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3 weeks ago
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The Free Software Foundation announced the LibrePhone project as part of its 40th anniversary. Until now, it was known about the new initiative that it aims to create an alternative to the dominant mobile platforms from Apple and Google based on free software. Now the FSF has provided further details.
Neither Smartphone OS nor Hardware
As the FSF explains in a blog post and a FAQ page, the Foundation's goal was not to develop a free operating system for smartphones, let alone its hardware. The FSF sees no need to work on its OS, as there are already many projects dealing with mobile phones, many of which are largely free software.
Instead, the FSF wants to build on existing projects with the initiative and “improve their current degree of freedom.” “Although Android contains many proprietary libraries and other files, this project focuses on binary blobs.” Binary blobs are compiled, proprietary software components without available source code, which are responsible for hardware functions such as WLAN, Bluetooth, or graphics.
Out with Proprietary Software
With this, LibrePhone aims to “close the last gaps between existing distributions of the Android operating system and software freedom.” For this purpose, the FSF has hired developer Rob Savoye (DejaGNU, Gnash, OpenStreetMap, and more) to lead the technical project. The FSF had already made this public when the announcement was made. However, it was unclear what his work would consist of. The blog post now states that he is “investigating the state of device firmware and binary blobs in other projects for mobile phone freedom.” He is focusing on “work on free software performed by the not fully free mobile phone operating system LineageOS.”
The initiative is initially financed by a donation from John Gilmore, a member of the FSF board, who explained: “For years, I've enjoyed using a mobile phone with LineageOS, MicroG, and F-Droid, which eliminates the spyware and control that Google builds into standard Android smartphones.” However, he noted that the LineageOS distribution contains important proprietary binary modules copied from smartphone firmware. “Instead of accepting this sad situation, I looked for like-minded people to reverse-engineer these proprietary modules and replace them with completely free software, at least for a modern phone.”
On the FAQ page, the FSF explains the first rough timeline: In the first approximately six months, the focus will be on research and definition of the project. In addition, common, non-free blobs in current (mostly) free software operating systems will be analyzed and, based on this knowledge—and other factors—used “to identify the best device for development and document how these proprietary blobs are used by the Linux kernel to understand what would be required to legally reverse-engineer them using clean-room techniques (where one team analyzes the software and another team re-implements it without direct contact with the original code)” to avoid copyright infringement. In an interview with The Register, Savoye specified that he will initially focus on blobs for radio functions (mobile, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth), followed by GPU functions and the touchscreen.
Furthermore, the FSF clarifies that work on this project is not a sprint but a marathon and will take several years. Donations are necessary to finance the development for the continuation of the project. Volunteers are also sought to participate. Lead developer Rob Savoye is optimistic about the project: “Developing completely free software for a modern commercial phone will be neither quick nor easy, nor cheap, but our project benefits from standing on the shoulders of giants who have already done most of the work.”
(afl)
