The project, developed in partnership with veteran free software developer Rob Savoye, aims to create a fully free and open mobile platform, from the firmware to the operating system.
The only way to sucdeed here is to legally force all phones to have unlocked bootloader.
Tell me more about the phone! This has taken so long and I am ready to migrate to an open phone even if it’s only for texting at this point.
Screw this OS monopoly by Apple and Alphabet.
Open to simple solutions here. I have a Pixel 4a 5g and iPhone 12 atm.
Well it might not even be a phone, maybe it’s only a software project that needs to partner with manufacturers that would include it in their phones. The article doesn’t really mention much.
Either way, I’m starting to get excited.
your pixel probably runs graphene, degoogle it.
you could probably run linux on it today too.
This is absolutely hilarious, a fully libre phone? What processor are they going to use thats 100% libre? Then what OS will it use? Android-libre? What a joke
I’d personally start by actually reading the announcement before complaining about it’s content but you do you I guess
from the firmware to the operating system
Damn. Software has existed 40 years now?
Not only that: it was big enough to get mad at 40 years ago already.
I’ve got a Google Pixel 3a with postmarketOS installed on it right now for testing, and it really is a two-pronged issue with both hardware and software. Because it’s an older phone the battery drains within a few hours, nowhere close to all-day use. Because most of the software is designed for the desktop certain things are just impossible to use (the big pain point for me is Anki, but on the other hand it’s impressive how many GTK apps conform very nicely to the screen). The keyboard still feels pretty rough.
Hopefully the FSF dipping their hat into the ring will help existing projects like this in a rising-tide-raises-all-ships sort of way. Would be a shame for them to put effort into a software stack that goes nowhere (GNU Hurd), and pour $$$ into a hardware project that doesn’t make it to market or doesn’t do its job better than a cracked smartphone from 5+ years ago.
I think it is possible to switch to it now and have things mostly work out for you, but it will make your life harder. I remember switching to Ubuntu around 2010 and it’s almost to that level of experience. You’ll be giving up a lot, apps you “need” won’t work, but it’s at the point where it is a complete usable experience. For those that are willing to suffer for FOSS, I mean.
This is the original article
https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-turns-forty-with-a-new-president-and-a-new-campaign
What a nice thing to do
Hopefully this will recruit projects that already have significant headstart, such as Pine64. Otherwise, it would merely be performative.
I guess I’ll see phones with this in my local stores at… 10 years? Too generous, maybe 15.
I salute the early adopters who will suffer all the inconveniences of startups so the wider public can enjoy a non-corporate phone in the future. o7
Unless they can get this working with Android Auto or Carplay I don;t see it going anywhere.
Fuck cars
Nah, fuck that.
I’d rather see Linux on the head unit, too.
I’d still want an Android Auto and Apple Carplay equivalent.
I want my 2030 car to still be able to get the latest and greatest hardware and software in 2040 via me upgrading my phone.
I’m looking forward to get one of these just to play around with it, and maybe making some custom stuff for it.
I’m looking forward to actually seeing how my fucking works and what it’s doing.
how my fucking works and what it’s doing.
I think only you can answer that one, friend
As soon as my current phone is paid off I am going to get this. No more fucking Spyware up the ass.
The project just launched and is a software-first project. We won’t see a Libre Phone available for a while yet.
And if Hurd is any indication I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I hope they can pull this off because we really need this.
Heard of Hurd, I don’t think they can.
Maybe Hurd never went anywhere but they are responsible for as much of what constitutes “Linux” as the Linux kernel is. Linux never would have amounted to much without GCC, the GNU tools, and the GPL.
Why would anyone think that FSF is capable of releasing a unique and good device? It’s gonna be a bog-standard Android device with some software modified/removed.
Might be ok for some people still though. Also I’ll be happy to be wrong about my cynicism.
Because as much as they’re ridiculed today by libcucks of OSS, FSF was a formidable force of software once. At some point in history literally the only way to avoid paying absolutely insane manufacturer license fees for things like compilers was using GNU tools.
If they put their ass into it, they can pull it off tbh
It’s gonna be a bog-standard Android device with some software modified/removed.
Really? That would be heavily antithetical to everything they do. I expect it would be a Linux distro (like PostmarketOS) with some blobs removed etc.
Oooh, I wonder if they’re going to pursue a free phone based on Risc-V. It’s a longshot but if they pull that off, it’d be like feeding two birds with one scone.
I really hope this is super based
Just because it’s a libre phone, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a linux phone. Or at least any more so than Android is a linux phone because it uses a heavily modified (almost unrecognizable) linux kernel.
There’s nothing in the article that says they’re just going to use a mainline linux kernel and throw a touch optimized version of some existing desktop on it (ubuntu touch, etc…)
Heck, they could be meaning that they’re planning on making their own heavily modified kernel for their very own OS so as to skip all of the trouble that trying to make mainline linux into a handheld device has been so far. (similar to I believe how SailfishOS is doing it)
Just because it’s a libre phone, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a linux phone.
Likewise, a so-called “Linux phone” isn’t necessarily a libre phone, either. But, I don’t care about Linux, I care about freedom, so a LibrePhone is important regardless of what Linux fans think of it, and if it is truly worthy of the word libre, it will be able to run your so-called “real Linux.”
Finally, a GNU/Hurd phone! /s
Does anyone claim so? And does it matter much outside of (potentially) app support?
Why couldn’t they just use usual Linux for that? Why a modified kernel? Is Linux as is not suitable for a phone?
Can’t they just, idk, make a distro? Maybe from scratch? Pop!_OS is working on COSMIC. Can’t they have their Linux-based OS, perhaps with its own things as needed, such as a phone-optimised DE? Or whatever the phone equivalent of a DESKTOP environment would be. A Mobile Environment, perhaps
If my laptop had touch screen with no other method of input built in, and were way smaller, could it not run Linux? Or is that different altogether?
Linux by design gives the user enough rope to hang themselves with.
And that’s certainly not a problem when dealing with tech enthusiasts who know what, when and where to touch to avoid messing things up. But when you’re dealing with getting a phone into the hands of ordinary people, that isn’t going to fly because all of those people will at some point start mucking around inside and then expect tech support when they mess up.
For mainstream adoption, the linux kernel must and the desktop environment must be at least somewhat locked down.
We have immutable distributions already, that is something that isn’t a problem. It’s replacing those pesky proprietary blobs used to talk to the hardware that is a headache.
Between capabilities, namespaces, control groups, mandatory access control (AppArmor etc) and other mechanisms, I think there are plenty of ways to reduce user access to any part of the system.
Too many bits of a smartphone are proprietary hardware without open drivers.
