<p>Running 100% free software on a phone handset is virtually impossible right now. If you want to make calls that is. The GSM chip drivers are all proprietary. Some friends of mine from FSF use a custom build of Android with all the proprietary stuff removed. Apart from the GSM driver. This the absolute only concession they'll make, other wise it's not a phone, it's a doorstop. They are pretty radical as you would imagine and if even they use a proprietary driver then I think that says it all.</p>
<p>There are people working on FOSS solutions to this. Like the Replicant project. I think it's based in Italy but I don't know how far along it is. They're making a 100% free fork of Android but they're having to reverse engineer all the drivers.</p>
<p>I don't have a link to hand but I'm sure Google can help :)</p>
<p>Dan</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Jun 24, 2011 4:01 AM, "Bob Ham" <rah@bash.sh> wrote:<br type="attribution">> On Thu, 2011-06-23 at 02:14 +0100, Andrew Bates wrote:<br>> <br>>> be prepared for maybe 6 months of support from Nokia<br>
> <br>> Having been looking at the market for a phone recently, my criteria for<br>> a desirable phone is: does it run a Linux distribution? With, of<br>> course, a preference for hardware that doesn't require proprietary<br>
> software to use it. I find myself scouring ebay for models in this<br>> list:<br>> <br>> <a href="http://shr-project.org/trac/wiki/Devices">http://shr-project.org/trac/wiki/Devices</a><br>> <br>> If/when I find myself with the budget of an employed person, I'll be<br>
> looking at a Palm Pre 2. Not to use it as a webOS device of course,<br>> just as some hardware onto which SHR can be installed.<br>> <br>> The software provided by phone manufacturers now interests me just as<br>
> much as the software provided by computer manufacturers. Which is to<br>> say, it doesn't interest me at all :-)<br>> <br>> Bob<br>> <br>> -- <br>> Bob Ham <rah@bash.sh><br>> <br>> for (;;) { ++pancakes; }<br>
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