|| On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:36:25 -0400 || John Sullivan johns@fsf.org wrote:
js> Since it's the communications stack that's proprietary in this js> case, I don't think that will work.
Do you know a device with a free GSM stack? We'd be glad to help promote that device. To my knowledge there is no such stack or device at the moment, including the OpenMoko.
The issue in this case is a thicket of cross-licensed patents that includes parties that appear to have no interest in resolving that situation. This is not good, and we'll need to work on that.
Meanwhile we can already give people substantially more freedom on mobile phones. At the current point in time, the vast majority of PDAs and mobile phones sold are proprietary from bottom to top.
The GreenPhone already offers significantly more freedom than other mobile phones, only the OpenMoko appears to be potentially better.
According to my knowledge, which is based on cursory examination, the Nokia tablets and GreenPhone both are almost entirely Free Software, although they both fall short by a couple of packages (and the GSM stack in one case). So their status appears somewhat similar to that of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution.
But the area of GNU/Linux distributions is much more mature in terms of freedom than that of mobile phones and PDAs. The whole area of PDAs, mobile phones and similar is one that is still very much dominated by proprietary software. There is not a single device that could be recommended without warning.
The way the Free Software community addressed similar issues in the past is to get and (within legal limits) study what you want to replace, and replace the non-free components one by one. That is how the GNU Project got started, it was a major motivation to establish Debian, and other examples exist in other areas.
We need to build a stronger presence of the Free Software community in this area. Harald Welte is already doing a fantastic job, but we need more people like him.
So the idea is to give technologically adept Free Software people with an inclination to play devices that already come with mostly Free Software and allow tinkering, and make sure to point them to the problem of non-free components so we will have more freedom for everyone as a result.
Regards, Georg