FSF announces librephone project — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software
www.fsf.org
  • icelimit@lemmy.ml
    8·
    6 days ago

    I will jump immediately no second thoughts once any open phone comes with a good stylus.

      • icelimit@lemmy.ml
        2·
        4 days ago

        Taking impromptu notes is what I use it exclusively for. Also to draw quick diagrams and such. The diagrams drawing helps especially.

        Just word note taking can be done with any old notes app. But sketches and diagrams. That’s where I use it most.

          • icelimit@lemmy.ml
            2·
            4 days ago

            Yup. Try drawing a diagram and arrows with lines beginning and ending exactly where you want it intuitively with your finger. Not too mention you don’t need to unlock your phone, navigate to an app to do it. Just pop out your pen and go. No need to keep anyone waiting if you’re in the middle of discussing something.

            Also one of the reasons I was looking to get a fold because the screen real estate was lacking. But they took away pen support in 7 so what the heck.

      • icelimit@lemmy.ml
        1·
        6 days ago

        If someone comes up with full colour reflected e-ink with refresh rate better than 24 fps, absolutely.

        • thermogel@lemmy.ml
          1·
          4 days ago

          Theres the Daylight Computer, that has a 60fps display which is “like e-paper”. (eink is the propietary name, epaper is the general name of the tech)

          I wish this tech could receive more funding for research and development.

        • Flipper@feddit.org
          2·
          5 days ago

          That’s not going to happen with the current tech. Maybe someone comparable comes out with those specs.

  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
    41·
    6 days ago

    How open source can they go? Is there a capable open source processor without propriatary backdoors yet? Will it use RISCV?

    • Ferk@lemmy.ml
      2·
      6 days ago

      What should be the highest priority in terms of being able to use a fully FOSS phone? I feel we already have FOSS alternatives for most things that make the phone usable.

      Perhaps free hardware might be top, but the S in FSF is Software and being able to avoid non-free software would be close 2nd, imho.

      • hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org
        1·
        6 days ago

        from their article it seems like they’re planning to reverse engineer firmware blobs for a phone that already runs a mostly free android distro (LineageOS). I know the importance of free firmware and stuff, but honestly, that phone is freer than most phones in the market. My opinion is that they should invest(?) in non-Android linux mobile OSes instead.

        • Ferk@lemmy.ml
          1·
          6 days ago

          I think it makes sense to choose a phone that’s freer than most phones as a start, then fill up the gaps to make it fully free. As things are all phones have blobs (even non-Android ones).

          I expect non-Android linux mobile OSes can also benefit from the reverse engineered firmware.

  • Cris@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    Is this just an effort to replace binary blobs, or to actually support usable Linux phones or custom roms…? Are those kinda the same thing in this case?

    If it’s the latter this might be the first thing the FSF is actually doing during my time with foss that I’m excited about.

    If it’s just that they hate binary blobs, that’s great and all but I do kinda wish they’d focus on stuff that has a way bigger user impact 😅 I think they got really hung up on binary blobs with libreboot or whatever it was also

    • fluxx@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 days ago

      I’ve worked with Qualcomm SoCs a long time ago and, from my experience, the binary blobs ARE the biggest hurdle to the true Foss phone. Google is the most to blame, IMO, but also the rest of traditional OEMS of SoCs. They basically found the way to circumvent the OSS nature of Linux, which is why even though android is based on linux, the actual product and ecosystem looks nothing like regular Linux. What Google allowed with Android architecture, particularly with their HAL subsystem is force a layer in between native Linux device interface and Android system, so OEMs use that to implement whatever proprietary peripheral (device, sensor, etc) purely in userspace, rather that just as a kernel module. The kernel module is then just a userspace/kernelspace adapter, and everything is handled in the user space. This then means you dont have to have an open source driver, as it is not a part of kernel, and you just lock your driver into a binary blob. And in case of Qualcomm and I assume other oems, everything is just a binary blob. All sensors, microphone, GPS, modem, EVERYTHING. Yes, you can boot a basic Linux kernel, but no other functionality will work. If you had access to the blob source, you’d be able to fix, update and use a newer kernel versions eventually. HAL is technically not the cause of the problem, but it’s certainly an inspiration and almost a blueprint for how to lock down your hardware.