Jolla's Sailfish OS Now Certified as Russian Government's First 'Android Alternative' (techcrunch.com)

The future for one of the few remaining alternative mobile OS platforms, Jolla's Sailfish OS, looks to be taking clearer shape. Today the Finnish company which develops and maintains the core code, with the aim of licensing it to others, announced Sailfish has achieved domestic certification in Russia for government and corporate use. TechCrunch adds:In recent years the Russian government has made moves to encourage the development of alternatives to the duopoly of US-dominated smartphone platforms, Android and Apple's iOS -- flagging Sailfish as one possibility, along with Tizen. Although Sailfish looks to have won out as the preferred Android alternative for Russia at this point. The government has said it wants to radically reduce its reliance on foreign mobile OSes -- to 50 per cent by 2025 vs the 95 per cent of the market garnered by Android and iOS in 2015. Sailfish's local certification in Russia also follows an announcement earlier this year that a new Russian company, Open Mobile Platform (OMP), had licensed the OS with the intention of developing a custom version of the platform for use in the domestic market. So, in other words, a Russian, strategic 'Android alternative' is currently being built on Sailfish.

Comments

I just want some fucking choices

[geek]

Android is shit. Complete and total garbage. You're either stuck with insecure software with it or stuck with Google spyware.

iOS is at least secure but you're stuck in a walled fucking garden with Apple spying on you instead.

Just give me something with the apps I want, without the spying and with security updates, please for the love of God.

Re:I just want some fucking choices

[pr0t0]

I think the problem is that the spying IS the business model. No one is manufacturing phones, creating mobile operating systems, or providing cellular service simply to sell those things at some dollar amount above cost for profit. They do that too to be sure, but the end game is to track, aggregate, and catalog every thing about you that they can and sell THAT information to advertisers...and maybe the government(?).

So we get to be the consumer and the product, which works out pretty well for everyone on the other side of the equation; just not us.

Re:I just want some fucking choices

[Anonymous Coward]

You're begging for the wrong thing.

What you really want is well-documented, open hardware that anyone can program; then you'll automatically get all the choices you want. That's what gave us the PC revolution, and that's what will give us the actual mobile revolution, which has unfortunately not yet occurred.

Cool

[The-Ixian]

If adoption of the OS comes even close to 50% in Russia, wouldn't that mean that it would be a viable (as in lots of apps) OS for the rest of the world? I like the idea of a 3rd real contender in the market.

Re:Cool

[williamyf]

SailFish* (Unlike bada) can run Android APPs in a sort of compatibility mode. It can also be coaxed to load many of Google Play Services (but that breaks Google's EULA). So, most likely, very few people will develop native sailfish, even in Russia.

If Anything, this creates critical mass for affordable/Quality phones running the OS. Just imagine, say, a MODERN YottaPhone running Sailfish.

Having said that, carriers have demonstrated that they do not realy care for a Third ecosystem, all they really need is the "Threat" of a third ecosystem to restrain Google a tad.

* Also BB10 OS, but that is a whole different issue.

Re:Finland is not foreign?

[CRCulver]

The Finns later took advantage of chaos in Russia as an opportunity to tell the Russians to GTFO.

The independence of Finland from Russia wasn't due to the "Finns telling the Russians to GTFO", it was a decision made by Lenin, partly for pragmatic reasons, partly due to his warm feelings for Finland after he found shelter there when he was still a political outlaw.