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FSF announces Librephone project

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Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#211

Post by glitchc »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #189
kovac wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the right place to start. A free OS will empower developers to implement technical workarounds that could trick these apps into working there. If the OS is tightly controlled, we have no recourse. Even in the worst case scenario, we could use a cheap big-tech-approved phone for these applications (a glorified digital token) and use the free phone for everything else. When there's enough adoption and t…

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…

It sounds utopian except you still have to pay for a cell plan on said device, no? How else to obtain a phone number for MFA?

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#212

Post by mike_d »

criddell wrote: post #123
le-mark wrote: post #3

> 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 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 into oblivion because of the patents you are going to need to infringe on to make functional replacements.

But even if you get a blessing from the component manufacturers, your new hippie binary blobs need to be certified to legally operate on cellular and wifi frequencies in most parts of the world. If you decide you don't like something and change it - as is the open source way - that new version with your modifications needs to be certified too. Carriers do not allow uncertified devices on their networks.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#213

Post by SchemaLoad »

Worldblender wrote: post #175

Finally! 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…

I hate to complain, but I can't help but feel this is kind of impossible with the resources available to the people working on it. Reverse engineering a modern phone would take years and years of work from many people, and by the time you have it worked out, the phone is obsolete and very few people still use it.

The Apple Silicon macbooks seem a good example. The M1 came out about 5 years ago now and with a whole project and a lot of work later there is still limited hardware support. Having to put this effort in for all the models of phones seems massive.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#214

Post by userbinator »

LoganDark wrote: post #194
array_key_first wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still significantly more open than any other platform. Believe it or not, Mozilla is not asleep at the wheel, and neither is Apple.

I use Safari as my daily driver and I'm still routinely shocked at just how terrible certain aspects of the experience is compared to Chrome. For example, the UI seems to completely block for most of the website loading process, rather than streaming as Chrome does. Also, rather than restore the previous state when I swipe to go back, it has to reload the page from scratch. Little things like this continue to annoy m…

Also, rather than restore the previous state when I swipe to go back, it has to reload the page from scratch

I've encountered cases when both behaviours would've been desired (either use the cached version, or the latest version), so I think that's neither a point in favour nor against.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#216

Post by bigstrat2003 »

autoexec wrote: post #154
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #4

Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…

> What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? What does it matter if you can use any OS you want if your phone is filled with SoCs which are bugged and backdoored by the state and/or who knows who else? The reality is that we need both free…

> What does it matter if you can use any OS you want if your phone is filled with SoCs which are bugged and backdoored by the state and/or who knows who else?

Perhaps. But how does this effort from the FSF do anything to solve that? They are (as far as I can tell) producing firmware, not hardware. If the hardware manufacturers are working with the government or whomever to spy on you, they will just not use the FSF firmware in that case.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#217

Post by NetMageSCW »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #213
Worldblender wrote: post #175

Finally! 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…

I hate to complain, but I can't help but feel this is kind of impossible with the resources available to the people working on it. Reverse engineering a modern phone would take years and years of work from many people, and by the time you have it worked out, the phone is obsolete and very few people still use it. The Apple Silicon macbooks seem a good example. The M1 came out about 5 years ago now and with a whole pr…

1) The article states they are focusing on the phone model that they guess will require the least work to become totally free. This may make the project useless, but it does give it some hope of finishing.

2) The hope is that the M2-M5 won’t be that different from the M1 models - after all, Apple doesn’t want to spend their money reinventing the wheel without compelling reason. I think that is less likely with phones from different manufacturers, though Android phones typically share a lot of single source components.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#218

Post by NetMageSCW »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #192
criddell wrote: post #123

Earlier 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.

> much because people are generally happy with their phones. Talked to many iPhone owners this year? The 17 hardware has a bizarre choice of a camera button / pointless physical change, and IOS 26 is pretty much hated by everyone. I use iPhone, and have happily for years but F if this isn’t the worst OS I can remember. The first downgrade really.

Your “everyone” seems to be substituting for “me” an awful lot.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#219

Post by bigstrat2003 »

endgame wrote: post #5
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #4

Ultimately, I don't think the most important challenge is in binary firmware blobs, but the software which people depend upon to run their lives. What does it matter if you can run a completely free software stack on your phone, if your bank software (or your required government ID, as is looking depressingly likely) requires you to run a Big Tech approved phone OS? Perhaps the FSF can't do much about that, but that…

It becomes much harder to force attestation on people if there's a significant user base that runs alternative operating systems.

I agree, but unfortunately I think the chances of that are just about zero. The reality is that the vast, vast majority of people don't care about software freedom. They care about the flashy marketing features in the newest iPhone (and competitors). I wish it were otherwise, but alas. Heck, you can't even get people to care about their physical freedom most of the time, let alone their digital life. It's hard to see this effort taking off as a result.

Re: FSF announces Librephone project

#220

Post by NetMageSCW »

glitchc wrote: post #211
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #189

Earlier 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…

It sounds utopian except you still have to pay for a cell plan on said device, no? How else to obtain a phone number for MFA?

Hopefully by not using MFA that depends on SMS.
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