Talk:CopperheadOS/Archive 1

Archive 1

Privacy

On 20:53, 17 May 2018‎, 99.230.81.58 removed the paragraph about privacy, giving "removing original research based on a very narrow interpretation of a first party source, it substantially misrepresents the OS" as the reason for the deletion. Can we get an improved, "non-narrow" and "non-misrepresenting" privacy paragraph going, as an alternative to just deleting it?

The original text was:

The manufacturer states in the CopperheadOS documentation:[1]

There aren’t analytics / telemetry in CopperheadOS.

The manufacturer also provides documentation and recommendations on installing privacy-friendly applications.

The OS-wide privacy features are found across many levels and areas of the OS, e.g.:

  • Per-application network access can be managed in CopperheadOS settings.
  • Default DNS set to privacy-friendly provider
  • Ability to choose an offline calendar instead of online services
  • Option to encrypt SMS

A list of the connections made by the OS itself is given in the documentation. [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.158.150.91 (talkcontribs) 11:23, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b "CopperheadOS usage guide". April 7, 2018.
This information is no longer accurate, in addition to being from a first party source. The new CopperheadOS has tracking / DRM in the Updater app to enforce licensing as part of it becoming a closed source product. This documentation was written for the original open source project that's now GrapheneOS and hasn't been updated for the new CopperheadOS to reflect that most of those features are gone. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 01:34, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Wrong official website?

The "official website" currently appears on the rendered page as "https://www.copperhead.co" whereas the actual website seems to be "https://copperhead.co". The former gives a certificate error, the latter works fine.

I tried to edit the page to fix it, but it's all template-based and I have no idea where the actual URL comes from. It doesn't appear anywhere in the page source! At least, not as far as I can tell. How do we fix this?

Fritzophrenic (talk) 20:41, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

This was corrected in the article (uses the canonical URL) and the redirect was fixed on their site so this issue is resolved. Pitchcurve (talk) 19:25, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Offending actions

Being fired from a company is defined as Dismissal. [[1] Wording of previous article is incorrect as being cut off from a company could mean laid off or furloughed. In addition, specific details were outlined in the firing letter[1]

Source article definitely says Micay was fired.--74.198.90.66 (talk) 20:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
Reddit, Twitter or blog posts with speculation on an Android-related blog are not valid sources for this. A letter from the company is a first-party source and cannot be taken as fact in a dispute like this. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 23:56, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
Strongly suggest reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons and adjusting the article as required to comply with the rules. It's in a really bad shape already, posting speculation and interpretation of first party sources in a biased way. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 23:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
Why are first party sources (previous developer) referenced in article links? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.136.118.207 (talk) 15:54, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Reddit posts aren't a source article. The Reddit post is a post from the owner of the open source project about threats from the company. It does not say that the claims from the company are accurate... 69.158.183.116 (talk) 01:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
There's no source even showing that Daniel Micay was an employee of the company, let alone that he was dismissed. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 01:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
There is a lack of evidence that Daniel Micay was an employee of the company and this is one of the issues contested between GrapheneOS and Copperhead, along with the ownership of the source code. Secondary sources do not provide anything that can be used, and it is the open source project's word against the company. The article should not editorialize by going beyond what reliable secondary sources (not blog posts or press releases) state, and it needs to distinguish between an article stating something and the company / CEO being quoted/paraphrased by the article which is not a statement by the secondary source but rather a quote and that context needs to be preserved. Pitchcurve (talk) 08:17, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Source-availability

On June 15 2020 an anonymous user changed the status of CopperheadOS to closed source. Per the wikipedia definition of source-available, CopperheadOS still qualifies. Further, there is no first, second or third party source for the change in source-availability, suggesting that the source is still available on request. The definition of source-available can be very broadly interpreted, while Open-source and Closed-source have very narrow definitions which do not fit the information publicly available about CopperheadOS. I hope that user will engage here and desist on this change, and not further vandalize the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VenerableEntwhistle (talkcontribs) 19:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

It is not source available anymore. The citation that was provided for that earlier (a first party source) shows sources for the releases are now only available to internal partners. That is closed source, not source available. Needing to enter a partnership to get access to sources is not equivalent to sources being available upon request.
It is also certainly not vandalism to make corrections to the article. It should be noted that you are ALSO an anonymous user. Having an account does not mean you are not anonymous. In fact, an IP address is in many ways less anonymous than what you are doing: hiding behind a handle and claiming others are anonymous vandals.
It should also be noted that you've made assorted changes to the article that are inaccurate and make false claims about the renaming of the open source project to GrapheneOS and Copperhead's proprietary fork of that project. It seems likely that you have conflicting interests and are tied to the Copperhead project. You're trying to promote the project here rather than improving the accuracy of the coverage and probably should not be editing the article. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 05:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows for an example of how this could be done appropriately. It should be stated that it's closed source, with source availability through becoming a partner. If you want to change it to say that, like the Windows article, that would be appropriate and I will not revert it. However, claiming that the project is a mix of open source and source available is no longer true. I hope that we can come to a reasonable consensus such as the approach in the Windows article. I do not think it is accurate to portray it as simply being source available without caveats just like the Windows article, since the situation is very similar. Requesting sources is not enough to gain access to them. It's up to them to decide if they want to accept you into that program. The term source available was previously used here to mean that EVERYONE has access to the sources, but not under an open source license. That is no longer the case. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 05:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Every change I have made is based on the material referenced. The article was far below encyclopaedic standards when I began editing it. The citations are largely firsthand, meaning that by default they are not encyclopaedic, and navigating between the intent of the original author and the cited sources with objectivity in mind is very difficult. What I came to seemed to be a midpoint between views that other users so far had not disagreed with. That is all I have attempted to do. If you disagree about my objective interpretation of the events referenced, I would have to suggest that it is you who have a conflict of interest. I desisted in my reversions. More recent edits were made by other users who apparently disagree with your assertions about what qualifies as source-available.VenerableEntwhistle —Preceding undated comment added 20:22, 17 June 2020
The situation changed: they stopped making the sources available to everyone. The article was accurate before. It was no longer accurate. Sources are only available to partners and they can reject giving someone access. That's not simply source available without caveats, as it was before. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 00:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
BTW, I'd say that the CEO editing the article himself to defame their former business partner through citing first party sources (themselves and the company) is quite problematic. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 00:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Note the lack of a response on the talk page from the editors trying to use this page to market the OS instead of stating facts. Fact: sources stopped being made public in 2019. It is no longer source available. The sources are only available through the partner network for people that are approved to have access, similar to closed source operating systems like Windows. Why do the same editors keep editing the page via VPNs / refreshed dynamic IPs rather than responding here? How can it be claimed to be source available when the sources are only available to approved partners? Look at the Microsoft Windows page for an example of how to properly convey this. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 14:52, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
The sources are NOT available to the public. The article should follow the same convention as the Microsoft Windows article. It states this "Closed-source | Source-available (through Shared Source Initiative)" which is very similar to the situation with the CopperheadOS sources now that they stopped making it publicly available. Obtaining access requires requesting permission and being approved by them. Also, people involved with the company really need to stop editing the article and coordinating their edits in their Telegram / Matrix channels. Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons is also relevant considering that this article is being used to spread libel from Copperhead targeted at the developer of the open source project they forked to make their product. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 01:26, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Hi all! Shared_Source_Initiative is classified as Source-Available licenses "when eligibility criteria are met". Do we have any information about Copperhead eligibility? Taybella (talk) 00:08, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
CopperheadOS doesn't use any of the SSI licenses. Even the official build guide says that they are only available for partners. There is no licensing information disclosed publicly. We should follow the same as the windows article which says closed source and source available through approved partners Anupritaisno1 (talk) 03:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
@VenerableEntwhistle, Taybella, and Anupritaisno1: Hi, I'm the admin that protected the article. It looks like the dispute here is over whether to describe CopperheadOS's licensing as "closed source, Source-available for approved partners (since late 2019)", or as "source-available". Is there any other wording that people would be satisfied with? For example, in the Microsoft Windows article the OS is described as "proprietary" in the lead section, and lists the known licence details in the infobox. We could take the same approach here. Or we could omit licensing information completely from the lead section, and put it all in the infobox ("CopperheadOS" is an operating system for smartphones and tablet computers"). Lets figure out what our options are before we decide which one should go in the article. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:25, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
@Mr. Stradivarius:That makes sense to me. I was under the impression of an OS being under the license of the 'most copy-left' components. I can see why iOS has the same description as you mentioned. Taybella (talk) 22:25, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
I have been reading up across Wikipedia about how each is defined here. I think it is very important that the definition be applied consistently across the encyclopedia. In that interest and in my understanding of how CopperheadOS is licensed and how their sources are made available, I do not believe that any well defined label fits. SSI is a specific license, so that is out. I still believe that CopperheadOS fits the definition given for Source-available internally, as well as agreeing with the licensing information given at copperhead.co/android/docs/licensing/ . There are no stipulations made for how recent sources must be, or what steps are acceptible for obtaining sources in the Source-available article. Is this a deficiency of that article, or is (as I suspect) the industry definition of Source-available also uncertain outside of license types? Both Open-source and Closed-source have very specific definitions and associated licenses, as I have stated elsewhere in the Talk section. CopperheadOS includes GPL2 licensed components, which is an open-source license. I can fully understand disagreement with calling CopperheadOS open-source because they include open-source components. I cannot find any information about closed-source licenses associated with CopperheadOS, but I can admit my research may not have been extensive enough. VenerableEntwhistle (talk) 16:34, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
CopperheadOS was previously source available. The sources are no longer available. The article needs to accurately communicate it. Sources only being available internally and to approved partners is the definition of closed source. Please see the Microsoft Windows article for an OS with the same setup for sources: closed-source for the public, shared source under non-open-source source availability licenses for approved partners. Microsoft Windows also uses code based on open source projects, and that isn't relevant to the overall source model it uses. Trying to argue that internal source code sharing makes it source available simply doesn't make sense, that's what closed source means. You've repeatedly made inaccurate and biased changes to the article to promote the company including adding misquotes of articles (see below). If Copperhead wants this article to state that the sources are available, they need to make the sources available. Copperhead needs to stop having people edit this article to promote their product through inaccurate claims. This is not marketing material. People should not be editing this article in coordination with Copperhead. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 19:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
It's no longer source available and the available references do not justify making that claim, particularly since the term is not well defined. Rather than arguing about what source available means, the term should probably be avoided in favor of calling it proprietary software in the introduction since that is something everyone should be able to agree on and is much simpler wording. The history section can explain the details. It already covers the switch away from open source. It is not clear if Copperhead complies with the GPLv2 or if they develop any substantial changes to the Linux kernel in the first place. It's one subset of the OS and they refer to the OS as a whole being under a non-commercial usage license, as do secondary sources. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
CopperheadOS was originally open source. It switched to a non-commercial usage license in 2016 which made it source available. In 2018, the original repositories were renamed by the developers to GrapheneOS and Copperhead created a new CopperheadOS with a more closed approach to development. At the end of 2019, Copperhead stopped publishing sources and then announced a partner program for having access to the sources approved by the company. The article does not currently convey these details. There was a paragraph in the history section with references but it appears that VenerableEntwhistle removed it from the article as part of changing it to simply say source available. The history is mess of edit wars with inaccurate edit summaries, so it's not entirely clear what has happened and it may not have been VenerableEntwhistle's intention to strip out that information. However, based on the recent history, they appear to have repeatedly removed that nuanced information and replaced it with the poorly defined claim of it being [[source available] that is not backed up by the available sources. It would be better to call it proprietary software and explain that sources are available to approved partners under a non-commercial usage license. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Mrstradivarius I'm sorry I'm new here and don't know how to tag someone but there are other issues

An older version of the article had citations and explanations for why it is closed source before venerableentwhistle reverted it to a "clean" version without accusations. Here's the original: "In August 2016, CopperheadOS announced future versions of the operating system, based on Android Nougat 7.x, would be released under a no-commercial-usage license until more funding could be acquired.[1] The company stopped publishing sources for the OS after December 2019.[2] Instead, access is only available to approved partners through a shared source program.[3] As of August 2020, the licensing is still a non-commercial usage license and the company has not announced a timeline for fulfilling their commitment to return to open source licensing. " Should we revert back to this to clarify why the article says "closed source and source available"? Also I've been thinking of a better way to word it but the last person to change it from closed source to source available does have a valid point. We can't just say it is closed source. We need to say something like "closed source but source available for approved partners" to avoid confusion. I accept that the wording needs improvement

Here's a fee things I thought about Closed source (source available for approved partners) (since 2019) But this also doesn't look so great, do we put the "since 2019" in the previous () itself or does it need to be separate Or do we put since 2019 in superscript and also make it the citation? I'm not sure exactly how to edit it correctly Anupritaisno1 (talk) 19:36, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

You can send someone a notification by linking to their user page like this: [[User:Anupritaisno1]]. This comes out as User:Anupritaisno1. There is also a special template for making these kinds of links: {{reply to}}. So you could use {{reply to|Anupritaisno1}} and it will have the same effect, but looks a little nicer.

As for the sourcing explanation that was removed, there is a problem with it - all of the sources are primary sources, i.e. they are written by Copperhead themselves. We can use primary sources for some things, like basic facts about the company, but for anything that requires interpretation we need to use third-party, reliable sources. This is because we are not allowed to put original research into Wikipedia articles - Wikipedia articles should summarise independent, third-party sources, and not make any inferences of their own. In particular, I would say that citing Copperhead's GitHub repo to say that the company stopped publishing sources in 2019 is not allowed by the no-original-research policy. If there are third-party sources out there that discuss the availability of CopperheadOS source code, then we can use those, but if not, then we may have to leave this part out of the article.

If we can find sources that describe the history around the licensing situation, then we probably shouldn't try to fit all of that detail into the infobox or into the first line of the article. There is simply too much information to convey there. Instead, a more typical thing to do would be to describe only the current licensing situation in the infobox and on the first line, and then describe the details of how the licence has changed in the history section, or maybe in a dedicated "Licensing" section. If we can't find good sources, then we may have to be content with describing the current licensing situation in the infobox and on the first line. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:09, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Anupritaisno1, Autobotsrepair, Mr. Stradivarius, Pitchcurve, Taybella, and VenerableEntwhistle: "Open Source" or No? In this summary list most are simply Yes or No. A few are Partial. CopperheadOS stands out as one of a couple that say something, uhm, vague. I suggest changing that to a No. In balance it fits the current situation best, IMO. I also agree the best summary description is closed source/Proprietary. The license history and timing are unimportant, for wikipedia, and especially in the lead, unless there is "secondary" sourcing to use for it. ColorOS or Fire_OS are a couple other similar examples. We're supposed to be reducing primary sourcing and adding secondary sources - also a reminder to self. -- Yae4 (talk) 06:27, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the closed source term for this but as seen a few others like User: Taybella feel the need to add source available

However we can't merely add source available and removed closed source. That's not correct either

I decided to use both closed source and source available in the infobox as well as the description to satisfy both User: Autobotsrepair and User: Taybella's edits

I'm not quite happy with the styling and grammar around the description either. I really just leave this up to you. Just remember that there are 2 sides. One side feels it should say closed source and the other says it should be source available Anupritaisno1 (talk) 12:13, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yae4: Having looked at the articles you linked, I think the approach taken in the lead which describes each as "mobile operating systems" fits well here. The fewer claims made in the article, the less we have to worry about sourcing. It also solves the grammar problem and allows both closed-source and source-available to coexist in the sidebar. VenerableEntwhistle (talk) 20:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm okay with calling it a Mobile Operating System to close up the disputes on this talk page! Nice work everyone. Taybella (talk) 22:09, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable sources and contravention of Manual of Style

Hi Arthur.m.wright, please do not add content solely supported by self-published sources, including Reddit (RSP entry), Twitter (RSP entry), and Hacker News (expect for uncontroversial self-descriptions, which was not what your citations were used for). Sources may not be used to make synthesized claims. If there are no available reliable sources for a claim, the claim should be excluded in the article according to Wikipedia's verifiability policy, which states that "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source" and that "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable." A critical rule on Wikipedia is WP:BLPSPS, which requires editors to "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article."

Finally, your reversion at Special:Diff/964632031 is incorrect, as is your description of my edit as "vandalism". The MOS:NOTSEEALSO section of Wikipedia's Manual of Style states that "As a general rule, the 'See also' section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body." — Newslinger talk 02:02, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Focus on reliable secondary sources

This article needs be significantly rewritten to be mainly based on reliable secondary sources. The following sources cited in the article are reliable secondary sources:

Unless referenced by reliable secondary sources, self-published sources (including social media) can only be used for the most uncontroversial claims, and only if they pass the due weight test. Self-published sources should never be used for claims regarding other living people. — Newslinger talk 02:32, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Android Headlines is a blog with speculation. It's not a news source. Take a closer look at what you're claiming is a reliable secondary source... Also, things have changed and the OS is no longer source available. They stopped making sources available to the public at the end of 2019. Regardless of whether there is a secondary source talking about the change, that is the reality and is reflected by their own website and repositories. It does not need to be stated when it changed or why, but it should not be claimed that it is source available when the sources stopped being available to anyone but approved partners. Take a look at the Microsoft Windows article which handles a similar situation: sources available upon request by partners when their request is approved. 184.147.124.86 (talk) 14:55, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
User 184.147.124.86 seems more intent on debating Wiki policy with admins than reviewing articles for encyclopedic accuracy. Wikipedia is a self-published source and cannot be used as evidence in a semantic debate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.105.217 (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
24.114.105.217 is the CEO of Copperhead and shouldn't be editing this article. They're using themselves as a source for their false claims. Android Headlines publishing their press release in a blog post is not a valid source for Wikipedia. Copperhead is having their employees and business partners edit this page. This can be proven from the logs of their official chat channel where the CEO talks about it. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 20:41, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Again, more edits directly from the CEO of the company, citing themselves as a source via the press release they put out via Android Headlines. The author of the blog post explicitly states that the information is unconfirmed and they also explicitly state they're speculating and yet that gets repeated here without stating that it's just unverified information directly from the company about what happened. They're coordinating edits to the article in their chat channels. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 00:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
It doesn't make sense to use older sources to claim that the OS is source available (sources are clearly not freely available to the public - only people that are approved) when that changed near the end of 2019. The original open source project was renamed to GrapheneOS and Copperhead forked the legacy code to create a new CopperheadOS. Also, using a blog post from an author that states they are just repeating information from Copperhead and speculating is definitely NOT up to the standards of reliable sources. That couldn't be more wrong. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 01:05, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
The Android Headlines article has been retracted. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 21:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Libel and false information posted by Copperhead employees / partners

Copperhead has been using multiple IPs and sockpuppet accounts to edit this article, including the CEO himself. This includes posting libel about me in the article and using a sponsored blog post in Android Headlines simply paraphrasing the press release created by the company. My recent revert is of a Copperhead sockpuppet account using a false explanation to continue their manipulation of the article. Posting libel about me here is unacceptable and this will become part of the existing legal dispute. Also, Copperhead needs to stop heavily editing / manipulating this article and the GrapheneOS article. If they are going to be continuing to edit it, then I will start making substantial edits and rewrites here. strcat (talk) 07:22, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution
Please read the above links. Improving this article under constant manipulation by either side of this conflict will be impossible. I implore all involved to take a deep breath and we can begin discussing what is wrong with the article, what is good about the article, and how encyclopedic qualities can be restored. VenerableEntwhistle (talk) 15:19, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
You have a conflict of interest too. You're editing it for James and just pretending otherwise. You keep adding clearly false information aimed at marketing. How about you stop pretending to be neutral when the CEO of the company directs your edits to the article? Logs proving the manipulation going on are available. All you've done is add false information for your side right before it gets protected to lock that in. Incredibly underhanded and dishonest. It's against the consensus and obvious reality from the sources. You removed valid, sourced information with a fake edit summary. :You should have absolutely no involvement in any rewrite. Your vandalism will be reverted as soon as the article is unprotected. In the meanwhile, can look for an administrator willing to restore the deleted content and undo the marketing misinformation you push falsely claiming that the OS is source available when there are no sources published or available to the public. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 16:49, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
This is what the article says "Not only has CopperheadOS not gone under, but the company has also continued to be profitable, according to the executive.". This is what you quoted in the article: "Not only has CopperheadOS not gone under, but the company has also continued to be profitable". You also once again falsely claimed sources are available. You should not be editing the article for the company like this. You should not be removing valid, sourced information and making false claims like this including manipulating quotes. Also, you provide no source for this inaccurate claim "CopperheadOS updates are now publicly listed on Copperhead's website [6] as opposed to Github." The citation simply links to the release notes, and provides no evidence they were moved there from GitHub - they were never posted on GitHub. It is a clear attempt at misleading wording aimed at pretending that sources are still available and were simply moved. It is very clear that your edits are intended to help promote the company's product and that you are acting dishonestly. You also use inaccurate edit summaries and mask what you are doing. If you are doing a rewrite of the article, that is definitely not going to be an acceptable version of it seeing as you are working for one side specifically and simply pretending to be neutral. You should try reading those pages about conflict of interest yourself. It should be fully expected that the "other side" (i.e. people who want the topic covered honestly) are going to counter what you are doing. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 17:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Android Headlines article has been retracted

The Android Headlines article has been retracted. It should no longer be referenced by the article. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 21:56, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Article has been removed. 72.136.112.222 (talk) 16:25, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Inaccurate information on GrapheneOS and the original developer

VenerableEntwhistle added this paragraph to the history section:

> In September 2019 it was revealed that Mr. Micay had moved on to his own project GrapheneOS, inciting a legal battle with Copperhead over ownership of intellectual property.[7] CopperheadOS has continued to see updates[8] through 2019 since the departure of Mr. Micay.

This does not correspond to the information in the referenced article. It doesn't talk about any legal battle and doesn't say that anything was 'incited' by the developer continuing their project separately from the company. The referenced article also doesn't take sides on which party is in the right, and neither should Wikipedia. The original developer renamed the original repositories formerly known as CopperheadOS and continued the project without the company. The company uploaded new repositories using their branding. It's not the place of Wikipedia to judge which is the true successor, especially when the sources are clear that it is contested. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:30, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Removal of source code licensing and access history

VenerableEntwhistle removed information from the history section on the source code licensing and access changes. They didn't state that they were doing this in their edit summaries, and it may not have been an intentional removal but rather an accident based on using an older version of the article. However, it's important for the article to cover this and provide sources, even if they are partly primary sources, because it talks about source code licensing / access (availability) in the introduction along with the infobar, and it's clearly controversial. VenerableEntwhistle did not explain what was wrong with the coverage in the history section and did not explain why they removed it. The article states "In August 2016, CopperheadOS announced future versions of the operating system, based on Android Nougat 7.x, would be released under a no-commercial-usage license until more funding could be acquired" and does not follow up on it due to this removal, so a reader could make the mistake of interpreting this as the OS moving back to open source licensing when it did not do that. There's also no mention of the move away from publishing source code, when that's quite relevant and important after saying anything about source availability. It needs to be explained that the sources are available to approved partners to clarify what is meant by source availability if that term is used earlier in the article. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:30, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I reverted that change because its messy and not in line with the history progression. If you would like to editorialize about Copperhead's publishing of sources, please at least do so in the format of the chronological progression. Do you have a citation for Copperhead making a commitment to open-source software you forgot to add? VenerableEntwhistle (talk) 21:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
You're the one repeatedly stripping out neutral information and rewriting the article from your editorialized company perspective. Don't try to push that onto others. https://twitter.com/CopperheadOS/status/769159098122240000 is one of multiple places where the company announced that it would be non-commercial licensed until the company had funding. This was also covered in the media articles about the switch to a non-commercial usage license. That is not editorializing. You stripped out the information explaining the progression of the source code history. History sections are not generally strictly chronological and can explain how one aspect of something progressed in a paragraph rather than mixing all the topics together. It is not a valid reason to remove it, and you did not provide any reason for removing it in your edit summaries despite removing it multiple times. You did not justify your rewrites of the article into a Copperhead narrative or explain what you were doing in your edit summaries. Pitchcurve (talk) 08:10, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Removal of source for the company name

VenerableEntwhistle removed a source for the official company name as part of an edit not explaining the changes being made. Various other sources were removed and it's difficult to unravel what was being done since the edit summaries are glossing over what's happening and making many different kinds of changes in the same edit. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:30, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

We probably don't need a source for the company name, unless there is some sort of confusion or dispute about what the name is. The verifiability policy says that we should provide sources for "any material whose verifiability is challenged or likely to be challenged". To me, the company name seems like one of those basic facts that is not likely to be challenged, and if it is challenged, then a primary source like the company website should be sufficient. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:27, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
The official company name registered with the government is "Coppperhead Limited" (with three "p"), not "Copperhead". Should leave the reference intact so that people don't think it needs to be corrected. If people try to look up Copperhead or Copperhead Limited in a government database they won't find it. 69.158.183.116 (talk) 08:06, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
"Coppperhead" with three Ps does sound like something that can cause confusion. I suppose it is not the simple matter I thought it was, so I agree we should include a source for it. I found the source in the page history ("CANADA'S BUSINESS REGISTRIES".), but the link appears to be dead. Maybe this is a temporary problem? If it is a permanent problem, though, it puts us in difficulties, as there don't appear to be any other references to Coppperhead with three Ps anywhere else that I can find, other than Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirrors. If we can't verify "Coppperhead" with three Ps, then we should fall back to what we can verify - i.e. the name on the company website. (As an aside, if we can verify that "Coppperhead" has three Ps, then we should wrap the name with Template:Not a typo so that bots and automated editors don't "correct" it inadvertently.) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 10:06, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
The link is back up, so I have reinstated the reference in the infobox. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:28, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
I have not seen a corporate entity used to define Developer(s) in other Wikipedia entries. See LineageOS as an example. Is the specific corporate name useful for encyclopedic purposes and is this purposeful in terms of defining Copperheads Trade Name? Taybella (talk) 00:11, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
LineageOS is not developed by a corporation. CopperheadOS is developed by Copperhead, which is incorporated as Coppperhead Limited. If the article is going to make a reference to the legal name of the company, it should use the correct and verifiable name for the company. Otherwise, attempts to look up public records for the company will not succeed since there is no company called "Copperhead Limited". That includes searching for lawsuits involving the company as either plaintiff or defendant. The article is not doing anyone any favors by using an incorrect name that will prevent those kinds of searches. They don't do any fuzzy matching for those government record sites and if you enter the wrong name it won't find anything at all. Pitchcurve (talk) 00:42, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Mr Stradivarius: what are your thoughts on removing the odd citation for the corporate business name here? It doesn't seem relevant to anything. Companies often operate outside of official corporate registrations as Trade Names. Taybella (talk) 22:13, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
IMO, the 3-p version of the name should not be included in the article now. I have found no otherwise independent "reliable" sources on the topic of CopperheadOS using the 3-p name for the company, including hits on sites listing the CopperheadOS trademark with the company name. Interpreting an apparently embarrassing factoid from a "beta" database site is original research, and is the narrative being promoted by the GrapheneOS developer(s). It is plausible there was a typo in data entry at the "beta" site. No otherwise reliable source says anything about a 3-p name, including Tom's Hardware, which published an interview of Micay, mentioning the CTO position with newly formed Copperhead (2-p) company. At the beta business register site, it says "For the complete profile, go to the official registry source: ServiceOntario" but at that link I do not find anything for either the 2-p or 3-p name. The article should ignore the supposed discrepancy unless/until a reliable source makes something of it, as it is clearly controversial. -- Yae4 (talk) 06:02, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
The legal name of the corporation is "Coppperhead Limited" which can be confirmed through the Ontario business database and public records regarding the corporation. It's not necessary to use the beta site for accessing the database. It's just the easiest way to provide a source for the odd legal name of the company, since it's easiest to confirm without going through a long process. It is accurate and that is the legal name of the company. It's not a data entry error for a specific site but rather is how the company is officially / legally registered. It's not anyone's narrative but rather the verifiable name of the company. Pitchcurve (talk) 00:36, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Down at the bottom of copperhead.co, it says "© Copperhead. CopperheadOS™ is a registered trademark of Copperhead Limited." This info' is confirmed by this and this trademark info sites. And they make NO mention of 3-p names. The whole "company name" issue is blown out of proportion and almost irrelevant, because this article is about the OS, not about the company. If it were about the company, we'd use Template:Infobox_company and could discuss Trade_name and other names. The development team can be called anything the company/developer wants to call it. All the other "sources" (including the two I just cited) are original research and therefore not appropriate. ALL secondary sources cited so far call the company Copperhead (2-p). The primary source calls themself Copperhead (2-p). That's what we should also use. -- Yae4 (talk) 01:05, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't dispute that the common name of the company is Copperhead or that their registered trademarks are for Copperhead. The official name of the company is "Coppperhead Limited", which is verifiable. There is verifiably no company in Canada registered as "Copperhead Limited", either Federally, in Ontario (where the company is stated to be located by themselves and many other sources) or in other provinces. The infobox should not have inaccurate information that's provably not correct. The official name of the company is needed to look up government records including court documents. The government is an authoritative source when it comes to this. It is the most reliable source available. It's the official record on the matter. Sure, it may be a primary source, but when it comes to demonstrating a clear cut fact that's entirely appropriate when it's the authoritative source for the information. It is a simple fact that the company name is "Coppperhead Limited". It's not an opinion or interpretation but rather undeniable fact. Contact Service Ontario and you too can confirm that there is only a company registered as "Coppperhead Limited" and that it matches the address / contact information / incorporation date of Copperhead. There is no "Copperhead Limited" registered. Look into it yourself. Pitchcurve (talk) 21:14, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi all, apologies for my absence. This is a tricky issue, in my opinion. One the one hand, we shouldn't exclude information from an article just because it is embarrassing to the subject - see Wikipedia is not censored - and the legal name of a maker of a piece of software is a perfectly reasonable thing to put in an article about that software. On the other hand, the sourcing for the company's legal name is thin.

In contrast to Yae, I would argue that the Canada's Business Registries source is reliable - according to its About page, it is run by the Canadian Association of Corporate Law Administrators, who oversee all of the official business registries in Canada, and the data is taken from the official registries for each province. This is a primary source, to be sure, not a third-party source, but we are permitted to use primary sources on Wikipedia for things like citing simple facts.

The problem with this source, in my opinion, is that all it tells us is that there is a company called "Coppperhead Limited" registered in Toronto. It doesn't say that this is the company that develops CopperheadOS. Personally I think it probably is the same company, but on Wikipedia we can't assume this; we have to have evidence. Unless we can find some evidence in a reliable source that CopperheadOS is developed by a company registered as "Coppperhead Limited", then that fact should stay out of the article. Even then, I think it would make good editorial sense to use the name that the company itself uses in the infobox; we can always put the 3-P name in a footnote instead. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 13:29, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

For others who were not notified, FYI: there is a Dispute Resolution Noticeboard on this issue, to try to get more independent eyes on this. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:54, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
The full entry for the company provides more information that makes it clear it is the same company. The date of incorporation for the company matches what they give themselves on their site, and so does the registered address. I'd be fine with referring to the company as Copperhead and putting the legal name of the company in a footnote. I only have a problem with referring to it as 'Copperhead Limited' which I see as an attempt to reference the official legal name of the company, but in a way that it verifying inaccurate. Also, I see it as a problem that the developer is simply listed as Copperhead. They are currently the developer, but they are not the original creator or developer of the project. The infobox is presenting a slanted narrative denying the existence of the open source project (which existed before the company, and split off from the company into GrapheneOS due to a complicated / messy dispute) rather than a neutral perspective. Other software like FFmpeg has separate fields for the original author and developer, which would be useful here, but it doesn't seem to exist as part of the template. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
https://www.crazyaboutstartups.com/directory-startups/listing/copperheados/ is an entry on the company submitted by themselves and you can see that per the company themselves, it's the same incorporation date. This also matches what they publish elsewhere. The government database has the accurate company name and date. The company just doesn't refer to themselves as their official name.
I'm much less concerned about getting the official name of the company correct than having the incorporation in the correct place in the timeline. The incorporation of the company and it being intended to support the open source project / make it sustainable is talked about in a bunch of the early secondary sources that are available along with the posts by the company themselves.
There is a fair bit of coverage of the project including it entering the stage of the Alpha release before the company existed.
Also, you do not need to get the information from the Ontario corporation database from that beta web site providing a preview of the entry. You can contact them and get the full entry or you can use one of the commercial services offering the same corporate data like Opstart. That web site reference is useful because it shows a summary of the information accessible via a URL. It's not the full set of information but rather a preview of it that's more accessible to people who don't want to deal with Service Ontario. We'll end up having secondary sources for this once the legal conflict discussed in other sources ends up being covered in various news sources. Pitchcurve (talk) 21:06, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to sidetrack, but Pitchcurve is saying, in essence, they are so closely involved with GrapheneOS and CopperheadOS they are "in the know" about the legal conflict, which hasn't yet been publicized. Isn't this a clear cut actual COI? -- Yae4 (talk) 19:26, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Not necessarily. I read that "we" as in "we Wikipedia editors". I prefer to assume good faith about these things; more often than not, people that we think might have a COI just have a differing viewpoint from our own, and either way, it is usually possible to find common ground on how to write a good encyclopaedia article. Having said that, if anyone here does have a COI, then I encourage you to do the things listed at WP:DISCLOSE; it's the honourable thing to do, and it doesn't prevent you from participating. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:35, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm very interested in open source security projects including PaX, grsecurity, QubesOS, Signal and many others. I am in all of their public chat channels and I participate on forums, communicate with the developers, etc. I am based in Toronto and am involved in https://hacklab.to/about/. I attended events for the discontinued Toronto Crypto organization run by one of the Copperhead co-founders (James Donaldson, the Copperhead CEO). I've followed the project from the beginning and it's local. I don't think that I should be unable to edit articles about any of these projects because of being very interested in them and closely following them. I don't think there would be much content on Wikipedia if that was the case. I don't have any conflict of interest. Should I avoid editing the article about Signal because I closely follow it, have communicated with the developers (including in the past few weeks) and use it on my phone? I don't think that makes sense. I'm perfectly capable of editing an article about it without trying to promote it. It seems you think I should avoid editing anything to do with privacy/security technology because I follow it too closely and use it.
There are multiple sources in the article referencing a legal conflict without details. The legal conflict has been publicly talked about in both the CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS chat channels, along with further information circulating among people in those channels. Once that actually goes somewhere and becomes public, I expect a fair bit of coverage in secondary sources and at least one will probably take note of the peculiar name. Pitchcurve (talk) 08:21, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: There is a line somewhere between WP:POVEDITOR and WP:COI. Like most lines at wikipedia, the line is vague. Here are some concise tips:
  • From WP:POVEDITOR: "We don't care about personal passion. What we care about is accuracy in reporting what sources say."
  • From WP:COI: "in a nutshell: Do not edit Wikipedia in your own interests, nor in the interests of your external relationships."
  • From WP:MEAT: ""Do not recruit your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you for the purpose of coming to Wikipedia and supporting your side of a debate."
-- Yae4 (talk) 11:40, 2 September 2020 (UTC)


@Pitchcurve: If the full version of the registry conclusively ties the company to the name "Coppperhead Limited", then we can cite that. There is no rule that says that sources for Wikipedia articles must be online, or must be available without charge (see WP:PAYWALL). @Yae4: What do you think of listing the developer as "Copperhead" or "Copperhead Limited" in the infobox, and including a footnote that lists the official name in the business registry? Would that be an acceptable compromise? And @Pitchcurve:, would you be OK with "Copperhead Limited" in the infobox, with the aforementioned footnote, if there was also a field for "Original developer" or something similar? Just because Template:Infobox OS doesn't currently have such a field, doesn't mean we can't add one. (Also, if you don't want to have to learn about Wikipedia templates, you are in luck, as I just so happen to be an experienced template editor.) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:52, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
@Mr. Stradivarius: Copperhead or Copperhead Limited are OK by me. Why 3-p spelling should be left out of this article for now: Wikipedia is not a directory. This article is not about the company. And the spelling is not notable. While I appreciate your suggestion of an alternative, I do not agree. -- Yae4 (talk) 16:32, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
@Mr. Stradivarius: Re Templates, Any chance you would be interested in developing a "category template" related to source control software Category:Git_(software)? GitLab has Template:Bug_tracking_systems, for example, but I don't see one pulling together bug tracking, Git-related, or other source control systems. -- Yae4 (talk) 21:32, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion on whether it should be included. However, if an official company name is going to be included (does not seem important), it should be the real one. The developer field was problematic for another reason: it implied that the company was the original and current developer, when the project predated the company. The fields in these templates are problematic because they encourage filling out everything to complete it. I'm happy with it not being included. A footnote with the official / legal name would probably be fine too depending on how that gets displayed. I think it's fine to list the developer as Copperhead in that infobox but there should be a field with the original developer. Referring to them as Copperhead doesn't imply an attempt to use an official / legal name. Referring to it as 'Copperhead Limited' implies that but isn't correct. An original developer field may help also help with GrapheneOS. Yae4 wants the field to refer to the developer as Daniel Micay, but the project has picked up other developers/maintainers, so it's wrong to attribute everything to one person, and the main reference used there despite being somewhat older still refers to there being other developers contributing. It's really easy to confirm that the article was right about that and that other developers are now doing a substantial portion of the work. Pitchcurve (talk) 08:05, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: Template:Infobox_OS description for developer says the field should contain:

Name of the current developer of the software product. It can be either an individual or an organization/business. For example: 'Microsoft'

Copperhead Limited, CopperheadOS Team, Copperhead Company would match that description, although Copperhead Limited has the advantage of also matching the Trademark statement on the company website. -- Yae4 (talk) 17:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Use of original "privacy enabled" term for short description

An editor added the term "privacy enabled" to the short description which is not defined and is not used by either the secondary sources or even the Copperhead marketing materials / documentation. It's an original creation for this article and should be reverted. It is not clear what it's supposed to mean. It previously simply said security focused, which is based on the sources. Perhaps it could say privacy/security-focused but that's much less clear from the sources, particularly with the move away from publicly accessible sources and licensing tracking/enforcement in the Updater app. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:37, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I am the person who reverted that. Thanks for the clarification. I'll have a look Anupritaisno1 (talk) 21:23, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I have removed that. Thanks for the heads up Anupritaisno1 (talk) 19:38, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Pitchcurve and Anupritaisno1! I added the wording because of sources on the Copperhead website. Please, please add information here before reverting my changes. Do we have available information that the Updater app has "license tracking/enforcement"? I have re-added the change based on sources for the time being. Taybella (talk) 22:17, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
Marketing from the official site shouldn't be used to make this article. It's supposed to be neutral and based on reliable secondary sources (not press releases). If something is stated by the subject of the article (Copperhead), it should be clearly marked as coming from them to sidestep the issue of bias.
The Updater doing license tracking / enforcement can be confirmed from the sources (which are supposedly available). It's also explained that they have a licensing system on their site. It isn't something covered by a reliable secondary source, which is why it's not currently in the article. However, never is the claim that it's "privacy enabled" and that term is not defined either. Pitchcurve (talk) 23:55, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi can I see the source where it says privacy enabled? Anupritaisno1 (talk) 22:41, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

As per the source it indeed says privacy focused, not privacy enabled

However this is also relying on primary sources a lot. Do we have a secondary source?

We might be able to do privacy focused but not privacy enabled Anupritaisno1 (talk) 22:45, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Anupritaisno1 ! I put the entry in. Taybella (talk) 22:15, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

"departure of Mr. Micay"

GrapheneOS and CopperheadOS both claim to be the true successor to the original project. The source being used (https://www.golem.de/news/grapheneos-ein-gehaertetes-android-ohne-google-bitte-1912-145383.html) explains this and does not take sides on which is the true successor. The Wikipedia article refers to a 'departure' when the project continued being developed by the developer and the original repositories on GitHub were renamed by them to the new name. It should use more accurate wording properly explaining that the project split / forked. VenerableEntwhistle has been replacing the content with a narrative based on the corporate PR. The article should be neutral and based on the sources and should not be presenting a corporate narrative on a conflict with an open source project that's not backed up by sources.

The sources also refer to the founder of the project as "Daniel Micay" or "Micay". The formal "Mr. Micay" originates from the Copperhead press releases and doesn't conform to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Subsequent_use. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

My contention is that this point of view is also not neutral and is in fact deeply biased toward Graphene, and entirely based on the narrative tweeted out by Daniel Micay. It's noteable that both sides make extreme claims, and finding a middle ground between these acrimonious points of view should not be addressed so flippantly, writing off the opposing view as marketing. VenerableEntwhistle (talk) 21:23, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
The way disputes like this are handled on Wikipedia is to go with what the sources say. Quoting from Wikipedia:Neutral point of view: "Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias." While we as editors can have a point of view about a subject, what goes into the article should be a summary of what third-party, reliable sources say about it. In this case, we should find all the sources we can about the history of CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS, and summarize those. Are there any other sources out there apart from the golem.de article? Also, it will make things much easier if all sides can refrain from making personal attacks on other editors. Personal attacks make it much harder to work together with other editors, and are really not necessary for making a good article. The only disagreements that should be necessary are disagreements about how to summarize the sources, not about what other editors' points of view are. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 05:54, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
The article talks about GrapheneOS as the continuation of the original open source project. The Wikipedia article is not allowed to editorialize as you are doing by presenting Copperhead's narrative, which is not backed up by secondary sources. You're repeatedly stripping down the article of information and rewriting content to reflect Copperhead's narrative and your own point of view. It is not based on what the sources provide. Copperhead is not a more reliable source than the open source GrapheneOS project, and neither is a reliable secondary source when it comes to the dispute. You can't use statements by Copperhead about a conflict they have with an open source project, and trying to launder their narrative via adding references that do not reflect what is being written here doesn't change that. Perhaps you should not be editing the article if you are unwilling to avoid pushing a biased narrative. You haven't used accurate edit summaries and have made drastic changes with edit summaries not reflecting what is being changed or explaining/justifying it. Your changes are pushing a POV narrative and have stripped out the work done by others on the article without explaining / justifying it. Pitchcurve (talk) 08:23, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: I have changed "Mr. Micay" to "Micay" per your request. I haven't made any changes to the "departure" wording, as there does not yet seem to be a consensus about how to summarize the sources. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:08, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Anyone neutral rewriting the content added by Copperhead to be instead based on what the sources provide would be an improvement. VenerableEntwhistle is repeatedly replacing / removing content without edit summaries explaining what is happening to be in line with the Copperhead narrative and to market the OS. Their changes were not based on any consensus, and they have been doing substantial rewrites while issues are contested on the talk page. They've unilaterally decided to rewrite it to reflect their POV instead of the sources. Pitchcurve (talk) 08:14, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
The article that is referenced in Golem dot de does not mention "a legal battle with Copperhead over ownership of intellectual property", is there a reason why this line was added on the Wikipedia? Autobotsrepair (talk) 19:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure, but if it's not in the source, then it doesn't satisfy Wikipedia:Verifiability, and we should either find another source for that or remove it. Feel free to edit the article to improve things like this. Wikipedia:Bold, revert, discuss is a good model here - you can go ahead and make changes, but if there is disagreement about a given edit then we should stop and discuss it here on the talk page. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 03:22, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
The section has been removed due to not having a citation. Autobotsrepair (talk) 15:22, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
@Mr. Stradivarius: should we also update "Mr. Micay" to "Micay" on the last sentence to improve consistency? Autobotsrepair (talk) 19:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: Fixed it - thanks for pointing it out. I missed that one when I made the previous fix. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 03:14, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Fdroid isn't a package manager

Fdroid is an app market like the play store. Fdroid still has to go through pm, android's actual manager to install any app. At best fdroid can be called a frontend for the real package manager on android

This information is also unsourced. Do we have a source for where they are using fdroid to install apps? Anupritaisno1 (talk) 18:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

F-Droid is not just an app. It's also a software repository, similar to play store. Except it slices and dices too. :D Or screens software for licensing and other issues, and allows adding on additional repositories... Source for a relatively minor detail? It appears in the screenshot if nothing else. -- Yae4 (talk) 03:38, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
The screenshot is almost 5+ years old and doesn't show the current state of the OS
Further I can manually install fdroid myself, add it to my home screen and claim my rom has fdroid
So I ask again, where is the source for this? Anupritaisno1 (talk) 13:19, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
For minor or non-controversial info', some self-published primary source info is usually considered OK. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC) -- Yae4 (talk) 15:38, 18 August 2020 (UTC)


Mr. Stradivarius may I suggest looking at the Debian wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian Or the arch wiki on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Linux

Maybe the text should read: "fdroid (frontend), APK (backend)" or similar

Also there is no source that fdroid is shipped anymore. A screenshot from 5+ years ago cannot be used as any proof Anupritaisno1 (talk) 13:36, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

It may be complicating things to compare with GNU/Linux distributions, but I agree some phone ROM articles don't necessarily say if f-droid is included. There's also the detail of whether f-droid's privileged system extension is included, but that's really getting into the weeds. So is frontend/backend. Primary source info' on the website indicates f-droid is included. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:38, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
It looks like FDroid has an extension[1] to enable it to be more like a package manager. Privileged Extension and it is documented as included on the article website. [2]. Taybella (talk) 22:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
The privileged extension allows it to use the OS package manager in the background without user interaction. F-Droid, Play Store, etc. are app repositories/stores using the OS package manager. The package manager is the same for the stock OS and CopperheadOS along with every other notable variant of AOSP. Other frontends can also be used, even if they aren't bundled with the OS. It may make sense to mention which apps are bundled with the OS, including F-Droid, but there should be an up-to-date source since this information changes over time. Pitchcurve (talk) 23:46, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Android Headlines reliability and "retractions"

"Our Team" link looks OK compared with others often used, and better than Liliputing, which I've removed here twice at least. AH has been used many times (not that precedent matters). So it seems reliable enough. "Retraction" - 404 on the live site does not mean "retracted." I don't know why they are now 404, but some articles are available on archive. It's unfortunate wikipedia relies on "reliable sources" that get fed by press releases, but "it is what it is." I don't think it serves wikipedia's interests to ignore those articles for maintaining notability and documenting the history, unless... Is there any evidence they were "retracted" for being inaccurate?

-- Yae4 (talk) 03:17, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yae4: this section is fragmenting the earlier discussions on sources. Could you please consider moving it to the "Focus on reliable secondary sources" section? Autobotsrepair (talk) 05:12, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: The earlier discussion involved IP editors, was more general than just AH, and is now old enough I'd prefer to have a new focus on these archived AH sources here. -- Yae4 (talk) 12:31, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: The section was created by Newslinger late June and the IP editors were discussing the news site you are citing here. Might be a good idea to move this section below to maintain some chronology of related discussions. Autobotsrepair (talk) 23:54, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: The earlier "focus" section got sidetracked with other topics or vague unsubstantiated arguments. If you wish to give your opinion on the listed AH articles "reliability" or "retraction" please focus on that here. We can also take AH to WP:RSN to get more independent opinions if we need to. -- Yae4 (talk) 00:46, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: Placing related content and sections in chronological order provides context and prevents unintentional false attribution. This is not a contentious topic. Let's keep this section here for now. Thank you for sharing your opinion. Autobotsrepair (talk) 02:52, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(unindent) Anybody have something to say regarding reliability or retractions of AH articles from archive org? -- Yae4 (talk) 15:40, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I've contacted the author of the article and they've confirmed that it was intentionally taken down. They don't want to stand behind the story. They're aware of this controversy on Wikipedia and deliberately had the story taken down to avoid having it misused as a way to misrepresent claims from Copperhead as information from Android Headlines. It definitely shouldn't be used as a secondary source, especially since it was retracted. It could be used to explicitly provide Copperhead's positions on issues, but it needs to be clearly marked as such. It's not a secondary source, and the site didn't stand behind what was written there.
Android Headlines is much more a blog than a news site. A lightly paraphrased press release is not a reliable secondary source. Perhaps it's still usable as a source, but care needs to be taken to represent it as claims from the company. Retracted articles should not be used as sources. The story did not simply accidentally / incidentally go missing. It was deliberately taken down due to it being inaccurate and unbalanced. Simply posting press releases and taking claims from a company at face value reflects very badly on the site as a source. However, the fact that they retracted this article is a point in their favor.
I haven't confirmed if any of the other articles were similarly retracted, only the story mentioned above. It's possible that the others were removed at the same time, or for similar reasons at another point in time. The author's email is Daniel Golightly <dgolightly519@gmail.com> if you want to contact them to independently confirm that the story was retracted. Pitchcurve (talk) 23:39, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: What supports your statements "more a blog than a news site", "A lightly paraphrased press release...", or "Simply posting press releases and taking claims from a company at face value..."? Comparison of a specific press release with a specific article would help, for example. So would reason(s) you think it looks like a blog site. Because Android Headlines has been used so many times in wikipedia, I have taken this to Reliable Sources Noticeboard to ask for more opinions. Giving evidence there would be helpful. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
That Android Headlines article was retracted. Contact Daniel Golightly by email and they will confirm it for you. They also have a Twitter account with open DMs. Pitchcurve (talk) 07:23, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve:I note you did not answer the above direct question, and have backed off from the above general condemnation of Android Headlines, in your statement at RSN.[2] -- Yae4 (talk) 11:40, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
I don't have an interest in fighting against using it as a source in general, rather than these particular articles which had serious issues. As a general rule, I think they avoid controversial topics, and they are not well equipped to handle them by creating balanced, well-researched articles. They took on something they weren't up to the task of handling and then ended up retracting it. I'm more concerned with the remaining problematic sources which have not been retracted.
Many of the other sources being used here (aside from LWN, Ars Technica, golem.de, heise.de) are just as bad or even worse. I don't want to debate the contents of an article that has been retracted. A blog post that's not marked as such is still a blog post. Most of the sources in use are blogs thinly masquerading as news sources but without any meaningful editorial review / standards and journalistic standards/integrity. I think the content of the article speaks for itself. It's simply the position of Copperhead's CEO. In an email that was shared with me, the author of the article stated as much to one of the people who emailed them questioning the article. They suggested that the issue was more with how Wikipedia editors had misinterpreted the article, but it was still retracted.
Those PiunikaWeb posts are almost as bad, and the site has similar issues, as do many of the others. I see a couple poorly researched blog posts filled with the author's speculation and assumptions. It's at best an interpretation of what's going on by someone unfamiliar with the situation, based on their cursory review of social media posts, etc. without doing the whole investigative part of investigative journalism. The paragraph after the articles describing themselves amuses me quite a bit. It's even worse than basing the article directly on those social media posts, since it's the same thing via a game of broken telephone.
What it is about a contractor being paid to post a story on one of these sites that makes it a reliable source, while them posting it on their own blog without advertisements would be considered less reliable? The vague appearance of there being some kind of editorial standards and accountability, simply because there is a list of editors? I can understand using this kind of coverage to demonstrate notability, but can't see what makes it a reliable source.
I have an issue with these kinds of sources in general, and because I care about these topics there are specific articles that I am interested in addressing. I would rather talk about the problematic sources that are NOT retracted and being used in the article. It can be confirmed that these were retracted, and as far as I'm concerned that closes the issue. I am not familiar enough with Wikipedia to get involved in some broader issue about the reliability of the source. I would not have replied there at all if I wasn't concerned about your continued interest in using a retracted article.
Pitchcurve (talk) 11:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Conflicts of Interest

Some editors here have obvious conflicts of interest, which puts their interest in presenting particular views above wikipedia's goal of neutrality, "reliable" sourcing, etc. Please take a step back. You know who you are. Thanks. -- Yae4 (talk) 03:19, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that you are the one with a COI here. You posted irrelevant stuff in the other talk sections, have exactly the same speech patterns as the people actively trying to turn this wiki into marketing for the OS and are making new sections up that really have no purpose Anupritaisno1 (talk) 13:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I sound accusatory. It's just that several people have used exactly the same speech as you to silence those who want this wiki to be actually neutral. If you were to see the history you'll see a suspected sockpuppet IP claiming I have a COI when I really do not. If I had a COI I wouldn't have used my real nick and IP consistently while editing Wikipedia. By now I'm myself frustrated merely looking at the history of vandalism on this wiki Anupritaisno1 (talk) 13:29, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm trying to "not bite newcomers" here, but have a glance at WP:SPA. I'll also ask you to WP:AGF, and also follow conventions like Talk pages formatting and other stuff. I'm here now because I observed the page history, and am appalled by both sides. I'm a significant edit contributor at GrapheneOS, and am somewhat familiar with it and one of its forks or spinoffs. If we have to waste the time, we'll get more formal with sockpuppet investigations and COI discussions. I'd rather not waste the time. Suggestion - Try to remember you're not in charge here like you might be in a subreddit. I understand wikipedia's frustrations. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:34, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
I gave it a read. Thanks a lot Anupritaisno1 (talk) 15:04, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
@Anupritaisno1: I'm going to be more direct. IMO you have somewhere between "potential" and "actual" COI with respect to editing CopperheadOS or GrapheneOS. To me you definitely have "apparent" COI. It's great to participate in Talk pages and suggest changes, but you have continued to edit this page after saying you would stop. Please be up front about your connections and declare your COI appropriately. -- Yae4 (talk) 12:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I only have minor changes to the styling and grammar of the article after I said that. There is no COI involved

The only time I edited after was reverting an edit by autobotsrepair because I found the reason for editing strange "protecting open source software"? or something like that and once when pitchcurve wanted to remove the privacy enabled term which has now been replaced with the correct one (security and privacy focused)

Basically I didn't have any edits that were mine after I had said that except for a few grammar changes Anupritaisno1 (talk) 14:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Anupritaisno1: COI can have grey areas, but sometimes it's obvious. To me, being familiar with some related off-wiki stuff,   Looks like a duck to me. I suggest carefully reading the COI guidance. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:29, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Anupritaisno1 (talk · contribs) does not really have much involvement aside from being involved in the conflict about whether to include the official legal name of the company. They mostly have small edits to wording which aren't controversial or pushing any narrative / bias. One of their reverts restored problematic content as part of removing other problematic content but that has been resolved now and they were opposed to fixing it. That is the problem of doing these bulk reverts erasing good work while only giving reasoning for reverting a portion of it. The editing / history tools are not very good. Earlier, there were changes being made to push inaccurate / biased narratives in the article but I don't think the conflicts we're having now have to do with that. That seems to have been resolved by blocking IP editors who were warring over presenting either the Copperhead or GrapheneOS narrative instead of neutral and fact-based content. IMO, the main issue is the use of press releases and blog posts without proper journalism and publisher/editor responsibility for the content. Primary sources are a lot less bad than a lot of what's being used here... particularly when it's just paraphrasing of what the involved parties say themselves anyway. The most those low quality secondary sources provide is weak evidence of those issues being notable. Pitchcurve (talk) 21:33, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: "Anupritaisno1" has acknowledged having a Conflict of Interest, and said they take GrapheneOS code, modify it, and sell it to a company for profit.[3][4] -- Yae4 (talk) 19:08, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Some more sources for consideration

Not an endorsement, but they're out there. Update: Adding notations of which have been used for this article. Comments or edit suggestions using these sources are welcomed.

-- Yae4 (talk) 17:43, 18 August 2020 (UTC) -- Yae4 (talk) 15:57, 25 August 2020 (UTC) -- Yae4 (talk) 23:32, 25 August 2020 (UTC) -- Yae4 (talk) 14:04, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Interpreting old archived primary source info' is original research. WP:NOR

I'm undoing the latest change by Autobotsrepair for the following reason. The info added by that change is significantly different than what I did shortly before - using archive org to give *current* license status from the (primary) source, for the infobox. Going back and interpreting the primary source info archived last January, which is now different on the current website, to make a statement about the history, as Autobotsrepair did, is original research. You need to find independent secondary sources. See WP:NOR. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yae4: CopperheadOS was still available through open source code on the sourced link which is why it was added. It is unfortunate that you removed important historical context to create a section to grandstand again. Autobotsrepair (talk) 00:27, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: What you or I or any non-wiki-authority editor thinks is important or true is not important to wikipedia, like it or not. I can only suggest you carefully read Newslinger's and Mr._Stradivarius's advice here, and other available wiki-guidance, and follow it. Indenting your Talk comments per convention would be good too. -- Yae4 (talk) 10:29, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: How is nitpicking at a word to remove historical context productive? It cannot be understated that CopperheadOS initially had a commitment to open source code. Why not create a new section-as you have numerous times already-and suggest changes instead of removing it. You are very good at creating sections to engage on numerous topics, how is this different? Autobotsrepair (talk) 15:38, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: For this specific statement you added and I deleted, being discussed here in this new section, it's not about the wording, it's about the sourcing (as in referencing). If the history of Copperhead's commitments or licensing changes "cannot be understated" as you say, then one should be able to find a few independent reliable secondary sources (as in references) writing about it. Most of the new sections I started in this Talk are suggesting sources/references for discussion of their "reliability" (and whether anything should be added to the article based on those sources/references). -- Yae4 (talk) 09:19, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: I am not bringing attention to the content of your new sections, I am simply pointing out that you are very good at creating conversations around different topics. What I was also referring to above was that it seemed uncharacteristic of you to just remove it and then accidentally make a false statement about the intent of my changes. This would of been completely avoided if you had initially created a section asking for clarification. With that in mind, I will follow your advice and look for secondary sources to preserve the fact that CopperheadOS was at one point open source. Autobotsrepair (talk) 01:53, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: I did *not* "accidentally make a false statement about the intent." WP:OR describes, in essence, the sourcing, not the intent of the change. While looking for sources, don't forget WP:NPOV, which means, "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." -- Yae4 (talk) 06:35, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: Using WP:OR to launder the fact that you said "Going back and interpreting the primary source info archived last January, which is now different on the current website, to make a statement about the history, as Autobotsrepair did, is original research." to misrepresent what I said is disingenuous. I already made the necessary concessions on this topic. I am simply disagreeing with your description of my statement. Autobotsrepair (talk) 10:46, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: I see nothing objectionable about my description of the edit. It matches the simple facts of the edit and reference. This is looking like trolling now. Please stop. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:01, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: I apologize for making you feel that way. I will drop the discussion now. Autobotsrepair (talk) 17:36, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Undid change by Yae4 to add source. Autobotsrepair (talk) 11:45, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Sources and Original Research tags, removal?

Maybe they can be removed now, but I'd feel better after getting Newslinger or other experienced editor opinions. And waiting to see if the issues return. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:29, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I put up the WP:OR template, Yae4. I have no objections with removing it at this point if you and Newslinger agree. VenerableEntwhistle (talk) 20:12, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
I've removed the tags (actually, I did it before reading this talk section). As I suggested in my edit summary, if anyone has concerns about any given passage in the article, I would suggested tagging it with an inline cleanup tag. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 12:05, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Corrected the inaccurate early timeline

CopperheadOS started development in 2014 as an open source project under the same permissive licensing as AOSP. References can be added using the Internet Archive to show that the project was publicly available in late 2014 and early 2015. They were actively publishing releases (both source code + official builds), blog posts, Reddit posts, tweets, doing interviews with the media, etc. Copperhead was incorporated in November 2015, after the open source project had already existed for a year. It's straightforward to verify that the open source project predated the company. Further information and references based on reliable sources can be added.

The repositories were initially uploaded to the lead developer's account and later moved to a CopperheadOS project. The project existed and was called CopperheadOS before there was a company called Copperhead.

The project was initially created and published by an open source development team, primarily Daniel Micay. Copperhead did not yet exist as a company. Presenting it as being created and published as Copperhead is clearly not accurate and is verifiable false based on the many available sources.

More references should be added including Internet Archive links as references for the timeline along with more of the early media coverage.

See https://lwn.net/Articles/675719/ as an example. Technical information there on features, etc. cannot be used since that has changed drastically since then with many of those features implemented by AOSP, becoming otherwise obsolete or simply not being developed for new versions of Android.

Pitchcurve (talk) 01:17, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: Who cares about all these details of the timeline? Don't you wonder why it's not easy to find an (independent) article or three covering it? -- Yae4 (talk) 20:46, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Covering the beginning, the major phases (Alpha, Beta) and the existence of the company is not trivia. Compare that to what you have been adding such as snapshots in time of the pricing and a paragraph about a supposedly 'rather controversial' tweet. Pitchcurve (talk) 07:22, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Earliest web archive of their website says it was started by 3 people, not 2, as the current wiki article implies.

"Who is behind the project? The project was started by a group of Toronto-based security researchers and software developers. Daniel Micay is our lead low-level hacker hardening the kernel and base system, Dan McGrady is handling userspace features, web services, and design, and James Donaldson is doubling as our frontman and forensics expert."

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20150912052311if_/https://copperhead.co/android — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.184.199.3 (talk) 06:42, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve @Yae4 According to these publicly available records, Copperhead the company, was not formed until 2015 not 2014 as the article History page implies.

Sources: https://web.archive.org/web/20170509104052/https://copperhead.co/blog/2015/04/21/introducing-copperhead

https://grapheneos.org/legal/Micay_%20Copperhead_%20Statement%20of%20Defendant%20and%20Counterclaim.pdf |See page 6 190.184.199.3 (talk) 05:39, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Alpha and Beta releases

The Alpha and Beta releases were the major early milestones of the open source project. These were before Copperhead was incorporated and long before it moved to proprietary licensing. There are some secondary sources covering these milestones. For example, https://lwn.net/Articles/675719/ covers the Beta release and transition away from CyanogenMod. Pitchcurve (talk) 01:44, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

split between GrapheneOS and CopperheadOS covered by the golem.de source

https://www.golem.de/news/grapheneos-ein-gehaertetes-android-ohne-google-bitte-1912-145383.html covers the split between the projects differently from how the information from the article portrayed here. It makes it clear that the lead developer continued his work on the project independently and CopperheadOS continued the proprietary product. This is an example of a fork. GrapheneOS kept the original repositories and rebranded the OS (can be verified via GitHub especially with the help of the Internet Archive) while CopperheadOS kept the original branding including the domain (but not the original GitHub organization) and uploaded a fork of the same initial state to a new CopperheadOS organization. The Wikipedia article should make a bigger deal out of the fact that the project split down two different roads. This article and the GrapheneOS one wrongly treat it as a new project rather than both projects being highly contentious forks after a falling out between the people behind the original project. There was a conflict over ownership of various other accounts such as the Twitter account for CopperheadOS and the CopperheadOS subreddit. Some ended up with GrapheneOS and others with CopperheadOS. Pitchcurve (talk) 02:26, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: This article should mostly summarize all significant views from reliable secondary souces. It shouldn't make a "big deal" out of anything just because you, or I, or any other editor, thinks it's important. I can't seem to get traction on the concept that researching info' from github or old archive.org info' is WP:NOR and not a good thing. I am curious why you like the language "fork" for GrapheneOS, but you don't like it for Rattlesnake or hashbang? -- Yae4 (talk) 04:03, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: It would be helpful for discussions in the Android ecosystem if you read about the Android Open Source Project. It is extremely hard to have conversations about Android operating systems if one party member doesn't know the differences between Android variants and Projects forks. Rattlesnake is stock Android. It is not a fork. Hashbang is also not a fork. Autobotsrepair (talk) 12:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: Wikipedia is not a reliable source (WP:NOTSOURCE). Golem.de source talks about the 3 other projects in a similar way, without distinguishing the technicality of how they split (IIRC). What I do or don't know is not the issue. The issue is what "reliable" secondary sources say. Likewise, it's hard to discuss wikipedia edits with people who don't seem to care about wikipedia norms. But thanks for trying to clarify Pitchcurve's or your preferred wording. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:09, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Adding: From source.android.com, "Android Automotive is Android. Android Automotive is not a fork or parallel development of Android. It is the same codebase and lives in the same repository as the Android shipped on phones, tablets, etc." Can you say the same about Rattlesnake, hashbang or Graphene? Rattlesnake github goes so far as to explicitly deny being a fork of Copperhead, while saying it is "Powered by ... Huimin Zhang - author of the original underlying build script that was written for CopperheadOS." At least hashbang says "Heavily inspired by the former CopperheadOS (RIP) project" and "A common build system/strategy for vanilla AOSP and AOSP forks also makes it easy to change between them as you see fit..." I see what's going on. People want to deny violating any Copperhead copyright or license claims, so they say they started fresh, in essence. They never clicked "fork" in Copperhead's github. As interesting as all this original research may be, it is for lawyers and judges to work out in court what is believable or what any liabilities may be. This is not for wikipedia. PS. I'm not sure if source.android.com would be considered a "reliable" source for some topics, but possibly. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:54, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: Please don't put words in my mouth. I am not commenting on your conservation. I merely shared the links for your personal benefit because it looked like you were struggling to understand the difference between Android variants and forks of Android variants. They weren't meant to be used as sources or references for the wiki.
Unironically, yes, Android Automotive is an Android variant. There is a lot to going on in your last paragraph and I don't understand your citations either. Could you breakdown it down and differentiate between your questions and your opinions? I would also like to add that appealing to authority is not helpful and doesn't change the fact that you have a malformed understanding of Android operating systems. Autobotsrepair (talk) 17:51, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
@Autobotsrepair: Rather than discussing sidetracks, let's focus on this: The language "fork," when referring to hashbang and rattlesnake, comes from the cited source, which says, "Those who are still curious about the fundamental differences between these forks and other popular custom ROMs..." In the other cited source the same author says Micay disagreed with the terminology "fork." The author did NOT say he made a mistake, as he did regarding a different issue, saying, "Daniel was kind enough to point out a technical mistake in our article. We wrongly assumed that the current hardened_malloc was still based on OpenBSD’s implementation. Therefore, it seems the author stood behind his initial language. If you have a better (independent) source, then bring it. If you think piunikaweb is not reliable, then you can always start that discussion. -- Yae4 (talk) 19:03, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: I did not think you would resort to trolling. Here is a link from wiki that I encourage you to read since you don't want to explain the reasoning behind your "Adding" section. It is obvious now that you want to derail conversations (see Yae4 reply above as evidence) because you don't understand the difference between Android variants and forks of Android variants. Adding sources (primary or otherwise) to a topic you aren't seeking to understand just puts the community in a bad spot. Autobotsrepair (talk) 23:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
The source refers to RattlesnakeOS and hashbangos as forks of the Android Open Source Project that are potential alternatives to CopperheadOS. You're misinterpreting the content. It does not say what you claim that it does. This is a recurring problem with your changes. You do not have a good grasp of the subject so you misinterpret vague / unclear language in the secondary sources. You claim that having the relevant expertise to understand what's being said is bias and means that the work is not based on the secondary sources, but that's backwards. You're making leaps of logic and assumptions to read between the lines and interpret what the articles are saying, but you do not have the background knowledge to do it correctly. You then claim that your edits are based on the secondary sources and what others are doing is not, when the difference is that you are misunderstanding and misinterpreting what the sources say rather than actually making content based on them. Pitchcurve (talk) 21:49, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
RattlesnakeOS and hashbangos are not forks of CopperheadOS. They are forks of the Android Open Source Project. You're misinterpreting the content of the article. The article calls them alternatives to CopperheadOS, not forks. They are not based on the CopperheadOS code. GrapheneOS is not really a fork either but rather it's the open source project continued under a different name. Some articles call GrapheneOS a fork, while others call it a continuation of the original project. The ones calling it a fork are not really disagreeing with the others, they're just less detailed about what happened. There is no source that claims RattlesnakeOS and hashbangos are based on CopperheadOS. You created that here. The article you reference does not call them forks. Also, many of the sources talk about the split / dispute between the company and the project. It's a big part of why this page has notability in the first place. It's not that I personally think it should get more attention but that this article was glossing over it and covering it up to push a narrative, which is now mostly corrected other than in the infobox. Pitchcurve (talk) 21:38, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
This source calls the other projects "forks," but does not say forks of what exactly. We could use "successors" as in the article title. It is not precise on whether they are based on the same code. It does make it clear the author feels they are "successors" following after CopperheadOS, as illustrated by the xkcd cartoon too. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Interpreting old archived primary source info' is original research.WP:NOR Again

Pitchcurve, Re: a few sections above, and several edits: Thanks for following "reliable" secondary sources some. However, please read what I said to Autobotsrepair about not using old archived primary sources, as you've now also done. Please also read and heed Newslinger's general guidance under "Unreliable sources and contravention of Manual of Style" and "Focus on reliable secondary sources". Please remember we are supposed to reduce self-published primary sourcing, and increase "reliable" secondary sourcing; not do the opposite. Else we will have to put the sources and original research tags back on this article. It seems you are very familiar with the topic of this article (and GrapheneOS), but that does not mean you may ignore wikipedia guidelines to present what you know to be "the truth." As for the conflicts and controversies, it may be worth creating a separate section for that. piunikaweb.com does cover that some. -- Yae4 (talk) 03:37, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

You've removed information that is covered by the sources just because the reference markup was on the preceding or following sentence instead of directly on the sentence that you removed. You're stripping out information from the sources because you're not looking at the context. I'm going to add back the information and will just repeat the reference syntax on each sentence. I am not familiar with how references are marked up on Wikipedia and assumed it was acceptable to put it on the first or last sentence rather than every single one sourced from it. From now on, I'll make sure to add them to every sentence and will start getting multiple references for each statement so my work on the article stops being stripped out.
Also, as explained in the infobox, the date of incorporation and the company name have been confirmed via multiple sources including a commercial service providing the information (i.e. not the government themselves).
Why did you remove information based on the LWN article, among other things? I don't understand why you're stripping out information from a news article that was actually confirmed via research / investigative journalism while also adding in a bunch of quotes from a blog post and editorializing the content in a way that gets the facts wrong. Going to need to go back through your edits and add back the information sourced from that high quality LWN article which is a much higher quality source than the blog posts / press releases / quotes that are being used.
Instead of stripping out the work that people have done on the article, you should do a Google search for the terms like "CopperheadOS Alpha" and then add in references like https://www.tuttoandroid.net/android/copperheados-alpha-disponibile-per-lg-nexus-5-e-galaxy-s4-303681/ instead of undoing the work other people have done. At least put in a basic effort to find a reference before removing content simply because it only comes from a primary source. Using a primary source isn't great, but it's better than a huge gap in the timeline / information in the article and you COULD have found multiple usable references with a trivial search rather than just removing the content.
You've also added multiple inaccurate claims based on misinterpretations / assumptions that you're making that are not based on the sources. For example, you've claimed that the OS supported the Nexus 5X and Nexus 9 before those devices existed, by moving content out of place and misusing a later source to replace the earlier sources. Pitchcurve (talk) 17:30, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: Proper referencing is the job of the person who wants to add statements to the article, as I understand it. We are supposed to find reliable sources that cover the topic, then neutrally add information to summarize significant views from those sources. We don't write the story based on "inside knowledge" then search for sources to support that story. So, I searched for sources on CopperheadOS (and saw lack of interest in using them). If I cannot "verify" a statement based on the reference provided, then the statement will be deleted. If I made a mistake, please point it out with specifics, not vague statements. I come at this article with a neutral perspective, so believe it or not, I'm just trying to summarize what "reliable" sources say, right or wrong. tuttoandroid.com might be a good example to examine from the standpoint of criteria used to evaluate "reliable" sources. Can you point to anything describing their staff and editorial board? -- Yae4 (talk) 04:21, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
FYI, Reliability of TuttoAndroid.net has been raised at Reliable Sources Noticeboard. -- Yae4 (talk) 16:39, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Representation of the Tom's Hardware interview

Yae4 is misrepresenting the interview at https://www.tomshardware.com/news/copperhead-nexus-more-secure-priv,30565.html as being a comparison between the BlackBerry Priv and Nexus devices with CopperheadOS. That is not reflected by the content of the article. The headline of the article was corrected to "Copperhead CTO: Nexus Phones Already More Secure Than BlackBerry Priv". The information in the Wikipedia article should not be based on the name of the permalink which refers to an inaccurate version of the headline which was changed to be more accurate. The corrected headline conveys the actual content of the article. This is the relevant content in the interview:

> Tom's Hardware: You said in a rather controversial tweet that the BlackBerry Priv isn't "at the forefront of Android security," because it hasn’t adopted the security improvements in Android 6.0. Are you implying Android 6.0 is overall more secure than the BlackBerry Priv custom Android 5.1.1 OS? Are the latest Nexus phones more secure than BlackBerry Priv? > > Daniel Micay: Nexus phones are more secure than the BlackBerry Priv because Android 6.0 offers some security improvements over 5.1.1. That applies to both the new devices (Nexus 5x and Nexus 6p) and the older devices that are still supported with OS upgrades. > > If BlackBerry had significantly hardened 5.1.1, it would be a different story. However, they haven't made any substantial improvements. Nexus devices also already had monthly security updates before the release of the Priv, and it isn't yet clear that BlackBerry is able to deliver on their promise across carriers. Samsung has also made a commitment to deliver monthly updates, but that's different than delivering on it.

It's a bit strange to include this "controversy" (appears to be clickbait to promote the article, which goes on to other topics). It has little to do with the history of CopperheadOS. If it is included, it definitely needs to be accurate, which means Yae4 needs to stop misrepresenting the content based on an inaccurate headline not written by the author of the article and which was quickly corrected so it only exists in the permalink. Pitchcurve (talk) 17:53, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: Nexus with Copperhead versus just Nexus: Look at how many times DM was asked about and talked about CopperheadOS. A few quotes:
  • DM: "Some of those vulnerabilities were prevented by the userspace hardening features in CopperheadOS such the..."
  • "Most memory corruption bugs will be significantly harder to exploit in CopperheadOS even if they aren't caught by a specific feature. "
  • "That said, CopperheadOS does have backports of 6.0 security features, and features that are..."
  • "It's a small subset of the total work in CopperheadOS, but ..."
  • "For example, four sets of vulnerabilities (two critical severity, one low, one high) were found as part of the regular CopperheadOS development, ..."
Retract your "misrepresentation" statement. It's BS. -- Yae4 (talk) 04:36, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
You're taking content from later in the article, which is not tied to the statement being made earlier in the article. You are repeatedly misrepresenting content from multiple sources. In the article, Daniel Micay states that the Nexus devices are more secure due to Android 6 (not CopperheadOS, Android 6) offering more security enhancements than BlackBerry implemented for Android 5. He then goes into detail about how CopperheadOS went further at the time. You are not accurately summarizing what was stated in the article at all. Please stop misrepresenting the statements made there based on content which is not in the article. The statement in the headline and early in the article are not about CopperheadOS and the discussion of CopperheadOS later in the article is not relevant to that fact. Pitchcurve (talk) 00:48, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Here is the direct quote of the relevant section in the article:
Tom's Hardware: You said in a rather controversial tweet that the BlackBerry Priv isn't "at the forefront of Android security," because it hasn’t adopted the security improvements in Android 6.0. Are you implying Android 6.0 is overall more secure than the BlackBerry Priv custom Android 5.1.1 OS? Are the latest Nexus phones more secure than BlackBerry Priv?
Daniel Micay: Nexus phones are more secure than the BlackBerry Priv because Android 6.0 offers some security improvements over 5.1.1. That applies to both the new devices (Nexus 5x and Nexus 6p) and the older devices that are still supported with OS upgrades.
If BlackBerry had significantly hardened 5.1.1, it would be a different story. However, they haven't made any substantial improvements. Nexus devices also already had monthly security updates before the release of the Priv, and it isn't yet clear that BlackBerry is able to deliver on their promise across carriers. Samsung has also made a commitment to deliver monthly updates, but that's different than delivering on it.
It's only the tweet being called controversial. The article is clearly not saying that what was said in the interview is controversial, and changing the interviewing referring to the tweet as rather controversial (without any elaboration or collaborating sources) does not justify saying they said this controversially especially when what is being summarized is what was said in the interview with Tom's Hardware, not the tweet that is being called rather controversial.
The comparisons with CopperheadOS are later in the article. It's an expansion of the topic in a different direction, and it is not what is being called controversial. You're misrepresenting what they stated and what was called controversial. They are stating that Nexus devices are ALREADY more secure without their changes and then elaborating on how their changes are done on top of the already more secure Android 6 and how they are different from what BlackBerry did. You're merging different topics together and are misrepresenting what was said by the person doing the interview and the person being interviewed. It's quite important to get these things right when it comes to living people that are involved in the story. Pitchcurve (talk) 01:19, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
A direct quote of the relevant part of the article: "You said in a rather controversial tweet that the BlackBerry Priv isn't "at the forefront of Android security," because it hasn’t adopted the security improvements in Android 6.0.". There is no further mention of any controversial criticism. The only thing describe as controversial is a tweet criticizing the BlackBerry Priv based on it not having the security improvements in Android 6. There isn't a source for any "controversial" criticism beyond that. The interview begins with a comparison of the BlackBerry Priv and stock Nexus devices, which is a separate from what is described as 'rather controversial'. It goes on to talk about CopperheadOS and how it compares, including how it built on Android 6 rather than Android 5.1.1. I am not sure how you can interpret it any other way. Pitchcurve (talk) 11:45, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. This is a clear misrepresentation of content of the article. —99.92.214.217 (talk) 21:06, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
I've made a change as discussed in the section below that hopefully resolves this issue. —99.92.214.217 (talk) 21:35, 25 September 2020 (UTC)


Relevance of BlackBerry Priv criticism to CopperheadOS history

Criticism of the BlackBerry Priv does not seem relevant to the history of CopperheadOS. Not everything said or done by the creator / lead developer of the project that is notable is relevant to this article. The Tom's Hardware interview with the lead developer has a question with an offhand remark referring to a tweet as 'rather controversial' without elaborating on that. The tweet and the question / response in the article are also a baseline comparison of the BlackBerry Priv with Nexus devices without CopperheadOS. The lead developer states that Android 6 is more secure than Android 5, and the difference is more substantial than the difference made by the improvements BlackBerry made to Android 5. The topic then moves on to discussing how CopperheadOS goes further and has that superior baseline of Android 6 rather than Android 5. The interpretation added here by Yae4 makes it seem more relevant than it really is to the article, but either way, it does not really appear that there was any substantial controversy or any significant event worth noting in the history of CopperheadOS. It's not a history of the tweets and interviews made by the developers. There needs to be something that makes it notable in the context of the history of CopperheadOS. The article being used does not say anything that would make it notable in that context. This does not appear to have had any notable impact on CopperheadOS, and certainly not anything mentioned by any sources. Pitchcurve (talk) 01:36, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: BlackBerry Priv is relevant because it was at the start, and the center, of attention in this article and interview about topics related to CopperheadOS. The tweet was indeed controversial, and it drew attention to Copperhead the company, and the OS. But, not only the tweet was controversial. Being critical of the Priv was controversial. It can be difficult to summarize what a long article says. Here's what I think, as a non-connected editor, is interesting about the article and interview. Micay as CTO of Copperhead, a new Toronto based company "created this year" (2015), criticized the Priv. It was controversial to do so, because "the Priv is already considered by many to be the pinnacle of Android security," and it was just announced. Then they discuss many things - the Priv, Android, Nexus phones, Blackberry's (Priv) commitments and whether they can deliver them, features of kernels, exploits, vulnerabilities, and then how (at the time "open sourced", "alpha stage") CopperheadOS is or will be the greatest thing since sliced bread, because (unlike Priv, in context)... CopperheadOS does everything right, in excruciating detail. Yes, we have to be careful about WP:BLP, and this article is on CopperheadOS. So, my summary is[5]:

In 2015 CopperheadOS was being developed by a newly formed security company, Copperhead, based in Toronto. In November 2015, Copperhead CTO, Daniel Micay, controversially criticized security of the newly released BlackBerry Priv, in comparison to CopperheadOS on Nexus devices.

What, precisely, is your proposed summary of this source? -- Yae4 (talk) 17:07, 3 September 2020 (UTC)


@Pitchcurve: @Yae4: I agree that the current summary of the source is not relevant to the history of CopperheadOS:

In November 2015, Copperhead CTO, Daniel Micay, posted a "rather controversial" tweet criticizing the security of the newly released BlackBerry Priv because it lacks the security improvements in Android 6.

As someone coming to this page with fresh eyes trying to learn about this project for the first time and without any context for the contentious editing history going on behind the scenes, this summary was confusing - at best, and seemed disjointed from the rest of the history section. Of all the topics discussed in the source article, the mention of a "controversial tweet" about an unrelated phone from another company is a baffling takeaway to use as a summary as it has only incidental relevance to what's discussed in the interview overall and almost none at all to the history CopperheadOS.
But after reading briefly through the talk page and the back-and-forth between the editors involved, it seems apparent that, rather than seeking to add any pertinent information to history of CopperheadOS, this summary's main purpose is to portray the the CTO, Daniel Micay, as a controversial figure. Yae4 describes themselves as a "non-connected editor", but their actions and comments here on the talk page betray a strong editorial bias. For example:

CopperheadOS is or will be the greatest thing since sliced bread, because (unlike Priv, in context)... CopperheadOS does everything right

This comment is blatant editorializing oozing with sarcasm and demonstrates a lack of good faith and a disregard for NPOV (or perhaps a lack of understanding of the topics being discussed). Moreover, it's not even an honest assessment of what was discussed in the interview; no such claims of grandeur are made in the interview which, on the contrary, talks about the early alpha stage the project is in and the compromises that must be made due to time and funding constraints - including using Cyanogenmod as a base instead of AOSP and relying on backports of security features from newer Android versions. That's a far cry from "greatest thing since sliced bread" and "does everything right".
Regarding a proposed summary, I think we should remove the source entirely as it doesn't add much to contextualize the history of CopperheadOS. But if we insist on keeping it, I suggest a summary that represents the parts of the interview that are actually relevant to CopperheadOS, like mentioning the contributions CopperheadOS added to the upstream AOSP source. -- 99.92.214.217 (talk) 20:53, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
I've made an edit to the summary that better represents the article, is relevant to the history of CopperheadOS, and maintains a NPOV [6]:

In a November 2015 interview with Tom's Hardware, Copperhead CTO, Daniel Micay, discussed the security features of CopperheadOS in comparison to other existing security focused Android implementations as well as the the security fixes and improvements CopperheadOS contributed upstream to the AOSP

Hopefully this satisfies everyone and we can put this issue to rest. If so, we can remove the relevance tag. —99.92.214.217 (talk) 21:35, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
@99.92.214.217: Re: "their actions and comments here on the talk page betray a strong editorial bias." Looking at the bigger picture leads to a different conclusion. Yes, my statement exaggerated what the source said, but not as much as you suggest. This article and wikipedia would be better served by at least noting the comparison and contrast with BlackBerry_Priv, as done in the interview in the source. -- Yae4 (talk) 22:35, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
We could maybe put comparisons with the Priv in the Reception section, if any reviewers have made any comparison articles that we can use. I don't think we should mention the Priv in the History section, though, as it doesn't seem to have been much of an influence in the development of CopperheadOS. If there were sources that quoted Copperhead as saying that they changed parts of CopperheadOS in reaction to the release of the Priv, for example, then it might belong in the History section, but from the sources I've seen that doesn't appear to be the case. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:43, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Inaccuracies conflicting with the sources about the initially supported devices at launch and for the Alpha release and which devices were dropped with the Beta release

Yae4 moved a later set of supported devices from the LWN article covering the Beta release of CopperheadOS to be in the initial paragraph about the early history of the project. This is not accurate, and those devices were not released yet. The earlier sources used in the article make it clear that the Nexus 5 and Galaxy S4 were the only supported devices for the Alpha release. The Nexus 5 was the first supported device followed by the Galaxy S4. It is incorrect to use articles from a year later for that initial history. Yae4 also added a sentence implying that multiple devices were dropped with the Beta release, which is not what any of the sources say. The Galaxy S4 was dropped with the Beta release per the sources, nothing else. LWN abstracts that and just states that device support has been reduced without being specific, but there are other more specific sources. LWN does not say that multiple devices were dropped, which is inaccurate. Pitchcurve (talk) 17:59, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: We have to follow what "reliable" secondary sources say, or the information is not significant enough to include in the article. When "reliable" sources are "wrong" it's a bitch, but we can't just correct the story because someone has "inside information" or knows different. -- Yae4 (talk) 04:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
The sources being used are not inaccurate. The edits you made are inaccurate and do not reflect the content in the articles. You're misinterpreting what was stated in the article. It stated that the number of devices was reduced. That does not imply multiple devices were dropped. Please stop playing games of semantics and repeatedly adding inaccurate information and misinterpretations of the sources. You're repeatedly stripping out content that is accurate and sourced while adding inaccurate claims and your misinterpretations of content from articles. You're not making the article better.If you strip out sourced information or add inaccurate information not based on a source, I will continue to revert your changes. You claim to be going by what the secondary sources say but that is not true. You keep trying to fill in gaps or interpret the articles based on your assumptions and misunderstanding of the subject matter. You're reading between the lines in a way that leads to inaccuracies and lowering the quality of the article. Having an understanding of the subject matter and knowledge about it is crucial to be able to properly interpret the sources and create a high quality article. Pitchcurve (talk) 00:55, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Presentation of XDA article about CopperheadOS Pixel 1 sales

https://www.xda-developers.com/pixel-with-copperheados-is-available-for-purchase-in-the-us-and-canada/ states that the official factory images / OTA updates are available for Nexus devices, not Pixels. Official releases for Pixels were never made available for the public. The Wikipedia article is currently inaccurate and is claiming something that the source does not say. Nexus 5X and 6P factory images / OTAs (should likely be called 'official releases' or perhaps the 'install files' term being used) were available and remained available. Pixels never had them available. Yae4 removed the proper timeline for source code access due to being based on primary sources and replaced it with inaccurate interpretations / assumptions based on articles not really covering the topic. Instead of removing the accurate content, perhaps you should put in the effort to find secondary sources and improve the article. Right now, Yae4 is repeatedly lowering the quality of the article by stripping out information and adding inaccurate claims / misinterpretations. You are not giving people the chance to add in higher quality references. Instead, you're immediately stripping out the content even when other references in the articles cover it.

At least mark content based on a primary source and allow people to fill in a better reference instead of lowering the quality and accuracy of the article. You're making it incredibly difficult for people who actually want to improve the quality of the article to do their job. I spend a couple hours working on it and come back the next day to see my work stripped out and replaced with inaccurate claims in bulk edits, despite the fact that the references show that what was stripped out was accurate and the new content is not based on what's actually in the available sources due to misinterpreting it and making bad assumptions (i.e. original research). Pitchcurve (talk) 18:14, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: I suggest you spend some time reviewing wikipedia's pillars and guidelines, and stop using words like "misrepresentation" or otherwise accusing me of editing with bad faith or bad intentions. If you want to say mistaken or erroneous interpretation of a source, then we can talk. As I understand, it is the burden of the editor who wants to add statements to an article to provide reliable sources at the time of adding the statements. Not later. It appears you have insider knowledge and are determined to present "the correct story." The way wikipedia works is to follow reliable sources. If they don't cover all the details you want to include, then all the details don't need to be included. -- Yae4 (talk) 00:34, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
You're not going by what the sources say. You made incorrect assumptions the content was not in the article. Pitchcurve (talk) 00:44, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Timeline for public access to official releases and source code

Nexus 5X and 6P always had publicly available official releases available. They were available from the start and never taken down. Pixels never had publicly available official releases. The sources all make that clear. They were never taken down and no sources claim that they were. There is not really a timeline for access to official releases aside from Pixel support being launched without the releases available to the public. The Wikipedia article is currently greatly overcomplicating this and implying that this happened differently. The sources do not back up the way the article is currently written. Better references can almost certainly be found talking about releases for Pixels not being available for download, so that this can be greatly simplified. Instead of trying to put together a convoluted timeline, a good reference needs to be found for explaining this in a two simple sentences (Nexus device releases remaining available, Pixel releases were never available).

Source code access also currently has a convoluted timeline. I previously corrected this to use the proper timeline but Yae4 replaced it due to the use of primary sources. However, that greatly lowered the quality of the article and it's now quite convoluted, confusing and also inaccurate at points. I've made some corrections to it but it's not in a good state. It seems far better to start with the accurate timeline and then add in secondary sources (which are available) rather than turning it into this mess. A low quality article is no good for anyone. What Yae4 is doing is taking observations made in articles at certain points in time and turning that into a timeline which is misleading and implies changes when none had happened. It also doesn't match what the articles are saying and is based on assumptions/interpretations being made about it.

The project switched to a non-commercial usage license for Android 7 and later. There are multiple secondary sources to back this up. This should be added in to the timeline. It was a major, controversial event and is certainly notable. It led to a falling out with a large part of the community and conflicts with various organizations / projects such as FSFE. There are articles covering this.

At a certain point, the project stopped publishing the sources for stable releases. At another point, they stopped publishing the OS source code at all. These were not really events but rather lack of events. The primary sources provide the dates when the last stable releases and development branch changes were made. I have not yet found a secondary source for this, but the current approach Yae4 has taken is very convoluted, unclear and misleading. Also, observing what articles stated at various points in time about source code / official release access and then building a timeline from that seems to be original research. Citing dates based on primary sources does not seem like a major issue, while having a low quality convoluted article overcomplicating the timeline is definitely a major issue.

Can we please focus on making a high quality article based on verifiable information instead of ruining it simply to avoid referencing primary sources? This is not a widely covered topic and it cannot be expected that primary sources can be ENTIRELY avoided when trying to put events into a timeline. I really don't see the issue of using the source code release dates from Copperhead simply to fit the information into the timeline. I do see a major issue with ending up with 10 different statements of "Around XX date, source code was still available in some form according to YY unreliable blog post". The repeated mentions of these things in the secondary sources make it clear that it's notable. However, it's not deserving of having so much coverage of the state of things at various points in time rather than simply saying when the changes happened even if that requires referencing primary sources... the quality of the article seems far important than completely avoiding using a primary source to get a date.

Pitchcurve (talk) 18:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve:There are some who think this article is barely notable enough for an article in the first place. Example. I would say many details you seem to think are crucial to include, are actually not important enough to include, from a wikipedia perspective. -- Yae4 (talk) 04:52, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Yet you keep adding a ton of trivial information that's often inaccurate and sourced from blog posts / press releases. It's important to get a basic timeline of the launch of the OS, the creation of the company, changes in availability of releases / licensing and the split into GrapheneOS (originally called Android Hardening, but that detail may not belong here) and the new CopperheadOS without the original development team. Those things are covered by a bunch of articles and are clearly notable/controversial. On the other hand, covering pricing and availability of files on specific dates does seem far too trivial and is very confusing / over-complex for a timeline. The timeline should cover the major points, not a bunch of trivialities. It's hard to see why it should even be covering what the lead developer said about an old BlackBerry device since that is not relevant to CopperheadOS and it is only Tom's Hardware calling it "controversial" as a hook for a story. You're also misinterpreting that source, among others. Pitchcurve (talk) 01:02, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve:This may be near the crux of our problems. If you think sources are based on blog posts or PR, then present your case (with specifics, not generalities). You may notice I posted lists of possible sources and waited for comments before using them. Where is your participation there? One person's "trivialities" can be another person's interesting info'. I look for sources. I try to summarize them. The sources and what they talk about determines what is trivial or significant. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:12, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Original research on the reason for the split between GrapheneOS and CopperheadOS

The article said the dispute was due to "licensing" but that is not backed up by the sources and is not at all an accurate summary of the overall conflict. However, the secondary sources being used do not talk about the reasons in that kind of detail. There are published documents showing what the dispute was about from the perspective of Copperhead but those are primary sources, and regardless, licensing was only a small portion of it. Licensing and whether Daniel Micay would continue to control / own the open source project did play a major role in the dispute. You can see that Copperhead demanded to have ownership/control turned over to them (in their own words) but that is not usable as a source in the article. I removed this overly narrow and specific description of the conflict and replaced it by describing it as a dispute over the direction of the company and the CopperheadOS project which is definitely backed up by multiple sources. Some specific sources could be added for that part of the sentence, but it's covered by the reference for the next sentence along with a couple others. Pitchcurve (talk) 19:11, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: This is an automated translation: "However, Copperhead OS published its own code under a Creative Commons license, which excludes commercial use (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). The two Copperhead founders argue about the licensed code, which complicates further development." In better English it would be argue about code license. Where does your dispute "on the direction of the company" appear in the golem.de reference; I couldn't find it? -- Yae4 (talk) 05:03, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
This is not the only source talking about the conflict, and that is not the full content contained in that article or a very good translation of it. Pitchcurve (talk) 00:56, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


Undue Weight and COI tags

I've added these two tags. I'm not particularly attached to the exact tags, but those capture a couple of the issues I see with the article. In my opinion, we are not yet approaching consensus on most issues being discussed, and some editors are pushing particular narratives and wordings relentlessly, based on prior knowledge as much or more than based on independent sources. The article should be tagged to indicate there is ongoing major disagreement. I am hoping other uninvolved editors will come to this article to help out. -- Yae4 (talk) 15:37, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

An editor having expertise on a topic does not mean they are involved in it. Having prior knowledge about it does not mean that edits are inherently based on that prior knowledge. If you lack knowledge about it, then it's difficult to make a high quality article especially when so many of the sources being used are blog posts and press releases with many inaccuracies. There are only a few high quality articles focused on the topic like the LWN, Ars and golem.de articles. The rest are low quality blog posts and most really shouldn't be used here especially since those sites are largely just paraphrasing press releases and social media posts to churn out content. Using low quality sources is a serious problem and I don't see how that could lead to anything but a very slanted and inaccurate article unless judgement based on prior knowledge is used to figure out which of those low quality sources / blog posts is actually getting the facts right. If you don't think prior knowledge should be involved in those decisions, then those low quality sources really need to be outright avoided. Assembling an article out of blog posts / press releases especially when it covers controversial ongoing events / conflicts is problematic.
I simply started with these articles but fully intend to start working on other ones like articles about PaX, grsecurity and other open source / security projects. You seem to have a serious problem with my editing, to the point that you want to revert everything that I'm doing without even giving reasoning for all of your reverts. It has not been a good experience contributing here so far due to my interactions with you. Driving away subject matters experts interested in making an accurate and neutral article with only high quality sources is not a roadmap for success. I would gladly have other neutral people involved here because it does not seem possible to work with you. I don't think you are biased or trying to push a narrative, but you accuse everyone else of that and of not making changes based on the sources when that's not the case. I see things the other way around, as I see you making a lot of changes contradicted by the same sources you're claiming to reference. I don't think you're doing it on purpose but you're making mistakes and misinterpretations of the content due to lack of familiarity with it. You also seem to be taking contrarian stances to simply counter any of the work that I do on Wikipedia. You don't seem to be judging my changes based on their merits but rather just undoing it as quickly as you can including via edits where you simply roll back my changes with reasoning that does not apply to everything you're rolling back. It seems like you're just undoing it because you have a problem with me rather than the individual changes themselves.
This is not an issue happening with others - just yourself. I think with any of the other editors here, I can come to a consensus on any issue that comes up such as the "proprietary" compromise that I came up with for the lede instead of having a fight about closed-source vs. source available along with my approach of listing it as both closed-source (for the public) and source available (for approved partners) in the infobox. I'm interested in coming up with more consensus-based approaches but when you simply revert all of my work in bulk and won't justify what you're doing, that's very difficult. Pitchcurve (talk) 20:50, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: You are correct I've had difficulty assuming good faith regarding your edits of this article. Maybe it's clear why. I have no preconceived notions or involvement in Copperhead/Graphene; You clearly do. Expertise is welcome; bias and conflicted editing are not. Although not all ROM articles have this kind of "viper pit" environment, too many do, and this is just "different ROM, same stuff" to me.

You are not correct to claim full credit for a "proprietary compromise" or imply I was not involved in that, because I and others were involved too.

It could help to compare and contrast this article with CyanogenMod and LineageOS. I don't say they are the best articles ever, but they made it to "Rated C Class" (See their Talk pages). Those articles have general similarities with CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS - CyanogenMod founder "left or was forced out" and a LineageOS project was started with a new name. However, lucky for those articles, there is much more secondary coverage. I think they use too much primary sourcing, but as a proportion of all the sources, maybe it's OK. The biggest differences I see are article structure - separate sections for Background, Development, Community, Version History, and Features etc. Maybe that approach, rather than a narrative history with all details of all kinds in one History section, would be better here too. By separating the more controversial and BLP-related details from the more mundane details like version lists, it could also ease concerns over biased presentation. I also note info' regarding Kondik involvement was only tied year, not month and year, with one exception, in CyanogenMod. -- Yae4 (talk) 21:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Ars Technica article about the startup (Copperhead)

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/copperhead-os-fix-android-security/ is an article focused on the startup. The initial paragraphs and headline are about the startup, rather than specifically about the open source project it was backing. From the article:

"A startup on a shoestring budget is working to clean up the Android security mess, and has even demonstrated results where other "secure" Android phones have failed, raising questions about Google's willingness to address the widespread vulnerabilities that exist in the world's most popular mobile operating system.

"Copperhead is probably the most exciting thing happening in the world of Android security today," Chris Soghoian, principal technologist with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, tells Ars. "But the enigma with Copperhead is why do they even exist? Why is it that a company as large as Google and with as much money as Google and with such a respected security team—why is it there's anything left for Copperhead to do?"

Copperhead OS, a two-man team based in Toronto, ships a hardened version of Android that aims to integrate Grsecurity and PaX into their distribution."

Many other articles talk about the company too. The existence of the company is certainly notable and should be mentioned in the article. The date of the company being founded is a simple fact, and primary sources such as the government database and Copperhead's own published information (which match for date / location / address) provide that. It's very strange to have an argument about whether the company being founded and existing is notable. It's also quite confusing and misleading for readers of the article to never mention the company and then start talking about it later in the article. It says that CopperheadOS was an open source project (which is accurate and backed up by many sources) and in order for the later content involving the company to make any sense, it needs to be mentioned, even with a single sentence as it is now. Not sure why Yae4 has been so determined to strip out notable information such as the Alpha release and the founding of Copperhead at all costs. Other editors should start keeping an eye on this. I'm rapidly losing interest in trying to improve this article due to the active work being done to make the article worse. These things are simply basic facts for the article.

I fully expect that Yae4 is also going to strip out the information about the Alpha release again despite having good sources for it too. He has an idea of what should or shouldn't be included and it doesn't have to do with what secondary sources consider important enough to cover. Keep an eye out for reverts making multiple changes with an edit summary not adequately explaining it and not covering why certain changes were done. That's likely how the information on the Alpha release will be removed yet again.

Pitchcurve (talk) 22:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pitchcurve: I agree the arstechnica source does look good. But it's a snapshot as of August 2016. Yes, I have an idea what should be included: Significant views from reliable independent sources, neutrally presented ( WP Rulez). It's unfortunate the nature of your edits gave an impression you have a strong desire to tell a particular version of Copperhead history, because that makes me feel more cautious about checking/verifying statements against sources. I mean, why not add a bunch of details about the Operating System and its features? That's what a lot of ROM articles have. Why this focus on ensuring particular months and dates and events are included in the History (and trying to force-fit sources to match that)? Here's a suggestion, if you want to improve wikipedia: Please go expand the history (and reception) section, or more, at CrDroid. It's another ROM stub (I started), and could use some wiki-love. -- Yae4 (talk) 22:47, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
There aren't up-to-date articles on the features of the OS. I'm not up-to-date on what's actually still present in it. Each new version of Android essentially wipes everything out and it needs to be reimplemented, if it's still relevant, which is often not the case since the features are implemented/obsoleted by AOSP. The changes made for Android 10 aren't the same as they were for Android 9, and the same goes for earlier versions.
The CopperheadOS site has not been updated to reflect that most of the listed features are not longer present. Secondary sources covering the features are entirely out-of-date. There isn't recent coverage of the available features. It would just end up being part of the history section, and would create further complexities with timelines / dates. Covering when features appeared and then went away seems very difficult especially with the need to find proper sources fitting it into the timeline of the OS.
I don't know what CrDroid is and I don't have an interest in editing an article about it. I'm interested in privacy and security projects, not Android ROMs.
I do think this page should cover some of the significant features, but the nature of the project means that it will all end up in the history section, and if we cannot start with the foundation of the basic timeline, I don't see how that would be possible to cover that.
It's nearly impossible to cover the current status quo since that's now essentially a trade secret. There isn't even first party documentation on what's now included. The 'Technical Overview' dates back to before the split and has not been kept up-to-date. The open source code shows that most of that wasn't relevant anymore, and that was back in late 2019 when the sources were last publicly pushed. A secondary source is unlikely to cover any under the hood features without sources available. The best that can be hoped for is coverage of some of the user-facing changes from AOSP, but many reviewers don't compare to AOSP but rather primarily end up reviewing AOSP itself. Pitchcurve (talk) 12:20, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

XDA OTA article quote for statement(s) on disabling OTA upgrades

https://www.xda-developers.com/copperheados-disables-nexus-update-server/

"The reasons behind disabling these OTA upgrades overlaps with why CopperheadOS cannot be purchased and flashed on a Google Pixel. On the Google Pixel, you either have to purchase the device with the custom ROM preinstalled or send in your own Google Pixel for flashing. This was done to avoid the same situation which the Nexus versions suffer from. The problem is not the open source nature of Android, but actually has been the release of flashable builds. Source licensing is not being violated.

Users are still free to build from source and use the OS non commercially, with the only problem being commercial use. The developers behind CopperheadOS do the testing and developing, but others are intent on stealing their work and undercutting their costs to make a quick profit. Until a way is found around the licensing violations, the upgrade server will remain switched off and users will have to flash upgrades themselves."

It states clearly in that first sentence that this is a distinct issue stemmed from the baseline of official releases not being available, which the article goes on to explain. Pitchcurve (talk) 23:03, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I have cut down the sentence to "Downloads of official releases for Pixel devices were not made available and users now had to either purchase a device from Copperhead or purchase the OS with their device sent in for flashing."
It's clearly a distinct fact from temporarily taking down the OTA server. The XDA article covers this since the information was needed as a baseline to understand the current events. It states this information as a key point of the article. It states that releases were not available for flashing and that users have to purchase the product and either have a phone with it shipped or send it in for flashing. It does not explicitly go into detail about why, and I've stripped that out rather than spending time citing other sources that cover it. Not really sure how it can be argued that it doesn't say that, or how it could be argued that this is the same fact as OTA updates being temporarily taken down. As the article explains, this was already the status quo before that temporary event. Pitchcurve (talk) 23:18, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Your edits are using this source dated November 2017, which reports a short-term shutdown, to make a more general, longer-term statement tied to a date in March 2017. Your edits are persistently adding information not directly supported by the source(s): WP:SYNTHESIS -- Yae4 (talk) 23:33, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
The article talks about past events to provide context and understanding, not just current events. By including only the information about the temporary shut down without the context provided by the article, that is not accurately reflecting the information from the source, and misleads readers here. It is not me that is creating something different than what the source provides. Pitchcurve (talk) 11:28, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it talks about the past, but there is nothing connecting it to March. Only to unspecified time before November. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:31, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
The article is stating that something did not happen i.e. they did not make official releases for Pixels public. It is not an event that happened on a specific date, but rather something that did not happen between launch of Pixel support and that article. What I want is for the information to be included so that the article is more informative and easier to understand. I don't care which paragraph you think it belongs in, just that you do not strip out the properly sourced information. It is information about something that didn't happen, not an event at a specific time. It becomes relevant once support for Pixels is talked about, and in my opinion that's the best place to include it. If you think it should be included later, that's fine with me, as long as the same information is conveyed. Pitchcurve (talk) 01:22, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Re-adding AndroidWorld.It source, and Alpha Release Announcement

Pitchcurve Re-added [7] after my removal[8] of this source. This source is basically a blog post highlighting a longer Copperhead company blog post from the link at the bottom. I've looked at the AndroidWorld.it site. It is similar to Liliputing and others that mostly highlight company press releases for purposes of guiding eyes to product advertisements, and I see no signs of editorial oversight. So I concluded it is unreliable in general. Also, what does it add to the two other, much longer, more reliable, sources also being cited?[9][10], other than being published on September 8 versus September 28, or February 2016?

I know you want the article to say, "In August 2015, the project announced an Alpha release." Unfortunately, none of the secondary sources actually say that. Not even AndroidWorld.It. This statement is really referencing a primary source, which is no longer online. In context of Android Headlines, you've called that "retracted." Why is that statement so important? -- Yae4 (talk) 17:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

The primary source (https://copperhead.co/blog/alpha/) is still online. https://www.androidworld.it/2015/09/08/copperheados-firmware-open-source-sicuro-333633/ and other coverage of the announcement demonstrate that it is notable and allow fitting it into the proper place in the timeline. The higher quality articles on LWN and that heise.de article further demonstrate the notability of the Alpha release, as does other coverage. I don't see the problem with including it in the correct place in the timeline with the correct date, as is being done with other major events, including facts you've added that are far less notable and only have a single source rather than coverage across dozens of sites like the Alpha release. Why is it that you were so against including the information about the Alpha release in the timeline, and now you're against including the date which is clearly verifiable and available across a bunch of secondary sources? They do not need to be amazing articles to simply cite a date from them that's also provided by the primary source. The notability of the Alpha release is very clear and I don't think a source needs to be as good as LWN or heise.de to simply obtain a date from it that's verifiable elsewhere. Pitchcurve (talk) 01:17, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: The AndroidWorld source you used[11] links to https://copperhead.co/2015/08/21/alpha. This link is now 404. This change in primary source link clearly illustrates a problem with using primary sources. They can publish and re-publish whatever they want, whenever they want. This makes them of questionable reliability. If you have "other coverage" or "a bunch of secondary sources" for this historic event, then list them. They need to be reliable. -- Yae4 (talk) 08:07, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure what that has to do with it being a primary source. The article is right there at https://copperhead.co/blog/alpha/ by the way. It wasn't taken down. Neither are the many secondary sources referring to it which are plainly visible to anyone doing a basic search. If you're concerned about it being modified, there are archives available, but the primary source is not what is being used. Secondary sources are by definition referring to and reporting on primary sources. I am not sure why you think that's a problem. An article referring to a specific primary source doesn't somehow make it an invalid source of information. Where would they have gotten the information if not from the combination of the CopperheadOS announcements and other information they made available, such as the GitHub repositories and releases? Pitchcurve (talk) 22:39, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve: I'll ask this again: Why is the following statement so important, to you? "In August 2015, the project announced an Alpha release." That date and the alpha release are not notable (i.e. no secondary source coverage). Why are you not adding a table of releases, similar to LineageOS#Version_history or others? Why the interest in presenting only a particular version of early CopperheadOS history? -- Yae4 (talk) 04:28, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
An Alpha release is a major milestone in any software development project and its notability is self evident. It is much different than any other arbitrary release that may be included in a table of releases or version history. —99.92.214.217 (talk) 22:12, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
The androidworld.it site looks fine to me. On their about page they list an executive editor and a managing editor, which implies that they have editorial oversight. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 00:18, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Connected user status disagreement

Pitchcurve deleted their connected user status.[12]

If these statements by Pitchcurve do not constitute declaration of close personal or professional connection to the subject of this article and GrapheneOS, then nothing does.

Pitchcurve claims of logs proving connections of editors to Copperhead CEO:

"Of course an editor actively coordinating with the Copperhead CEO (proven by logs) would support pushing out editors countering their bias."[13]

Pitchcurve states:[14]

"I am based in Toronto and have gone to relevant events and followed the project from the beginning in 2014. So sure, I have a lot of insider knowledge,..."

"I have followed the project from early on, and I'm based in Toronto so I've even attended some of the Toronto Crypto events, etc. where James Donaldson (rarely Daniel Micay) were present. So sure, I have insider knowledge,..."

"I follow both James Donaldson and Daniel Micay on Twitter and started editing here after James Donaldson talked about the article in the CopperheadOS Telegram channel..."

"I have even met both in real life including recently due to interest in the project. Both of them kept complaining about the Wikipedia article and I tried to have a go at making it neutral."

-- Yae4 (talk) 07:44, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Closely following the projects and learning as much as possible about them through the available means does not make me involved in them. Your crusade against me is over the top and ridiculous. It has already discouraged me from further participation in Wikipedia. Isn't that enough? Pitchcurve (talk) 22:36, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pitchcurve:By your own words, quoted directly above, you are clearly "personally connected" to the subjects of this article and GrapheneOS. Also, your edits and stated interests focus on consistently trying to make CopperheadOS look worse, and GrapheneOS/Micay look better. -- Yae4 (talk) 04:28, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: Being an expert on a subject does not mean that you have a conflict of interest. Neither does following the subject of an article on Twitter, or attending events where they are present. The above quotes do not convince me that Pitchcurve has a COI, and as such I am removing the notices on this talk page and at the top of the article that suggest that they do. Yae, as far as I am concerned, your repeated focus on the contributors here, rather than the content of the article, has made this article a toxic environment to edit in, and amounts to disruptive editing. If this continues, I will file a complaint at the administrators' noticeboard for incidents to alert other admins to the problems here, and perhaps to enact a topic ban from CopperheadOS, GrapheneOS and related articles. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:21, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
@Mr. Stradivarius: We'll see in a week or three how closely this article's History section resembles the self-published graphene website. It was a toxic environment, or "viper pit" with borderline "outing," being done by Micay aka Strcat, before I participated. I tried to help, but you obviously don't see it that way. You're the power user here, so I'm gone. Have fun with it! -- Yae4 (talk) 11:10, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: I don't mean to stop you from editing the article. Indeed, I have no power to do that, as I consider myself WP:INVOLVED with this topic now. Rather, I think that focusing on conflicts of interest is counterproductive; it takes up time that could be spent improving the article, and it sours relationships between editors, which makes it that much harder to reach consensus about anything. If there is a clear conflict of interest problem, then yes, that should be addressed (preferably at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard), but as I said, I don't think that's the case here. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:07, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
@Yae4: Thank you for recusing yourself from further participation. This will do much to reduce antagonism on the talk page and hopefully lead to a better article —99.92.214.217 (talk) 22:08, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
This has continued over at the GrapheneOS page: Talk:GrapheneOS/Archive 1#Unjustified_warning_notices_and_territorial_behavior. I don't understand the need to continue this crusade. The attempt to make a distinction for the other page doesn't make much sense to me. It's the same issue happening over there. That article is pretty much treated as Yae4's territory. Please look back at the past work I did on it which was reverted. It's quite frustrating that it was undone and that the article is kept frozen in an awful state where it primarily uses inaccurate low quality sources rather than the high quality ones and has strange interpretations of them not matching the information across the articles. I took a long break from editing and it's upsetting that the same thing is still happening. It's extremely off-putting as someone trying to contribute here that there are people who invest substantial time in controlling articles as territory. 142.126.174.52 (talk) 17:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
@142.126.174.52: As said here, [15] If you feel so strongly about it, fine, I don't really care that much. I'm focusing on content. I'd ask you to do the same. -- Yae4 (talk) 20:31, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Motivation for using F-droid instead of Google Play

I have restored this deletion by 190.184.199.3. The reason stated for the removal in the edit summary is F-droid is only an app store. It does not prevent users from downloading dangerous apps. This is not in dispute - the F-droid terms page itself says that there are no guarantees as to app safety, and users use it at their own risk. However, this is orthogonal to the matter of why CopperheadOS chose to use F-droid instead of Google Play. The Pauli 2016 source is clear that the purpose of using F-droid instead of Google Play is to help prevent users from installing malicious apps; in other words, at the time, Copperhead thought that it was more likely that malicious apps would appear on Google Play than it was that they would appear on F-droid. This motivation is something that I think is worthy of going in the article. To make it clearer that we are talking about Copperhead's intent, when restoring the edit I changed "This is to prevent" to "This is intended to prevent". Is this enough to assuage concerns about the F-droid sentence going in the article? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 09:41, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

This text looks good to me. The intent of the developers is clear from the source. Brandon (talk)

Is this part necessary to repeat when it's already written in "Features and compatibility" section:

"CopperheadOS supports smartphones in the Google Pixel product line; other devices are not targeted in order to preserve the resources of the development team. It has several security features not found in stock Android, such as a hardened version of the Linux kernel, and the ability to use separate passwords for unlocking the device and for encryption. Rather than use the Google Play Store found on most Android devices, CopperheadOS ships with the F-Droid store in order to reduce the risk of users installing malicious apps."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.139.26.9 (talk) 03:54, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

That part is in the lead section, which is meant to be a summary of the entire article, hence the repetition. We can always reword things to give more or less emphasis to certain aspects of the subject in the lead section, but the repetition of the material itself is on purpose. See WP:LEAD for more details. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:18, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Mentioning CyanogenMod in the lead

@Tdk408: I reverted this edit to the lead, for the following reasons:

  1. We can't cite material to Hacker News, as it is not a reliable source. Also, we don't need to cite material in the lead section if it is already cited in the body of the article (although we can if it is helpful to the reader).
  2. CopperheadOS stopped being based on CyanogenMod in 2016, so we can't say that it is based on CyanogenMod using the present tense; we would have to explain that it was based on it, but that it no longer is. That is probably too much detail for the lead.
  3. The edit changes the first sentence to say that CopperheadOS is based on the Android Open Source Project, but AOSP is already mentioned in the second sentence, so it makes the paragraph as a whole read a little awkwardly.

I think you might be right that we should emphasise CopperheadOS's commercial nature a bit more; I tried to do this with the sentence in the first paragraph about the licensing situation, but with the current wording it is not so obvious that CopperheadOS is a for-profit product. I thought of changing the first sentence to "commercial mobile operating system" instead of "mobile operating system", but I think that might put too much emphasis on it. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:08, 3 January 2021 (UTC)