Leaving Apple & Google: How is /e/ actually Google-free?

Yesterday, the privacy-focused /e/ mobile ecosystem that we have been developing for one year, has been covered at InfoSec Handbook, with a focus on privacy concerns and on the actual “de-googlisation” of the system.

The author raised some concerns, and concluded that “While /e/ looks promising, it isn’t Google-free by now.”

Continue reading “Leaving Apple & Google: How is /e/ actually Google-free?”

From Sovereign operating systems to the Sovereign digital chain

Several years ago I read about some intiatives to build a “Sovereign operating system”. Quickly I realized that, at the age of Internet, it was a depecrated idea and a total non-sense, and instead I started to talk about the idea of the “Sovereign digital chain”.

I developed the concept in a chapter of this book “Reflections on Programming Systems” that was published in 2019 at Springer.

And since 2018 I’m trying to make it a reality with the /e/ project at https://e.foundation 🙂

Leaving Apple and Google: a message to /e/ users and supporters!

This is the end of 2018, and this year has been incredible.

By the end of 2017, I posted a few messages here about my quest for more data privacy, and corresponding plans to “Leave Apple and Google”. At this time, I thought I would just customize an Android ROM a bit and that it would be enough for my use and a few others…

Continue reading “Leaving Apple and Google: a message to /e/ users and supporters!”

Quick updates about /e/ !

We have released /e/ first beta one month ago, and we already have delivered more than 1,000 test accounts…

We have also opened a new “community” website with lots of contents and forum at https://community.e.foundation – join now!

And a new “crowdfunding” reward for more storage.

Read our latest newsletter below (in several languages):

Leaving Apple & Google: /e/ first beta, 1000 test accounts (!), new community forums, new reward…

 

EU fines Google 4.3Bn€ for Android monopoly, and it’s a good thing.

Today, we learned that the European Union has fined Google a record amount of 4.3Bn€, for illegal practises with their Android smartphone operating system.

In particular, Android is shipping pre-installed with the Google Chrome web-browser pre-installed by default, and Google search enabled by default, on every Android device. Continue reading “EU fines Google 4.3Bn€ for Android monopoly, and it’s a good thing.”

About me (cliquer ici pour la version Française)

Gaël DuvalI was born in 1973 and got my Master’s degree in Computer Sciences (Systems & Networks) at University of Caen, Normandy in 1997.

In 1998 I created the popular Mandrake-Linux system which was the first Linux distribution to care about ease of use (6 years before Ubuntu actually). Then I co-founded MandrakeSoft which went public in 2001. Mandrake-Linux later became Mandriva Linux with the aquisition of Conectiva in Brazil, it was acquired in 2010 by a Russian Investment fund.

There is a chapter about the early story of Mandrake-Linux and Mandrakesoft, and how we took part of the Linux & Open Source revolution, in this excellent book “Rebel Code” by Glyn Moody (here at Amazon, here at Google Books for a preview). I was also interviewed about Mandrake more recently, at FOSSForce.

Starting from 2007, I’ve developed the Ulteo project, a multi-platform application and desktop delivery solution for corporates, with partners. The project was aquired in 2014 by AZNetwork SAS.

In 2015 I’m working on building a “Startup Factory” with partners, called “NFactory”, launching September 2016. I also have new projects linked to mobile development, Artifical Intelligence and chatbots in my spare time.

I’m generally performant at envisioning and bootstraping new projects from mostly nothing. I’m especially interested in participating in potentially disruptive projects in the software industry (AI…) and/or in the “energy field” (photovoltaics, electricity storage, electric cars).

Since 2016 I’m an Advisor for the CommonSearch: project, a radically transparent search engine for the web.

In 2017 I started /e/, a mobile phone OS and associated web-services with respect of user’s privacy. /e/OS is a fully “unGoogled” Android from the core OS to online services. This is a non-profit project, in the public interest (see the crowdfunding campaign here). Then I created Murena, the company that sells smartphones with /e/OS and the Murena private cloud.

I’m defending the idea that a “Sovereign operating system” is a non-sense in 2019. Instead, all the “digital chain” must be considered, and Open Source is key in those matters. I developed these ideas in a chapter writen for a Springer Book: “Reflections on Operating Systems” (ISBN 978-3-319-97226-8).

Recent press review:

  • a video discussion at the 2022 Nextcloud Conference

  • my presentation of /e/OS at the 2022 Nextcloud Conference

  • article about /e/OS at ZDNet
  • a video interview at Coder Stories

Contact: Please feel free to contact me by email at gaelduval at indidea dot org, if you want to discuss something or just say hello! 🙂

Find me on:

– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaelduvalprofile/

– Twitter: https://twitter.com/gael_duval

– Facebook (pro): https://www.facebook.com/gaelduvalprofessionnal

– And on Wikipedia (yes!)

Personal interests:

– Music (listening, playing guitar, piano & drums, recording/producing) & Arts
– Wine (tasting, producing)
– Physics/Astronomy…
– many others actually 🙂

Official pictures of Gaël Duval ! (images licence: CC BY-SA 4.0)gael_duval_officiel

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