I hope they replace the AOSP keyboard with FUTO keyboard. I'm mostly fine with the other stock apps, but that keyboard was the one thing I absolutely had to end up replacing due to its jenky behavior.
I hope they replace the AOSP keyboard with FUTO keyboard. I'm mostly fine with the other stock apps, but that keyboard was the one thing I absolutely had to end up replacing due to its jenky behavior.
I agree FUTO is the best right now but it's not open source so they won't.
The source is here: https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/latinime
Featured prominently in the "Source Code" container on https://keyboard.futo.tech/
AFAIK everything FUTO makes is open source? I haven't seen a counter-example (I have not looked hard though!), and https://futo.tech/about claims the following:
>All FUTO-funded projects are expected to be open source or develop a plan to eventually become so. No effort will ever be taken to hide from the people what their computers are doing, to limit how they use them, or to modify their behavior through their software.
From the LICENSE file:
https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/latinime/-/blob/master/LICE...
>You may modify the software only for non-commercial purposes such as personal use for research, experiment, and testing for the benefit of public knowledge, personal study, private entertainment, hobby projects, amateur pursuits, or religious observance, all without any anticipated commercial application.
Violates clause 3 (Derived Works) and clause 6 (No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor) of the Open Source Definition [0].
>You may distribute the software or any part of its source code only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.
Violates clause 1 (Free Redistribution) and clause 6.
>Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others.
Violates clause 3.
It is a "source available" license, not Open Source.
[0] https://opensource.org/osd
Ah, yeah, agreed - "source available" fits that much better. I'm pretty sure that's the same for immich (which is also from FUTO).
Thank you for the details! That lays it out nicely for anyone else passing through.
Immich doesn't use the FUTO license because they acquired it and it was already under a copyleft open source license.
Thanks for sharing this! I spoke out of ignorance, having only considered the source code being available but not the licensing. (though I find narrowly defining "open source" to be rather pointless) I haven't tried every open-source Android keyboard, I've been very happy with FUTO Keyboard. Kinda too bad it's not compatible with being shipped with GrapheneOS, but it's also understandable why they'd license it this way.
https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/latinime/-/blob/master/LICE...
It is not open source. They use a custom source available license. There's no way any Android distribution would include it. A layman's reading is that FUTO could claim license violation on account of the distribution accepting donations (non-commercial use only) and there's a weird clause about not accusing FUTO of patent infringement.
Alternatively they could ask FUTO for a commercial license.
Maybe, but there are better candidates GrapheneOS is more interested in.
Such as?
Florisboard.
Thanks! I wasn't familiar with it (using FUTO now), but it looks really good.
Right, they are adhering to a definition of open that includes free as in liberty, so licensing matters. What good is it to read the source if I don’t have rights to modify and redistribute?
curious: what are the advantages of futo vs leantype? i use the latter but never looked deep into it, it just seemed the easiest better than aosp thing on f-droid
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Heliboard is good, customizable, and actually open source - GPL3.
If you are referring to Heliboard as an AOSP board replacement, that cannot work, GrapheneOS cannot use GPLv3 projects.
If you mean it as a user installed app, please disregard.
Could you please elaborate? I wouldn't think this causes an issue unless they need to link against it, which I don't think they do.
Unsure what you mean by link against it. GPLv3 requires making the entire project it is bundled with GPLv3 as well. GrapheneOS would need to relicense the entire OS and bundled apps as GPLv3 to allow them to use any app with that license.
They mean linking as in [1] against a GPLv3 work to create a derived work. Simply including a GPLv3 application in a aggregation of different works (e.g. an OS image) does not require everything else to be GPLv3.
The GPLv3 only applies to a work and works derived from it, so either if you take an existing GPLv3 project and modify it or if you link against a GPLv3 project. In these cases, the other code needs to be under licenses that are compatible with the GPLv3.
This is clearly described in the GPLv3:
A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linker_(computing)
Literally none of what you said is true.
Go read the GPLv3 license and/or ask yourself how Linux distributions are able to ship a mix of GPLv3, v2, MIT, BSD, etc licensed software all in the same image.
GrapheneOS may or may not have a policy against shipping GPLv3 software (I don't know), but if they do, it's a political or business decision, not a restriction imposed by GPLv3.
I like Heliboard a lot, but its autocorrect gets stuck in the mud all the time.
It completely falls apart and starts injecting nonsense phrases made up of nonsense misspelled words moment you miss a space ('v' or 'b') or type a really long word it doesn't know.
It also stubbornly incorrects other things like 'a' into "and" if it thinks it knows a phrase fragment. It's always wrong. It just happened to me now twice. Above, "or type a" became "or type and". Also, "it's" became "IRS".
Heliboard would be perfect if it stuck to word-only spellcheck and never split words. Just now again, it tried correcting "heliboard" into "hellenized" and "he lib oars".
This is not a matter of just lowering how aggressive the spellcheck is. It will still generate slop every time. The only real option is to completely turn it off. Futo can have similar problems, but there are a lot more options to tweak and the defaults aren't so bad.
I turn off automatic autocorrect except for "I". I can use it manually when I need it (jot often).
Autosuggestions are nice to have but there is no autocorrection that really works well in my experience regardless of OS.
this was my experience. the autocorrect for heliboard is beyond atrocious and renders the keyboard unusable.
i ended up just using gboard on gos because every other one i tried fell short.
hopefully the stock gos one can be reworked into an actually decent keyboard.
I use Gboard with the network permission disabled. It works well but I hope they have a better stock keyboard, I haven't found any others that don't annoy me in one way or another.
Google can shuttle network requests to any of their other apps (or play services, if that's running) via IPC, even with the network permission disabled in Gboard.
So if you're using Graphene for privacy from Google specifically, it's not safe to install things like Gboard even with the network permission disabled. Even if they don't use IPC in this way today, there's no telling what the Google-of-tomorrow will do.
there's no telling what the Google-of-tomorrow will do.
This is true and even vastly understated. Google is like the Walter White of companies. Starts out innocent, turned into a monster, everyone around him astonished at the dark, depraved change.
So if one thinks "nah, Google wouldn't do that", I have a bridge to sell you...
The latest FUTO works just as well as Gboard for me. Their somewhat recent update to their swiping library really changed the game, and their voice recognition is also pretty decent.
It seems like work on voice recognition has halted entirely though. On https://keyboard.futo.tech/voice-input-models , community models and other models have been "coming soon" forever, and in the end the only model they offer is whisper-small, a very basic model from 2022. Which in AI is like prehistory.
Same. Used to use GBoard, not FUTO is as good so no reason to.
not->now
fyi disabling network permission doesn't protect against deliberate and coordinated data exfiltration. Apps can still communicate with other apps, for example with Google Play Services or any other app.
futo is running whisper to transcript and it is local only
I wish Futo had the ability to use a typing heat map for more accurate predictions like SwiftKey. It constantly suggests "AMD" when I am trying to type "and". I have fat thumbs OK! I don't even have the caps on and I RARELY talk about AMD. It's just the one thing I miss. I do find the predictions generally less accurate as well, but perfectly usable.
They cannot. The license FUTO uses is not open source and is incompatible with being bundled with GrapheneOS.
Why not Unexpected Keyboard?
As someone who uses and loves Unexpected Keyboard: the higher learning curve compared to other keyboards would be the main reason I can think of. The reliance on swipes in particular is something that's likely alien to a lot of smartphone users.
On the other hand, I use Thumb Key (https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key) and think Unexpected Keyboard doesn't go far enough.
Probably never happening in the next millennium. GrapheneOS has a gripe against FUTO because it is tied to Louis Rossmann, which dared to challenge GrapheneOS's social skills in the past.
Daniel Micay stepped down as the lead dev and was where most of the lack of social skills was coming from.