Why /e/? Why do people look for another OS? Why are people moving (moved…) away from iPhone to Android? And now why they are looking for new OS and want to move away from Android?
Privacy is the key… Going back to cloud storage and backups and forcing user to use specific apps, and quite important - people writing OS steping into applications space (and changing OS to suite their apps), is the key behind privacy.
Users can very well keep their data in their device and move away from net - only those that need to be stored away (securely) they may need cloud storage and other means (they can even choose to store there backups in another device, say a laptop, etc.).
So OS should give the option of not relying on cloud storage, etc. For example, in android (in my motto, optimized to get away from google) the system phone screwed up the contacts when I choose to log out of the gmail account, as I do not want the account to be open at all times! I never asked for backups and it was nearly impossible (and can only be done by real techi people) to keep the contacts data locally (no apps too to do that - apps to load the data from .vcf file and keep it locally) - which was really unpleasent.
So, please get away from cloud storage sort of stuff - at the least give the user the freedom not to choose it without affecting the overall OS functionality…
The /e/ purpose is to seduce as many people as possible. If /e/ wouldn’t offer those cloud services (storage, contacts, mails etc) as google does, less people would change their OS.
But I’m like you, I don’t want to have any personnal data on the cloud, so I haven’t connect my phone to my /e/ account, and everything works fine. You aren’t forced to sync your data with any account.
Furthermore, an easy way to have your server at home (thanks to a preconfigure Docker image) is in development. Thanks to that, you will be able to store your personnal data at home.
And system apps will be removeable in the future in order to be able to choose your own apps.
Cloud storage is fine for the privacy conscious user if the storage provider is under obligation not to abuse that data for data mining/ad purposes which the e foundation is committed to. However if your a activist/journalist concerned about the big bad government then yeah like above /e/ already doesn’t force you to use cloud services.
I tested this, but you can’t put events in the calendar, it asks for an account. I think /e/ apps should works also if you don’t use the cloud features. @rhunault is this on the roadmap?
Ok, but i will call it a bug, because " Your data is your data!" and then you must login to cloud service before apps works, does not make sense in my opinion
If /e/ is really people oriented (and making money is part of the game but no one objects to it), it should probably have something above funcitonal specs - some thing like architectural specs (for the want of name! - may be roadmap specs?).
Some of it may be like:
Getting away from net based software is the key spec to perfectly ensure data privacy
Separating OS development strictly from application developments
Better still is for the OS developer to get away from applications and leave it to others. Initially it maybe ok as there will be little takers for a new OS. But in future an OS developer should abstain from app development. New features can be shown by sample codes which many of the OS developers have learned (like Microsoft used to change system dlls while installing Office!)
Dont make ‘going to net’ a normality - this has a communal and social implications. This also leads to collecting data - for data mining. I do not have anything against data mining as I am also in it for the past 23 years or so (fasionably called now as ‘data scientist’ - a huge promotion from ‘data analyst’!). Doing predictions (very risky) based on segmentation is kind of okay if further action is human controlled (like ‘khan’ in the name combined with other demographics imples something leading to isolatioin and probable arrest during immigration if the humans take it seriouly without a pinch of salt!!!). But predective analysis based on sequential mining combined with demographics is very bad as it looks into personal data heavily Like if 1000 people (of certain demogrph if needed) does a, b, c, d then it is likely (note the word) that he will do ‘e’ and promotions based on this in itself is bad. Like a,b,c,d -> e sets a normalcy in the population - like if you do not do ‘e’ than you are an aberrant. Note that aberrants are the people who took civilization by a step (whether in ‘positive’ direction or ‘negative’ direction). So setting normalcy and making the path for aberrants thorny is kind of bearable provided the path for them is still navigable. But on the other hand making it a ‘must’ (like a,b,c,d must be e) enforced by law (eventually) if a kind of nightmare. So let us not collect time sequence data of any individual!
One immediate step for more developers to sign in is to make a software to port code initialy written for google or iPhone to /e/ easier will make a positive impact on moving to ‘/e/’
Like laptops, the next gen of smart phones should be aiming at the complete decoupling of software and hardware. Any architecture focuses on this and pushes it will be the welcome stuff. Like laptop, coming with the OS bundled has lead to many problems - now-a-days you can get the laptop device free of any OS (like you might like an OS and have license to it - why should I pay extra money for the preloaded OS?). What they call ‘rooting’ should become the normal mode in which you get a device - preloaded with some OS is still okay for the other companies to do it with addtional cost of the device - maybe for the majority consumers.
Many more, if you think of it…
Sorry it had been long…! But I hope people get the gist of it!!!
Some aspects of what you have mentioned are available on our website. We are coming out with an updated website (No ETA’s) which should have more details.
Yes, our calendar asks for an account to be able to create events. It’s not necessary to be a /e/ account (/e/, webdav and Google -via MicroG- are available). As said @Manoj, please raise an issue on our GitLab instance (here).
Thank you in advance
Self-hosting will probably address these concerns. But that is currently an option only for us techie types. Off line calendars, tasks & notes should really be available too.
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