Submitted by It appears that Sailfish, the Operating System by Finnish company Jolla, will now power 8 million+ devices for the Russian government. Renamed AuroraOS, at least in Russia, it has the Android compatibility layer stripped away. Last year, Russian company Rostelecom bought three quarters of the open mobile platform that developed Sailfish. Rostelecom is one of the foremost Russian telecommunications companies. It’s also a leading provider of broadband, IPTV, landline subscriptions in Russia. After the production woes of the last few years, it’s nice to see Sailfish finding a footing, even if it is in reduced form and exclusive to Russia.
I really tried to get on the Sailfish bandwagon… I bought into the tablet but they pissed that away and still only half of my money has been refunded. I wanted the Jolla C but it wasn’t for the US. I may have purchased a Sony Xperia X if Jolla had given the people they owned money to an OS license. Nope! The Sailfish OS seems to only be making some headway in Russia and China. LOL Jolla had some good people in the company in the beginning but they are gone and it’s just crap now. RIP
I’m not an impartial observer here, and I’m sorry to hear of your bad experiences (and not disputing what you say), but you should have been given the option to have an OS license in lieu of a refund: https://blog.jolla.com/second_phase_refund/
I believe the licensing was only for the EU, and possibly a few other areas close by. Sailfish is not available for purchase outside of the EU.
That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered that.
I will add you have to be “selected” to receive any refund. It’s a process that will go on for years if not forever. I have no interest in Sailfish anymore and opted for the full refund so will not be selected any time soon.
That’s my biggest beef… They collected money from backers in the US for the tablet and now that market is dead to them.
Where they went?
Not sure that this is a good thing. At all.
Quite. Also not a peep from Thom who doesn’t seem to miss a chance to chide Google and Apple for their dealings with China. However Russia — with it’s anti-LGBT laws, etc — doesn’t get a peep.
Other than the fact that I’ve been on a trip, and am currently recovering from a severe case of the flu, here’s a quick list of news items about Russia posted on OSNews to make it very clear that Russia does, in fact, get “peeps” from me.
https://www.osnews.com/story/30429/apple-is-blocking-telegram-updates-following-russian-ban/
https://www.osnews.com/story/30068/here-are-the-russia-linked-facebook-ads-released-by-congress/
https://www.osnews.com/story/30066/russias-meddling-could-spell-the-end-of-online-anonymity/
https://www.osnews.com/story/30065/facebook-google-twitter-spread-russian-backed-propaganda/
https://www.osnews.com/story/29557/fbi-and-cia-now-agree-that-russia-hacked-to-help-trump-win/
The peep I was referring to was on this post, and I had no way of knowing you were on a trip. I am deeply grateful for what you do keeping this site alive, but perhaps responding like this isn’t the best approach.
Well this post doesn’t have the usual “Thom Holwerda” right after title…
Also, Thom readily criticises Russia in discussions if that country shows up (rarely) in the news, like in this https://www.osnews.com/story/28554/russia-unveils-homegrown-pc-microprocessor-chips/ discussion from 2015 I stumbled on (though I disagree with “I’d rather have a processor hand-built by the director of the NSA than one designed and built in Russia.” – the Russians aren’t stupid, the CPU mentioned is obviously meant to be used in high-tech Russian weapons, and they wouldn’t want them compromised by some backdoor or such)
@zima Thom can, and does, add postscripts to posts submitted by others. And while, yes he does sometimes criticises Russia, it feels like he never misses a beat to get a dig in at Apple and Google for their dealings with china. However when it comes to Sailfish OS and Russia I would have expected him to at least added a comment to the story about the risks of a government mandated customized OS for all employees, considering their record.
@post by jockm 2019-02-21 4:42 pm
Hm, I thought that the new OSNews showed also, next to submitter, the name of the editor through which the news went …after quickly checking few last news pages, guess I was wrong… (or maybe that was some later theme change)
Quite, the usual Russia Russia crap
So in other words YOU’re spreading McCarthyite BS to OsNews readers.
Do you believe some ads can force half of the country to vote?
Why American pro-war/pro-terror proparanda is better than Russian?
>> Facebook, Google, Twitter spread Russian-backed propaganda
Facebook use imperial propagandist org Atlantic Council to censor information harmful to US image.
They are blocking opposition politics / media. Recently FB banned “In the Now” with 4M subscribers.
Freedom of press anyone?
However Russia — with it’s anti-LGBT laws, etc — doesn’t get a peep.
There are no laws against LGBT in Russia. There is a law against gay propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law
Also there are Chechnya-like regions where it is publicly ashamed. Almost nobody gives a damn about gays in Moscow.
Look at your friends first. Lovely fellow Saudi Arabian regime as well as terrorist groups supported by US are dropping LGBT people from roofs. Is this a Russia fault?
Look at Brazil. Female clone of McCain were proud to endorse US-friendly fashist Bolsanaro.
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/02/nikki-haley-congratulates-brazils-president-jair-bolsanaro-after-he-targets-lgbt-people-on-1st-day/
“Brazil’s new President vows to fight “Marxist garbage” and “climate change hoax”
Of course his first move was against LGBT.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/brazil-lgbt-gay-politician-homophobia-jair-bolsonaro-jean-wyllys-death-threats-rio-de-janeiro-a8745616.html
On that page there are linked instances of calling it “anti-gay law”, one of which is RIA Novosti… (anyway, it seems to at least led to more violence and is vague enough to ban plenty of normal activity, that’s “anti” enough)
…but did you know that children raised by homosexual couples are LESS likely to turn out homosexual themselves than children raised by “traditional family”? 😛
I wonder if they gave it a name after the goddess or their cruiser.
Speaking on the topic:
This is seen by a general public as a good way to steal budget money via government contract. So called “raspil” (milking).