[Liverpool] Maemo - back from the ashes?

[Sebastian Arcus]

Or there is another way if you want to be 100% open source. The x86 
platform started about, what, in the '80s? It took quite a while for it 
to be opened up to the degree it is today. A lot of people have quibbles 
with what is perceived as the "Intel" architecture  - or x86. And 
indeed, it has plenty of shortcomings. But for all it's disadvantages, 
it is a ubiquitous architecture - and probably the most accessible, 
hackable and compatible with other bits of peripherals and hardware out 
there.

It is really taking, in a way, a narrow view - but I think if you want a 
trully accessible phone, with free software - a tiny laptop or netbook, 
with large internal battery, or even an extra large universal external 
battery, a 3G adapter (internal or external) and communication with the 
rest of the world through SIP phone lines over the Internet is probably 
as open and free as one can get. Yes, it's hard to call this combination 
a "mobile phone" - but I think one would agree it would offer as much 
software freedom as possible. Also, it might attract just as much 
attention at parties carrying a large bag full of batteries as having 
one of the latest smartphones - but not the sort of attention one might 
want :D

All theoretically speaking, of course. It wasn't me looking at 133W 
external universal Li-Ion batteries for laptops on Ebay. It was somebody 
else. They happen to look like me :-)

Sebastian


On 24/06/11 12:13, Dan Lynch wrote:
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> I don't have a link to hand but I'm sure Google can help :)
>
> Dan
>
> On Jun 24, 2011 4:01 AM, "Bob Ham" <rah at bash.sh> wrote:
>  > On Thu, 2011-06-23 at 02:14 +0100, Andrew Bates wrote:
>  >
>  >> be prepared for maybe 6 months of support from Nokia
>  >
>  > Having been looking at the market for a phone recently, my criteria for
>  > a desirable phone is: does it run a Linux distribution? With, of
>  > course, a preference for hardware that doesn't require proprietary
>  > software to use it. I find myself scouring ebay for models in this
>  > list:
>  >
>  > http://shr-project.org/trac/wiki/Devices
>  >
>  > If/when I find myself with the budget of an employed person, I'll be
>  > looking at a Palm Pre 2. Not to use it as a webOS device of course,
>  > just as some hardware onto which SHR can be installed.
>  >
>  > The software provided by phone manufacturers now interests me just as
>  > much as the software provided by computer manufacturers. Which is to
>  > say, it doesn't interest me at all :-)
>  >
>  > Bob
>  >
>  > --
>  > Bob Ham <rah at bash.sh>
>  >
>  > for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
>
>
>
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