Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Smartphones and freedom

[Abdur-Rahman Morgan]

A.J,

I agree with much of what you said. Briefly scroogle f-droid and you will 
discover a market place that focuses on FS for Android. 

Abdur-Rahman

"A.J. Venter" <address@hidden> wrote:

>Hi guys,
>Been a while since I've been active on this list - but I would like
>your feedback about this matter firstly to verify some of the
>information I have, and to discuss how we as free software activists
>and developers ought to be responding to things as they stand.
>
>Currently it's heartening to see the growth of Google's Android
>platform in the smartphone space - modern day smartphones are, for all
>matter of practicality - small computers and the same issues of
>freedom we see on computers must apply there. I say this is heartening
>as Android is currently the most free smartphone operating system to
>make any impact on the market. OpenMoko is more free I believe but
>limited to a single device, not widely available (I am not aware of
>anybody selling them in my country for example) and very expensive due
>to the lack of network operator contracts.
>
>So looking at android - the OS as it comes from google has four major
>freedom issues that stand out I'll look at them separately.
>
>The first is google's own non-free application stack. Here google may
>actually have done freedom an inadvertent favor though. Their
>insistence that custom mods not ship the stack with their roms
>actually forced those customized stacks to be more free (though they
>didn't prevent them shipping it at all, and most of them ship it as a
>separate package). However if you use a stack like CyanogenMod then
>it's easy to avoid installing this software. It does cut you off from
>the google marketplace - but since google does not restrict
>alternative marketplaces and several are already in the offing
>(including one from Amazon) nothing actually prevents us from
>developing and pushing a free software marketplace app - and only
>listing free apps in it (more on this in a bit).
>
>The second issue is that of drivers. It is my understanding that it is
>currently impossible to do a blob-free android version as most phones
>contain hardware without free drivers and would not be usable at all
>with it. What makes this worse is that I further understand this is
>not fully changeable. Specifically it's my understanding that the
>current GSM patents require all phone manufacturers to buy a license
>in order to make their radio controller chips and that this license
>specifically prohibits the release of driver source code. I hope I
>understand this wrong, but if I'm right  then we effectively have a
>hardware patent that means no phone OS ("smart" or otherwise) can be
>entirely blob free until these patents expire (which is not for some
>time). Can anybody perhaps shed more light on this ?
>
>The third is apps. Currently the android marketplace is best described
>as having a significant minority of free software in it. That's a
>great deal better than the near-zero availability on competing
>platforms like the iPhone but it's still by no means a win. This does
>mean however a free software marketplace app, which also only contains
>free software listings would have an available list of initial
>products to offer - such a marketplace app would also I believe
>greatly increase the potential user-base for free software app
>developers and allow them more direct contact with their free software
>loving users. I have not been able to find any indications that such a
>project is being planned anywhere though - should it be considered as
>a possible item for the high priority list perhaps ? Mind you, I've
>been interested in learning app development on android, this is
>perhaps a complex point but it could well be a worthwhile project to
>work on. Any thoughts on the idea ?
>
>The final and perhaps biggest problem right now is that even though
>there are fully (or a near as patent law allows depending on how
>correct my understanding in point two is) free android mods available
>- these cannot run on all phones. Most phone manufacturers are
>actively trying to lock their phones down to only running their own
>versions. Most of these phones have got published mechanisms by which
>the locks can be bypassed (as is done for example on most HTC phones)
>so it's not a major issue yet but Motorola has a series of phones now
>that are effectively impossible to root as a physical chip on the
>device prevents it from booting if the OS is not authorized by
>Motorola. Effectively they've tivoized the phone. Sadly since
>android's linux kernel has not adopted GPLv3 there is nothing at the
>kernel level that stops them doing so. It would perhaps be interesting
>to see if any of the code android contains is GLPv3 licensed, if so -
>this could allow for an effectively legal way to shut down the
>practice (or at least force them to replace said code, which may be
>enough motivation to rather just comply). That said - I do believe
>that we need to consider some published and official list rating phone
>companies by their friendliness to user freedom - notably the freedom
>to replace the phone operating system with a different one. Motorola
>would score a zero. Those phones with only software level restrictions
>(e.g. the ones that can be jailbroken) a slightly higher score
>(effectively to say: you can hack this, but don't trust the supplier
>not to change that later as they did try to stop you - they just
>failed) - and indicate which (if any) phones actively encourages and
>hacking and does not contain restrictions on it. I believe the Nexus
>One was fully unrestricted - but sadly it's not on the market anymore.
>I'm not aware of any others but I think there may be some out there ?
>
>It's worth noting that there is currently hacks available to get even
>non Android versions of GNU/Linux to run on some phones (notably
>Ubuntu) using the same hack that allowed Android to be installed on a
>number of Windows phones and there are rumors (though I've found some
>going back at least as far as 2007) that Canonical is working on an
>official one. Ubuntu of course is far from fully free - but as we've
>already gotten a few free distro's based off it - it would suggest
>that at least in theory getting Gnewsense for example to do the same
>would not be impossible. This however is at best a tiny emerging
>market - and currently seems to be less likely to gain the kind of
>industry infiltration that Android has - if only because Android has
>successfully gotten most phone manufacturers on-board and this in turn
>has led to network-operator (a crucial price management aspect in the
>phone market).
>
>I wouldn't think of this mail as a proper statement of facts, rather
>as a question-set and discussion starter (I did look to try and find
>any other references on the topic but came up empty handed - there
>doesn't seem to be any FSF position papers or similar available, of
>course I may just have failed to find them - any such sources would be
>useful). What is the community's current feelings about this growing
>side of computing - and how are we to respond to it to protect and
>promote user freedoms here ?
>
>Thank you
>A.J. Venter
>