Android Dev Phone 2 available

Posted Nov 16, 2009 21:30 UTC (Mon) by niner (subscriber, #26151)
In reply to: Android Dev Phone 2 available by Cato
Parent article: Android Dev Phone 2 available

"Regulatory issues" were also cited as the reason for closed source WLAN drivers. It did
not hold up there, so what makes you think that it will for GSM?

Android Dev Phone 2 available

Posted Nov 17, 2009 0:50 UTC (Tue) by erinnlooneytriggs (guest, #24665) [Link] (1 responses)

You all might be interested in this: http://ofono.org/ it is an open source gsm stack that is being developed by nokia and intel.

Android Dev Phone 2 available

Posted Nov 17, 2009 14:25 UTC (Tue) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link]

oFono appears to be more of an API standard that a GSM stack could be exposed with. It seems to be more aimed at enabling portability of telephony applications.

This doesn't make it a bad thing for free GSM stacks though: if the GSM stack is only accessed via the oFono API, it should be easier to plug in a replacement one rather than having to reverse engineer the interface of the proprietary stack.

Android Dev Phone 2 available

Posted Nov 17, 2009 1:29 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Stuff like that takes time. GSM standard is much more patent-encrusted,
involves DRM, and several major corporations have a vested interest in
keeping it very closed.

So it's not going to be open any time soon. It'll be up to hackers to open
things up, I believe. People like Nokia are going to be so heavily
contracted and NDA'd that they couldn't breath a word on how any of the
stuff really works. Once all the secrets are out in the public eye then
things should move quickly. There is DRM and people (and businesses) are
foolish to trust in the security of the encryption schemes used in these
phones.

They depend on a lot of "omg this is telephony AND radio and that is too
elite for you to get; trust the experts*" type theater antics and
security-by-obscurity to keep things cheap, keep customers fooled, and
avoid responsibility.

* (people that work for above-mentioned major corporations)

oFono is very interesting, of course. The GPLv2 licensing is promising,
especially.

So is OpenBTS. Different sides of the same coin, I expect.
http://openbts.sourceforge.net/

Android Dev Phone 2 available

Posted Nov 17, 2009 7:08 UTC (Tue) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link] (2 responses)

WiFi uses unlicensed spectrum, whereas GSM spectrum is licensed - people's ability to make emergency calls over GSM using E911 or the non-US equivalent probably takes precedence over open source. There may well be open source stacks for GSM, but at the point of delivery to the end user I suspect they would have to be closed (BSD like license, or Tivo-ized so that the end user device's GSM stack can't be changed.)

Android Dev Phone 2 available

Posted Nov 17, 2009 7:19 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

hat sounds very similar to the arguments that AT&T made about their monopoly on phones for landlines years ago.

that was eventually dealt with and the fix was to require a very small portion of the phone to be certified. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar result eventually for this.

the question is how small the certified piece can be.

Android Dev Phone 2 available

Posted Nov 17, 2009 8:14 UTC (Tue) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

Agreed - if the regulated part can be just the bits that could DoS a GSM network or overuse licensed spectrum, then everyone should be happy. In reality, any smartphone today lets you install applications that could DoS a network using SMS or phone calls, but this is somewhat restrained by the cost of SMSs and calls.