https://www.fsf.org/news/librephone-project

#FSF announces the #LibrePhone project, and sadly it's disappointing. While the intention to reverse engineer proprietary firmware is applaudable, going with Android for this and thus interfacing with the downstream kernel is a waste of time.

What good is software freedom when you're still relying on the goodwill and development of a big tech company.

#Android is dead in the water and it's time people caring about software freedom and privacy realize this.

@bart Its interesting that in the last few years some large vendors have moved away not only from Android but from the Linux kernel (to microkernels):

• Amazon
• Huawei
• Xiaomi

@bart the other part of the problem is rob coming out of semi-retirement. He was working for linaro a few years back, and supposed to improve dejagnu but that work stopped for unknown reasons. Dejagnu is much much smaller project than say a whole phone even. So it is a joke in that area too.

@tasket @bart open harmony from Huawei is using a Linux kernel on phones. Do you have links for the other 2?

@bart They already realised this. The FSF is no longer the one pushing FOSS forward anymore. Except for FSF hardcore fans, mostly everyone I saw talking about the LibrePhone think it will never materialize..

And that is true, really... They're planning to take a *recent* phone (likely MT/qcom) and reverse-engineer firmware .. something which is quite impossible because of things like secure boot.. hey, in postmarketOS it's also just impossible to use newer versions of that same proprietary firmware as long as they've not been approved by the manufacturer! Unless they manage to break secureboot (which is unlikely), of course.

All in all, this has too much red flags to be considered really serious. It seems they don't really have much experience in that area, and I'm not sure they want to collab with anyone that does.

Also, android.. Why android? I mean, assuming they're as purist as they claim to be, android is going to be a nightmare to compile on the FSF-approved ThinkPad X200 and such.. they'd be also relying on Google to publish Android source code, which they have recently been not doing all that frequently, and delaying security fixes to AOSP unless deemed "critical".

@bart but if we are honest to ourselves, what other options exist that have a realistic chance to be a daily driver and have a somewhat sized userbase?

@sandro I mean, #postmarketOS and #mobian already _are_ daily drivers for a bunch of people.
Does it need any size userbase at all to be viable? Not really.

Yes Linux mobile has a long way to go before it can "beat" Android and iOS, if ever, but for the enthusiastic among us you _can_ already use it as a daily driver and it will only get better.

@bart @sandro daily driving oneplus6 with pmOS already ☺️

@bart If it has next to no userbase, then all the fixes need to come from yourself. I already maintain my desktop/server OS and I don't want to maintain everything in my life.

@bart All the stories I have heard so far from friends are in some form like this: camera/calling/mobile data sometimes doesn't work and you need to reboot. If something interesting happens I want to take a picture, if the train gets canceled I want to know how to get home, if a friend is late for an event I want to be able to read the message or receive a call. If that is no longer possible my life would be worse and I would enjoy it less.

@bart
Hence I don't think you can use it right now in your average life, even as an enthusiast, unless you are willing to take some deep cuts in your life.

@pi_crew @bart That is a 7 year old phone...
For not even double the price you get a Pixel 8a which has amazing battery life and for the price also an amazing camera with great night pictures.

@bart isn't reverse engineering intellectual property illegal in some way as well?

@bart not just any tech company, but the world's largest ad company... whose entire business model is invading the privacy of you and everyone you interact with in order to trick everyone into buying shit that almost certainly does not respect any of the FOSS freedoms 🤣

@fun @bart Something tells me Librephone are not working within the same parameters as PostmarketOS. I'm sure the former knows what SPI flash is and how to use it.

I mean, seriously... you expect an org like FSF to not break secureboot for the sake of research? lol

What I'm reading from Librephone is they are defining a breakaway platform that they hope will have a following with the ethical hardware brands that have been popping up. They don't need the sanction of secureboot, they can create their own system.

Edit: After listening to their announcement conf call, they are not producing a whole OS. They are only using AOSP as their reference for reverse engineering closed drivers (blobs). And they expect that whole-OS projects can make use of the resulting open RE firmwares.

@sandro Fair, it's not good enough for you yet, but people _are_ daily driving it. You can't dictate what other people think is necessary for them.

The fact that we got this far with the small amount of people working on it shows that it's a realistic effort. Where Android requires hundreds of engineers, we're doing it with a handful. And that's something to celebrate rather than criticise, even if we're not there yet.

@sandro @pi_crew Thing is, people daily driving pmOS right now don't care about that. They want a privacy-focused OS not controlled by big tech, and while the Pixel 8a you mentioned isn't delivering that, the OnePlus 6/6T is.

But hey, feel free to get a Pixel, we're not forcing you to do anything. But let us do our thing and develop an OS that _does_ respect our freedoms. Perhaps check back in a few years from now and see where we are then.

@tasket @fun They're not reverse engineering drivers, it's firmware. Drivers would actually be useful as they could be ported to mainline Linux then. Now they're trying to replace firmware which you can't load due to secure boot anyway, and using Android of all platforms as a reference so it won't actually interface with Linux mobile.

I mean, good luck to them but it's a waste of effort. Android is not a "free" platform, even though the licence says it is.

@justin That depends entirely on in which country and how it's done. As long as you don't see the original source code it should afaik be fine in the USA and Europe but ofc ianal.

@sandro @bart
the nice thing is that you also start to think about your internet addiction and slowely start to change the habbits... looking for a printed timetable, asking people around you, open the eyes, find creativity in offline life, capture nice moments with your heart...

the cons can be pros (if you are willing to free yourself from what they call 'normal') 🤷

@bart @tasket @fun The drivers vs. firmware distinction isn't clear from their announcement, as they mention "firmware and binary blobs" and "proprietary binary modules". Some drivers (and corresponding userspace HAL and libraries) being binary blobs, those could technically be reverse-engineered and ported to mainline. If that happened, that could be of interest to the #LinuxMobile community.

@tasket @bart Good luck breaking secureboot, even for the sake of research.

Typically it's all signed and sometimes even completely encrypted, so unless you manage to find some bug in the bootROM (and good luck dumping that too), you'll have a hard time signing your custom firmware so it will accept it, and if encrypted (typically would be AES), you'll also have a hard time decrypting.

@fun @bart The FSF existed before "FOSS" degeneracy and is rather dedicated to software freedom.

I doubt such developers would select a handcuffed device.

@bart @tasket @fun Fully free drivers already exist for some Android devices; https://replicant.us

Not all devices have restricted boot.

@Suiseiseki @fun @tasket Except that Replicant hasn't updated to a recent version of Android for ages, does not run on _any_ currently relevant device, and is severely understaffed.

Don't get me wrong, if it was at any way feasible to use currently I'd use it over my LineageOS install, but the sad reality is that it's not. They have the same problem as any other Android ROM: fully dependent on this huge monolithic OS developed by a big tech company.

@bart @fun @tasket If you're in an area with a GSM network it works fine.

Absolutely proprietary devices are not relevant.

@fabrice @tasket @bart I'm pretty sure Xiaomi's HyperOS and Amazon also use Linux

@awai @bart @tasket @fun the website for the project and FAQ suggest their intention is to RE Android drivers... Considering that FOSS drivers already exist for graphics, and Mesa can be built for Android, plus the fact that the drm/msm driver could totally be used on modern-enough downstream kernels... that's GPU done

then what else, camera?? sure you could maybe RE that with enough effort, but the firmware is all signed so even if you RE it you can't run your own. The kernel API downstream is also really wild and not applicable to upstream.

just broadly such a hard effort to follow and justify compared to improving upstream or contributing to lineageOS mainline which is actually building on top of the linux mobile middleware

@Suiseiseki @fun @tasket I fail to see how Android is at all a free platform besides the license. Practically there is more to software freedom than just that license, and Android is not providing it.

I see you're going all in on this issue, which I applaud you for, but you should realize that your position is not feasible for the majority of people. You help the movement more by trying to understand the other people you're talking with and not make it such a black and white issue 😉