this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
576 points (91.1% liked)
196
4320 readers
2441 users here now
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Moderator Guidelines
- Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
Don't mistake correleation and causation. I don't know the specifics, but bootloaders are software and socs are hardware. The bootloaders keys are fused into the hardware, so that only that bootloaders can boot. When you buy a soc, no keys are fused in, this happens at the manufacturer factory deployment process. The bootloaders can then decide if the device supports an 'unlocked' state, and displays the warnings if unlocked. The bootloaders are build and configured by the manufacturer. However, the soc vendors will give the product vendors a SDK containing tested sources and configuration for their soc.
Here is what could explain your observation, manufacturer is lazy and doesn't care to change the default configuration of the bootloader. And the default configuration of Mediatek and Qualcomm SDKs are different.
There is a semi-recent thread about Mediatek at https://www.reddit.com/r/PocoPhones/comments/1cuwkm0/lies_about_mediatek/ where it started that their source code is incomplete, they don't provide it at all. Hence no manufacturer can mainline it. And this is one of the reasons custom ROM development for them is so slow compared to Qualcomm SOCs.
Yes, as your link states, it is the product manufacturers responsibility to release the code. And if they don't have it, they can sue Mediatek.
But very likely have access to the source, otherwise they couldn't adapt the kernel & co. to their boards. Soc is just one part of the whole board, full of other components that need kernel configurations...
But anyway, this thread it about the kernel, we talked about the bootloader and why it cannot be unlocked, which is a separate issue.
Manufacturer needs access to the bootloader to put their Android key for the image, which contains their special apps, in place. So they have sources. To be able to flash a different bootloader, they need to be able to fuse the bootloader key into the SOC, so they have a unlocked soc. So they have everything to offer unlockable bootloaders, if they care for it.
Yeah sorry, I kind of went on a tangent.
Regarding the source, I was under the impression that manufacturers get some kind of devkit for the SoC that works against a given kernel version (one of the LTS ones Android usually uses) and binary drivers for the non-open parts. One could sue the manufacturer after buying a phone and demand release of the source, but this won't hit meditated because the vendors won't go after them or their license gets terminated. Legally difficult but similar to the grsecurity situation: yeah you have rights, but if you exercise them, we choose not to do business with you anymore.
Shameful situation and I think Google wanted to get out of this legal area when they developed Fuchsia as this concept would solve technical and legal issues for manufacturers.
I'm not sure where this discussion stemmed from because from my knowledge, the Fairphone does allow custom ROMs, though you lose some boot security functionality? I didn't read too much into it yet