Librephone is a new initiative by the FSF with the goal of
bringing full freedom to the mobile computing environment. The
vast majority of software users around the world use a mobile
phone as their primary computing device. After forty years of
advocacy for computing freedom, the FSF will now work to bring
the right to study, change, share, and modify the programs
users depend on in their daily lives to mobile phones.
“Forty years ago, when the FSF was founded, our focus was on
providing an operating system people could use on desktop and
server computers in freedom. Times have changed, technology has
progressed, but our commitment to freedom hasn’t,” said Zoë
Kooyman, executive director of the FSF. “A lot of work has been
done in mobile phone freedom over the years that we’ll be
building on. The FSF is now ready to do what is necessary to
bring freedom to cell phone users. Given the complexity of the
devices, this work will take time, but we’re used to playing the
long game.”
Practically, Librephone aims to close the last gaps between
existing distributions of the Android operating system and
software freedom. The FSF has hired experienced developer Rob
Savoye (DejaGNU, Gnash, OpenStreetMap, and more) to lead the
technical project. He is currently investigating the state of
device firmware and binary blobs in other mobile phone freedom
projects, prioritizing the free software work done by the not
entirely free software mobile phone operating system LineageOS.
The initial work is funded by a donation from FSF board member John
Gilmore, who explained, “I have enjoyed using a mobile phone running
LineageOS with MicroG and F-Droid for years, which eliminates the
spyware and control that Google embeds in standard Android phones. I
later discovered that the LineageOS distribution links in significant
proprietary binary modules copied from the firmware of particular
phones. Rather than accept this sad situation, I looked for
collaborators to reverse-engineer and replace those proprietary
modules with fully free software, for at least one modern phone.”
Triaging existing packages and device compatibility to find a
phone with the fewest, most fixable freedom problems is the first
step. From there, the FSF and Savoye aim to reverse-engineer and
replace the remaining nonfree software. Librephone will serve
existing developers and projects who aim to build a fully
functioning and free (as in freedom) Android-compatible OS.
The FSF has been supporting earlier free software mobile phone
projects such as Replicant, and is excited to launch this new
effort. Gilmore added: “We were lucky to find Rob Savoye, a great
engineer with decades of experience in free software, embedded
systems, and project management.”
When asked to comment on the project, Savoye said: “As a
long-time embedded systems engineer who has worked on mobile
devices for decades, I’m looking forward to this opportunity to
work towards a freedom-supporting phone and help users gain
control over their phone hardware.”
He added: “Making fully free software for a modern commercial
phone will not be quick, easy, or cheap, but our project benefits
from standing on the shoulders of giants who have done most of
the work. Please join us, with your efforts and/or with your
donations.”
Besides the campaign information at https://fsf.org/campaigns/librephone, the
project will have its own website at https://librephone.fsf.org
and anyone can connect using #librephone irc on irc.libera.chat.
About the Free Software Foundation
The FSF, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users’
right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs.
The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom)
software — particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux
variants — and free documentation for free software. The FSF also
helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of
freedom in the use of software, and its websites, located at
https://www.fsf.org and https://www.gnu.org, are an important
source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF’s
work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. The FSF is a remote
organization, incorporated in Massachusetts, US.
MEDIA CONTACT
Greg Farough
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org
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