The only reason I ditched GrapheneOS is because it doesn’t support automatic call recording. Sure, you can hit the record button every time you pick up, but who remembers to do that? Plenty of people have asked for this feature on GitHub [0], and the way the lead developer responds makes it look like there are some serious unresolved mental issues at play. Then I watched Louis Rossmann’s video [1] about him, and that sealed it. I refuse to touch Graphene OS with a 20 foot pole.
Why is it that whenever someone makes an accusation of bad behaviour from GrapeheneOS devs, they always end the posts with citations that lead to absolutely nowhere? Where, specifically in that first link as I don't consider a Louis Rossmann video a credible source, are these indications of "unresolved mental issues"?
Don't post another link or quote from anywhere else. You provided that link as evidence and I want to see specifically what it is you expect people to take from it.
Strcat gets harassed based on frivolties, manufactured outrage. There have been repeated accusations of mental health issues without any substantive evidence, including from the person I was just replying to. The evidence they do give is usually of the developer expressing frustration at dealing with those accusations, which is ironic given that those accusations are self evidently true given that the people making those posts are usually accusing them!
All I see in Rossman's video is someone frustrated by a influential person giving a platform to an organisation that, to be frank, has shown themselves to be considerably less trustworthy than GrapheneOS. I believe strcat has been the target of harassment, I believe them because I've seen it happen and given the sensitive nature of GrapheneOS I also think it's not terribly unlikely there was an organized disinfo effort.
That I've seen "This is informative and unfortunate." come up over and over again as if it were some mantra, I guess is sorta telling. People aren't thinking for themselves, they're just uncritically absorbing the opinions of the charming people they're watching on youtube.
Idk anything about this drama, but "frustrated" is generous interpretation. Dude left an comment on a YouTube video and the guy freaked out on him. Seems like exactly the type of behavior he's claiming isn't real. I just want to know the OS I'm installing on my phone isn't at the whims of anyone who could pull a "colours/faker" stunt. But hopefully the project has governance and control that no single person could that that anyways (otherwise it'd be hard to calm it's a "secure" alternative)
I don't use call recording and also don't care about some guy I've never heard of ranting for 18min about some pointless comment he made on youtube causing drama (but I do care about NFC payments so that's why I haven't tried GrapheneOS yet).
> Then I watched Louis Rossmann’s video [1] about him, and that sealed it.
fwiw, Louis Rossmann's employer/key supporter has disbursed grants to GrapheneOS and associated projects.
> Plenty of people have asked for this feature on GitHub
The issue has been deleted, but from the archive, (assuming the "lead developer" jab is aimed at Daniel) Micay says, "This is an issue that's going to be fixed and not a reason to change this." Then goes, "Please use reactions on the top level issue instead of adding comments expressing support for a change. You're sending unnecessary emails to the project developers."
As someone who maintains rather unremarkable FOSS projects, saying NO to feature requests is not at all easy in that it irks the community to no end, let alone one as large as Graphene's. Everyone is quick to reach all sorts of conclusions and pass judgements.
> ... the way the lead developer responds makes it look like there are some serious unresolved mental issues at play
afaik, there's 3 directors (also developers, from what I can tell) who steward GrapheneOS. Don't suppose they are all "mental"?
> FUTO made a $40k donation to GrapheneOS supposedly with no strings attached. They ended up being unhappy with us not making content with them and promoting them.
He didn't step away. He made a post where he "stepped down" as the project lead and instead got replaced by a "GrapheneOS Foundation director", of which there are 3 including him.
That post has been deleted.
As far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than obscuring the leadership of the project a tiny bit. strcat is still active here in the comments.
If so, I'm glad he's still project lead. I would have immediately written off GrapheneOS as a lost cause if he wasn't.
I have spent many hours browsing his comment history and reading his extremely detailed posts on Android and smartphone security. He obviously knows what he's doing. Not only is he competent, it's also clear that he cares way too much about GrapheneOS and is personally invested in it.
Competence and actually giving a shit are the two attributes I respect most in a person. I wouldn't want anyone else making decisions.
And that's coming from a guy who publicly disagreed with him on some ideological issue literally three days ago:
Automatic recording may be illegal in jurisdictions that mandate permission from both parties. I can see why gos might not want to include it in a base operating system.
I am sick of people raising this developer's mental issues. This is 2025, we should be sympathetic and encouranging to any human being struggling with mental issues, helping them get through or at least not trip them or sideline them. GrapheneOS is undeniably a project of great value, if you don't like something about it's development raise it and stop there as you would do with any project. Stop the "Graphene doesn't have X feature but the lead dev is nuts so I don't touch it" meme.
This is besides the point. The lead dev started going on a rant when facing a comment as simple as "this is informative, and unfortunate" on a video that he didn't like, and is unable to parse that statement as anything else but a personal attack at him. He threatened banning Louis over that unless he completely gave in. You can see the whole discussion in the video linked in the post above.
It's a communication issue at the core, and always doubling down is not making it any better.
It portrays the whole project as being unreliable.
Posting "this is informative, and unfortunate" as a comment to a video with a bunch of inflammatory accusations is giving credence to and expressing approval at the substance of it's content.
So no, it isn't as "simple" as the issue being only the literal content of that comment. The context matters.
I know the whole story in depth and you keep iterating over the same thing.
If this person has indeed mental issues, to publicly expose it in a degrading light does not help him, or anyone else really.
If he doesn't have mental issues then all this discussion is unjustly defaming a person and damaging perception around mental issues.
Either way this discussion is bad.
You are the one portraying the project as unreliable. I only judge GrapheneOS by the actual output being delivered, the code and and the binary that is. And if you go down the route of validating the output based on his behaviour then i would flip it on you. I would much rather use an OS developed by a paranoid guy who thinks everyone hunts them. I'd bet it's more secure.
But this is silly-talk. What matters is the deliverable. Has the project given any evidence of being unreliable or not teustworthy?
Completely agree. Writing off the project's numerous benefits on the basis of one missing feature is irrational. Immediately moving on to attack him personally by claiming he's mentally ill makes it impossible to assume good faith.
0. https://web.archive.org/web/20250123135603/https://github.co... 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl1x1Dy-ej4