[Liverpool] Maemo - back from the ashes?

[Bob Ham]

On Fri, 2011-06-24 at 12:13 +0100, 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.

It is actually (still) possible to buy a phone with 100% free software,
the Neo Freerunner:

  http://www.handheld-linux.com/wiki.php?page=Neo%20Freerunner

This has free drivers for the GSM chip (but it requires proprietary
firmware).  I know a lot of the Android phones are different though,
they have proprietary firmware *and* proprietary drivers, for the GSM
chip and other things (3D acceleration, bluetooth, etc).


> There are people working on FOSS solutions to this. Like the Replicant
> project.

The Replicant project looks good but it's kind of like the Nouveau
project.  Yes it's free software but IMHO it will always be somehow less
because it's written from a reverse engineering effort rather than
manufacturers' documentation.


I'm surprised your friends at the FSF don't have a Freerunner :-)  I
said I'll be looking at buying a Palm Pre 2.  I should have qualified
that by adding: until the Openmoko GTA04 is released :-)

Bob

-- 
Bob Ham <rah at bash.sh>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
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