This still relies on servers to prepare the connection (you need the web server for the page but also I see it tries to connect to wss://0.peerjs.com/), even if later the WebRTC communication is peer to peer.

I have a terminal app in my phone, but I don’t normally use it from the touch keyboard…

The main reason I have it is because from it I can install an ssh server (and a few other services, like privoxy and so) and then connect to the phone through ssh and access that CLI from other locations, even places where the internet is restricted/monitored or there isn’t a wifi access point (I can create a hotspot from the phone instead). If you are using a work laptop with restricted access, or are traveling and using a computer in your remote location, carrying around with you, in your pocket, a set of CLI / TUI tools and apps that you are familiar with can come in handy.

Also, nowadays you can plug a keyboard directly to your phone (a monitor too) and have it work as a portable terminal device. Of course it would be better if you were able to have a Desktop-grade OS in your phone for this… but things like termux work if you are a “terminal junkie”.

The CLI is also a much more reliable environment to provide instructions on how to do something.

Instructing people to click on “this button > tab > menu > submenu > item” is very exhausting for both instructor and reader, it’s language-dependant and less future-proof. Also sometimes the location of some graphic elements isn’t immediately obvious and there are cases where the only way to make sure people understand it is with a video tutorial of sorts. Which is annoying both to make and to have to sit and watch through.

This also makes the CLI better at reporting/diagnosing problems… for a GUI app, if you want to report a bug you have to write down a bible of steps on what things you clicked on, etc. (again, a video ultimately is needed to make things clear). Whereas a CLI app has all that information already in the parameters so you can just provide that as the report (along with any input/output data). Or simply copy the contents of your terminal.

There isn’t much concrete information, but my guess is that OS/ecosystem is exactly what this project is, and that they are not talking about physical hardware. Specially considering that they are putting the emphasis on free software (not hardware) and they are involving a software developer. Making a phone’s hardware free would be an entirely different beast.

In the afternoon, FSF executive director Zoë Kooyman announced an exciting new project: Librephone.

Librephone is a new initiative by the FSF to bring full computing freedom to mobile computing environments. The LibrePhone Project is a partnership with Rob Savoye, a developer who has worked on free software (including the GNU toolchain) since the 1980s. “Since mobile phone computing is now so ubiquitous, we’re very excited about LibrePhone and think it has the potential to bring software freedom to many more users all over the world.”

From the official FSF post about the event.

I didn’t downvote you, but it’s unclear what you meant by stating that.

Depending on how one interprets it, it can be seen as a justification for using “fascist” (since there isn’t a more accurate word) or simply a way to emphasize that the term is inaccurate and shouldn’t be used.

So I’m not surprised if you get up/down votes from both sides in either direction, specially in a polarizing discussion. Not because of what you said being wrong/right, but because of what they might read between lines.

I just wanna say that we have Webkit. After Google moved over to Blink Webkit has not stopped development… and it even has multiple big names behind it (like Apple, but also Valve partnered with WebkitGtk maintainers, and many devices like Amazon’s Kindle are heavily invested on it) so it’s not gonna go away anytime soon. Specially with Safari being the second most used browser on the web, right after chrome and several times more users than Firefox.

On Linux we have some browsers making use of Webkit (like Epiphany, Gnome’s default browser) that are thus independent from Google or even Mozilla. I’m not sure if there’s any browser like that for Windows though.

There’s also Netsurf, they also have their own rendering libraries, but development for it is super slow, I’ve been following them for a couple decades and they still haven’t got a stable javascript engine, so it only works for the most basic of websites. The plus side is that it’s very light on resources, though.