In a world where privacy seems to be at a premium, it’s no surprise that companies like Silent Circle and BlackBerry have attempted to harness that market of people who place significant weight on privacy. Attempts to do so have been met with disappointment, though Gaël Duval still wants to capitalize on that target niche with his eelo mobile operating system.
A prominent member of the open source and Linux communities, Duval seems tired of having his privacy be at the mercy of companies like Apple and Google.
As a result, he teamed up with two other developers to create eelo, an Android-based operating system that places an emphasis on privacy.
Duval says he looked at alternatives, such as Firefox OS, but insinuated they failed at being simple and intuitive enough for folks to use. He also said the idea is not to create a Linux-based smartphone operating system, since doing so requires a great deal of effort that, as companies like Canonical eventually learned, failed miserably.
Instead, eelo was born from the existing LineageOS, itself an Android-based open-source operating system that rose from the ashes of CyanogenMod. However, Duval said this was not good enough for his needs, since aesthetics were lacking and the number of included “micro-details” would be “showstoppers for regular users.”
The question, then, is whether Duval will succeed with eelo. Unlike other attempts, which paired privacy-focused operating systems with dedicated hardware, Duval wants eelo to be a “non-profit project, a project ‘in the public interest.’” That doesn’t mean eelo will be free for everyone — Duval envisions preloaded versions of eelo on smartphones and premium services for enterprise — but that profit will not be a primary objective.
Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/eelo-android-privacy-google-827275/
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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