LCA: Various topics from the mobile miniconf [LWN.net]

LCA: Various topics from the mobile miniconf

Posted Jan 31, 2013 8:01 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
Parent article: LCA: Various topics from the mobile miniconf

"complete" openness isn't possible with off-the-shelf chips. The GTA04 is no exception; PowerVR GPU, non-free WiFi/3G/etc firmware preinstalled.

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LCA: Various topics from the mobile miniconf

Posted Jan 31, 2013 12:28 UTC (Thu) by Catwich (guest, #89109) [Link]

While you are right that "complete" openness seems impossible, that does not make it so. Still, the GTA04 is not completely open concerning firmwares. Your "etc" is misleading though. In fact, the "only nonfree" bits are the firmware for the WLAN-Chip and the PowerVR userspace drivers for accelerated graphics. You can choose to have them or not by simpling placing files on your system or removing them. And there is as you mentioned "3G" thingie, the GSM chip has firmware on it that is not free either. Please mind that it is not a,b,c,etc which is unfree, but "just" a,b,c.

LCA: Various topics from the mobile miniconf

Posted Feb 1, 2013 3:39 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

There is a lot more, so "etc" is correct. 15 minutes of looking gave me this: The manual that tells you what hardware is available and how to program it is CC-NC. Several datasheets are available under NDA only (according to the manual). The GPS/BT firmware. The FM radio chip contains a DSP, probably has read-only firmware. ARM CPU patents and licenses. SIM card firmware if you use GSM/3G. SD card firmware if you use one of those.

LCA: Various topics from the mobile miniconf

Posted Feb 4, 2013 18:13 UTC (Mon) by ssam (subscriber, #46587) [Link]

Can you suggest a more open phone? Which phone do you use? What are you doing to make a fully open phone available?

(or are you just trolling?)

LCA: Various topics from the mobile miniconf

Posted Feb 6, 2013 0:28 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

The gta02 is capable of being slightly more open. The difference being that there is OsmocomBB, which is a FLOSS implementation of GSM firmware for Calypso based devices. OsmocomBB still relies on the non-free DSP code from the DSP ROM. The DSP code has a runtime patching mechanism though, so it should eventually be possible to replace it and recent talks at CCC/FOSDEM have shown that it is possible to replace parts of it at least.

Even if there were a "completely" free phone, I would use a landline since there are more issues in the mobile phone space than just the devices themselves.

My point is that completely free systems are not achievable without replacing the current hardware industry with a new one. So one should always say "free enough" or "mostly free" instead of "completely free", at least until we do that.