Opinion Platform

Silenced No More

Views on DivestOS

Divested Computing "Group", Tad [Redacted] also known as SkewedZeppelin, IratePorcupine at GitLab, Subzer0Carnage at Reddit, SubzeroCarnage at Hacker News; Tavi, Ram-Rod Tikki, Rikki, Darzee, Olaf, and more in XMPP Multi-User Chats and elsewhere:

Summary

Recommendation:
Downgraded to Avoid, from Maybe

May 5, 2023, update November 1, 2023, February 17, 2024, March 18 and 31 2024

TL;DR: The lone developer has been exhibiting more unstable behavior similar to their idol, Daniel Micay. This convinced me to give up and abandon DivestOS and Divested apps, completely. I cannot trust someone who is selling a product - an operating system and apps - by asking for donations to an individual, and suddenly decides to try to disguise their identity, without giving any explanation.

I was an early supporter of DivestOS from soon after it was announced at the F-Droid forums in June, 2020, until the DivestOS XMPP multi-user chat was over-run and manipulated by Daniel Micay (strcat, strncat, thestinger) and his brigade of followers and GrapheneOS fanatics, in November-December, 2022. After that, I lost my enthusiasm, to put it mildly. As a hobby "passion" project, DivestOS may have difficulty maintaining and sustaining, unless major donor support is obtained, although it has persisted for almost a decade so far.

I thought DivestOS was what I wanted on my phones, and I used it for a couple years. Now I've mostly switched to CalyxOS and good ole vanilla LineageOS, without Gapps, instead.

As of February 2024, one of my three oldest phones now runs PostmarketOS, and two others are mostly turned off until I install something else. I have un-installed ALL Divested apps.

Pros:

• Frequent updates - more than one per month including webview and OS updates, sometimes two or three, if you believe the updates are important for fixing serious vulnerability issues; I have doubts.
• Initial install files are significantly smaller than many other alternative Android ROMs operating systems, because of removing or not including some firmware blobs, and default (bloatware) apps.
• Says priority is on privacy and security, but I've seen no reputable, objective information such as independent penetration testing. Tad (or SkewedZeppelin or Tavi) seems to do what is possible with the skills and tools Tad has available. Kuketz blog says Tad wrote good documentation on the external connections the OS makes over WiFi.
• Supports older End-of-Life (EOL) phones, with some security improvements, extending their usable life, at risk, after vendor support has ended.
• Supports free software, and was given the 2023 Outstanding New Free Software Contributor recognition award from the Free Software Foundation.
• No history of brigading and abusing Wikipedia, as far as I know, but certainly has a history of using many aliases, and has the capability and motivation.
• Community: Used independent XMPP server to host Multi-User Chat (MUC). For a couple years it was casual, with free exchange of opinions, until the GrapheneOS brigades invaded. Recently Tad has tightened down on allowing entry to "speaking" in Tad's MUCs. New users are kept silenced for days, weeks, or longer.
• Started partial mirroring to Codeberg in late 2023.
• Wanted to change the included, FireFOX-based, Mull browser's icon to a racoon, but got a badger instead. Honey Badger don't care.

Cons:

• The lone dev, Tad [Redacted], has limited, and purposely unclear, education and employment background, being a high school drop-out, and having only "non technical" payed jobs, if you can believe what Tad said. Tad's Android dev skills are apparently self-taught, with some assistance from Daniel Micay.

  I am not a high school dropout and I've worked numerous technical jobs where I've for example had my own entire office
  
  Ram-Rod Tikki aka Tad [Redacted], March 31, 2024, DivestOS Mobile Offtopic Multi-User Chat
  

  See Note 1.

• Tad [Redacted] has a long history of non-transparency and not releasing source codes. Criticized other projects for doing the same thing.
• Participates at numerous discussion platforms, attempting to provide objective information to help improve other Android OS projects; attract users and donors by making DivestOS look better than competing alternatives, in the ways Tad prefers, at the others' forums. Has been criticized as advertising or overly critical commenting. Was banned from /e/ forum, and SkewedZeppelin account was involuntrarily "anonymized" to anon88181694 in around June, 2023. Last post (archive).
• Tad changed name to Tavi on websites divestOS.org and divested.dev, causing confusion because it was not announced or explained. Tad also had Tad's websites spotco.us and divested.dev removed from archive.org. As of this writing, links to divestos.org and divestos.xyz on the Wayback Machine (archive.org) are shown on DivestOS History webpage, and whois spotco.us returns Registrant, Admin and Tech Name: Tad [Redacted] These changes cause confusion at best and appearance of questionable intentions at worst.
• Does not hesitate to criticise other projects, but does not accept criticism well.
• By supporting EOL phones without vendor firmware support, encourages using phones with known security vulnerabilities. Criticises other alternative OS for doing similar without proper documentation according to Tad.
• Frequent updates - more than one a month, requiring large - 100s of MB to Gigabytes - downloads. Separates updates of large size webview, rather than just including them with OS updates, requiring several large downloads each month.
• Supports too many phones, including many the developer does not have, so cannot test.
• There is only one developer who has numerous projects, or lots of irons in lots of fires, and they struggle to make ends meet financially.
• The lone developer, Tad (SkewedZeppelin) was given assistance by Daniel Micay around 2015 to port CopperheadOS to his OnePlus One phone. Apparently, as a result, Tad wears rose colored glasses when it comes to Daniel Micay (strcat, strncat, thestinger), and gives Micay too much benefit of the doubt. Has become more like Micay in terms of unstable behavior and communications difficulties.
• Dependent on LineageOS; and GrapheneOS and CalyxOS for some features. This can also be viewed as a positive - taking advantage of the best of available open sources.
• Uses Microsoft's proprietary GitHub for development and bug tracking. Uses proprietary GitLab mirror and bug tracking. Says they want to also use more free software supporting Git platforms, eventually. Started partial mirroring to Codeberg in late 2023.
• Community: Provided Matrix bridge favored by GrapheneOS brigades. Then bowed to pressure from GrapheneOS brigades to ban participants who were not impressed by GrapheneOS and said so. Responds irately and bans participants who disagree too much. Takes criticism as being disrespectful. XMPP Multi-user chats are in moderated mode, with 10-20% (of 40-120 accounts) muted. New users are kept silenced (muted) for days, weeks, or longer.
• Microg and google apps support: As of July 2023 (archive), now supports microg while saying microg is not recommended and not supported, so this former pro is now a con for me. Originally had no or little extra support for proprietary Google apps (see page top quote above), although some apps may work. Makes a GmapsWV wrapper app for using Google Maps, which is similar to using a web browser, which also works.

I almost expect one day to see Tad [Redacted] say spotco.us (archive.is showing redirect to divested.dev) was the website for a successful small business. My recollection is Tad previously described it as something that never went anywhere. My recollection is Tad previously described his education and work background as not finishing high school, and only working non technical jobs. Maybe my recollection is inaccurate, or maybe Tad [Redacted] wasn't clear. I could dig out old MUC ceb files and retrieve the transcripts, but I won't. When you have concluded someone is untrustworthy, as I have about Tad [Redacted], it doesn't really matter precisely what they said back then versus what they say now. I note in the more recent version, quoted above, Tad [Redacted] does not say "I am a high school graduate". I also note in Tad [Redacted]'s resume the education and work experience sections were "Redacted for public release".

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