All the best for the efforts, however I am bin long enough around this planet to not have big hopes how this will turn out.
Phones aren't x86 hardware, which only got open due to a lucky event, regretted by IBM.
FSF announces Librephone project
231–240 of 669 posts
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#232Let's hope the phone's ui won't look like FSF's website.
ahahaha too true
but actually these kind of websites are way more informative also
instead of "clean" look where everything is just fluffed up
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#233> Practically, Librephone aims to close the last gaps between existing distributions of the Android operating system and software freedom. The FSF has hired experienced developer Rob Savoye (DejaGNU, Gnash, OpenStreetMap, and more) to lead the technical project. He is currently investigating the state of device firmware and binary blobs in other mobile phone freedom projects, prioritizing the free software work done…
The time is right, but I still don’t think this project can accomplish much because people are generally happy with their phones. That said, the phone market is huge. They could sell enough devices to fund future development which might be good enough even if it doesn’t slow down Apple or Google. At least then there will be a device for those of us who are not happy with the state of things.
I don't mind having a second phone, esp. if it's a foldable which can be a great reader and a small "linux in a pocket". There might even be some use-cases, for example I recently wanted to implement a type-c external GPS antenna, and found out that it's a pain on Android (done via "developer mode" hacks etc.), and impossible on iOS.
That being said, very low expectations on this project.
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Every PC-initiated transaction" doesn't make sense to me. What type are transactions are you talking about?
> What type are transactions are you talking about? Bank transfers and I guess direct debit authorisations (if your bank requires you to confirm those) and reauthorisation/confirmation of card payments that were blocked by the bank's fraud detection. I think those are the only kinds of transactions one would ever use a PC for? I mean for me most of my day-to-day transactions are me paying by debit card in a shop, but…
Do you have to authorize those day-to-day transactions with your debit card on your phone every time?
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#235> The FSF has been supporting earlier free software mobile phone projects such as Replicant, Hopefully this project will go better than Replicant. Here are my notes on running Replicant on the (then already very old) flagship Samsung GT-I9300: https://www.neilvandyke.org/replicant/ The hardware was a little difficult to obtain in the US, and WiFi worked only with a blob of questionable provenance. It looks like Repli…
hahahahaha 2k for a phone that cannot last a day. yeah no. i d rather go for a redmi with postmarket os. it does not even have a blob free modem
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've kinda migrated to the worst-case scenario already and it's really not that bad - for my use case. I have an old phone (actually running LineageOS rather than stock) that works as you perfectly describe as a glorified digital token. This device doesn't come with me. There's no banking I need to do, on a day-to-day basis, requiring said token, that has to be done right now or the world will end . It can wait until…
I see a trend of banks pushing people off of their websites onto the mobile app.
That is a slight concern, but I don't see it happening, at least in Australia for the big four banks, in the near future.
If that became the case, then the 'glorified token device' would become the dedicated banking device, and not much else would change (ie. I still wouldn't be doing 'banking' while I'm out and about).
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#237Finally! It took the FSF long enough to catch up with the overwhelming usage of mobile devices, but it's better late than never. I like that this project is trying to tackle something much more challenging that can't be done with just software: reverse engineering device firmware and binary blobs, the pieces of software that actually make hardware components interface with an OS. Understanding how this stuff function…
When it is this late, it might as well have been never.
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
The time is right, but I still don’t think this project can accomplish much because people are generally happy with their phones. That said, the phone market is huge. They could sell enough devices to fund future development which might be good enough even if it doesn’t slow down Apple or Google. At least then there will be a device for those of us who are not happy with the state of things.
I think they will fail because they fundamentally don't understand the problem. Android does not contain binary blobs because of some evil conspiracy against free software. If they could get away with it, the whole damn thing would be open source. The problem is those blobs do things that interact with complex hardware for which only blobs are available. Even if you reverse engineer them, you are going to get sued in…
No one is going sue the fsf into oblivion. The movement has decades of legal experience, if a company would be dumb enough that company would just burn money and lose. Especially about reverse engineering software, as if patents had any power there. Apple, the end boss in that regard, not fighting on that level against the m1 project is proof enough.
Second, fuck the carriers. Certifications will not persist as soon as real Foss phones are available. Nothing persists against a world of free hardware invading a realm. And even if: freeing everything around a modem blob would still be a big step forward.
It's frankly ridiculous to assume the people working on this and the organisation that already supported replicant knowns nothing about the mobile space.
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#239> The FSF has been supporting earlier free software mobile phone projects such as Replicant, Hopefully this project will go better than Replicant. Here are my notes on running Replicant on the (then already very old) flagship Samsung GT-I9300: https://www.neilvandyke.org/replicant/ The hardware was a little difficult to obtain in the US, and WiFi worked only with a blob of questionable provenance. It looks like Repli…
> If the FSF manages to muster a lot more open source volunteers
First line of my pitch is, "When hundreds of millions of people need something, it doesn't make sense to wait for a handful of volunteers to build it for free."
Re: FSF announces Librephone project
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not rich but is there a way to contribute specifically to this project? The donate button on the website does not work.
As the first project FSF has launched in years with a current budget of one developer I expect they will be happy to spend new donations on further funding for it. However, it is very uncommon for a nonprofit to have a separate fund for a project that is part of the organization itself, rather than a project which makes semi-independent decisions and is fiscally sponsored by a related nonprofit. The exception is usua…
I was talking to someone who is involved in a nature conservation nonprofit recently - small donations go into the general pot of money for the organization to choose how to spend it. If you want to influence what the money is used for you have to donate a significantly higher sum. They said they like having many small donors because they can fund things that don't necessarily make a big splash in a press release but are important precursors to impact (e.g. researching what projects would have the most impact vs actually implementing a project).