LWN: Comments on "Android Dev Phone 2 available"

The larger FOSS community around Android dev phones?

tajyrink — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:52:50 +0000

Thanks for the information. Indeed it seems it's much more probable that N900 wins in the aspect of using some other OS stack besides the shipped one without sacrificing (hw) features. I was mainly just getting confirmation for that. For now I'm sticking with my FreeRunner but in 1-2 years there are hopefully other options in the market as well. Once you've used Debian on your phone you don't want to switch... ;)

Android Dev Phone 2 available

jamesh — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:25:34 +0000

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.

optimal open source drivers?

sylware — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:30:12 +0000

On maemo wiki, at the end of this page, there is a list of N900 chips... how many of them have an optimal open source driver? AFAIK, the GPU Linux driver is a pass-through for a user space blob (same on android hardware).

Android Dev Phone 2 available

Cato — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:14:32 +0000

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.

Android Dev Phone 2 available

dlang — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:19:26 +0000

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

Cato — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:08:06 +0000

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

drag — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:29:37 +0000

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

erinnlooneytriggs — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:50:24 +0000

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

niner — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:30:30 +0000

"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

Cato — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:46:54 +0000

I suspect you will always have closed code for the GSM stack, because of regulatory issues - this is why some open phones specify a separate application processor for the non-GSM application/OS code, letting the DSP run the GSM stack's closed code.

I'd be interested to see a comparison on driver openness (and that of any important userspace elements that talk to hardware, e.g. power management) between Android and Maemo/N900.

Android Dev Phone 2 available

drag — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:36:18 +0000

I am probably getting the N900 shortly now that I think about it. It's a lot
easier to find detailed information about the N900 then the Sapphire
platform.

Android Dev Phone 2 available

drag — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:34:54 +0000

Well I am interested in openness at the Kernel level.

That is what would matter to me most long-term, because if I can control the
kernel I can control everything.

For example I know that Nokia uses proprietary systems for controlling the
GSM radio stuff, OpenGL, and battery management.. but the wifi is open
source and all that.

I know enough to be dangerous and install a cross-compiler tool chain on
Debian and build whatever userland I want for ARM platform..

so I want the system with the least amount of proprietary BS.

Android Dev Phone 2 available

fb — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:26:00 +0000

You can't really compare the hardware of an N900 with the Sapphire: processor, memory, screen are all _much_ better with the N900.

If your goal is to run Debian on it, I would expect the N900 to be the obvious choice.

AFAIK Android doesn't actually support accessing from the command line, but there is some level of scripting support through Python and Lua. Does anyone knows which language bindings MAEMO gives the user?

Android Dev Phone 2 available

drag — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:52:57 +0000

Does anybody have any information about how 'open' the phone really is?
What sort of drivers does it use?

Personally I am less interested in Android then having a phone that works
and is easily hackable (by the end user). My goal is to eventually have
something I can run Debian-proper on and be able to use the phone functions
from that environment.

I am about to pull the trigger on getting a N900, but I want to make sure
there isn't a better one out there right now.

The larger FOSS community around Android dev phones?

fb — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:36:23 +0000

Well, Corbet did call it a "fully open _Android_" phone.

The most active Android (system) hacking place has always been XDA's "Dream Development" forum. While the forum is mostly user oriented, it is AFAIK the one place where all the developers meet and get their announcements done.

But everyone seems to be running only the Android stack. I think that with the release of Nokia's N900, many people interested in a "GNU/Linux" like system will be targeting the N900.

[...]

I am not particularly impressed by the Sapphire as a hardware platform. The big news here IMHO is that the ADP program is giving signs of continuity.

The larger FOSS community around Android dev phones?

tajyrink — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:10:28 +0000

Not to say it's not a great thing (it is), but "fully open" is quite brave to say usually. I generally expect / wait that fully open devices (software-wise) will eventually get alternative free operating systems running on it - so, looking forward to having Debian, Gentoo etc. running as the only operating system on Android dev phones without sacrificing hw features. Maybe Android VM + UI being packaged for other distributions on top of GNU libc, and maybe even FreeSmartphone.Org stack for Android hw platforms with some glue so that SHR & Paroli would work for the phone UI... etc. etc.

So my question is that is there a community site / portal available for any of this kind of stuff, or are the efforts still mostly on utilizing the Google's Android software? Usually when I run into Android pages everyone expects the Android hw to run Android sw and maybe something else only in chroot, but I am generally not too keen on own C library implementations and all that stuff related to the Android software.

Anyway, it's great to have continuation for the dev phones series, since the other Android phones are quite closed.