[Liverpool] Maemo - back from the ashes?

[Bob Ham]

On Fri, 2011-06-24 at 16:54 +0100, Andrew Bates wrote:
> On 24 June 2011 16:43, Bob Ham <rah at bash.sh> wrote:

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

>         I know a lot of the Android phones are different though,
>         they have proprietary firmware *and* proprietary drivers

> As for Android handsets, there is Cyanogenmod as replacement firmware.

There's a difference in nomenclature here.  By "firmware", I'm referring
to code that runs on a device within the phone, as opposed to the CPU.
For example, with the Neo Freerunner, there is code that executes on the
GSM modem itself.  This would be "firmware".

Then there's code that runs on the phone's CPU.  In my nomenclature,
that would be "software".  This includes code for things like the user
interface.  It also includes code for things like talking to the GSM
modem; ie, "drivers".  (In actual fact, just to complicate things, that
would be code running on the CPU talking to code running on the
modem :-)


In those terms, Cyanogenmod would be called 'software'.  A phone with
Cyanogenmod would have free software for things like the user interface,
proprietary drivers for talking to devices and proprietary firmware that
runs *on* devices.

In an ideal world, all of the code would be free.  With the Freerunner,
everything except the code running on the GSM modem is free.

(To scupper the cause of freedom, there may even be legislation to
prevent free GSM modem firmwares as such a thing would give people the
ability to do whatever they wanted in terms of GSM wireless, including
the ability to disrupt GSM cell communication. See
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Open_GSM_Radio )


>  Or if you really wanted to, i'm sure you could plonk Mer or MeeGo on
> there :p

I would still need proprietary drivers :-(


-- 
Bob Ham <rah at bash.sh>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
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