not a fair comparison by the other, very patient, commentator.
The entire discussion is captured by the initial framing, and instead of helping the OP, it is just pushing ideological but false claims (somehow shizuku is supposed to open someone up to better privacy?). Especially since the OP looks like a beginner.
But in the end, the OP is drawn to ask if “just adb” is enough or comparable to GrapheneOS. The ideal would have been the inform OP that these claims are fear mongering and unverified info:
If someone had criticized fairphone from the beginning as not a real option, and refused to engage whatever delusional “harm reduction” is being attempted by a “tool”, OP would be actually helped instead of unwillingly being cast into a holy war.
These threads abound in the forum and on the internet. It is very unfortunate, and I have nothing but sympathy for GrapheneOS when dealing with this deluge of dysfunction that fill the expanse of the interwebs.
and then you leave out quotes that are important to the conversation like
if OP wants, they can be clear of their threat model so that the choice becomes obvious
oh wait it is not even extreme
then it makes sense that OP decides what they value the most
I cannot express this enough
seems I was right that my expression is ignores, not for attention reasons but Obvious reasons that people stick to one narrative rather than opening their mind even a little
Preach. OP posted a copy of that thread to the GOS forum too: Heavily torn on whether to buy a Fairphone with debloated Android or Pixel - GrapheneOS Discussion Forum
which makes me sad about how much time was wasted on a stupid question that could have been solved with a little bit of searching.
I thought I did just that in my first two replies and linked to the long GOS essay about it, but I’m pretty sure OP was just looking for someone to justify to him that he really should buy a fairphone.
op should not rely on people to justify things, op should decide for themselves what they value the most, see the facts for themselves and make the decision.
The analogy would be more a Doctor saying to stop eating red meat. It’s been demonstrated and linked with cancer, but doctors don’t recommend that. Instead, they will recommend what you already know and what is the most likely to help you, i.e., eat more fruits/veggies and try to be as much active as possible.
Doctors won’t necessarily recommend the best options, that is just false. They’ll focus on results.
And I believe that is the whole point of @ThePrivacyDad
There is a path to GOS. There is a path to Linux. There is a path to self-hosting.
I agree that the all-or-nothing approach is throwing off newcomers in the privacy sphere and I believe that is what @ThePrivacyDad was trying to communicate.
Also, ‘time’ is completely thrown out of the window again by most here.
You are still misunderstanding that in this case the advice given increases the changes on getting cancer, in your anology..
It isnt all or nothing but using these other custom operating systems is a step backwards not forward.
Seems to me you are just going on to the next points here trying to discredit the project… and steer people away. Please don’t.
Once again misunderstanding win shading here
It is true that doctors look for the best result and best advice based on your need and not be all in or all out, you never see doctors go that route
In that sense just like everyone else said, there’s in fact a path, my path was some YouTuber that is probably hated by the community now by the community but if not good, telling me how much data Google is collecting and how invasive this is and this si without you exactly being informed about it. This was my journey towards privacy and I was stuck with a Xiaomi at that time being Unable to buy a Pixel for a while before I could. But taking steps and learning is what got me here. It is never healthy to go all in or all out period
I think we should lock this thread, I don’t think there is in any way we would agree to anything, it is being too divisive for everyone’s good
This is not discrediting the project, these are valid concerns especially with Google’s clamping somewhat hindering the development
One day Google can just go “You know what, we’re done, there’s no such thing as AOSP anymore, only Android, and we’re becoming more and more like iOS, enjoy”
So what, then no other alternative OS will be viable anyways… I dont see the relevance to this thread then. Yes it might be concerning but i dont see the relation to the discussion on using other alternatives.
I know it is an extreme example but if this happens
Graphene on a Pixel won’t be a thing anymore. Or otherwise it will keep interfering GrapheneOS’s development.
[Now don’t get me wrong they’re doing an amazing job despite a lot of what Google is doing with clamping down AOSP but it is a concern on how long this will last before this is no longer viable]
And what’s left? Well Linux Phones will be a thing but they for sure need maturity before they can get to that point. And it will be the only choice for breaking into the duopoly that is Apple and Google
Yeah in that case we probably recommend people to use an iPhone. But who knows what happens if then if then. Discussing uncertainty about future events is a bit pointless. Who knows grapheneOS might drop their own hardware some day.
Also here i think it is completely irrelevant to the thread as we are discussing about what you should be using now.
Alright but I don’t wanna support Apple anymore than I really want to
I’m just gonna go Linux phone and you cry about it, bye.
It is something we need in any case to question, we can’t exactly hold Google and Apple accountable on many fronts and so supporting these 2 for longer is out of the realm. Anything can be subject to change
That is your personal choice and may be valid for your preferences but not a good advice for privacy as a whole.
One thing I have wondered is whether they have considered putting out more technical and educational content. Personally I feel GrapheneOS should defend themselves and their livelihood, but the ratio of time spent defending themselves vs. informing people of the great work they do is not healthy.
It would be great if they could bring back the blogs going over recent feature implementations and potential future enhancements.