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Chief Replicant Dev On Building a Truly Free Android
angry tapir writes "While Android is open source, it won't work on a phone without software that generally isn't open source. The Replicant project is an attempt to build a version of Android that doesn't rely on binary blobs for which the source code isn't available to end users, and the software currently works on a handful of handsets. I caught up with the project's lead developer to talk about their efforts to make a completely open source version of Android."
T-1000 free and ready for business.
I think it's time for someone to define Android.
Making a full featured open source build would require Broadcom, TI, Samsumg, and Qualcomm, etc. to release their specs or drivers for video co-processors.
This will not happen.
While all the attempts to work around proprietary obstacles (rooting, homebrew, emulation etc) undoubtedly have their merits and utility, I think the real focus ought to be on getting hold of open, documented, standards-based, royalty-free hardware.
Maybe it's a pipe dream, but thousands of man-hours will be spunked off trying to reverse engineer radio chipsets or whatever, which could more fruitfully be spent writing or improving software.
I appreciate that folks are free to spend their time however they like, pursuing whatever floats their boat, that's not the point I'm making. Just that getting one vendor to make one decent fully-open handset would represent such a huge step forwards compared to coercing stuff to half run on the handset of some company whose goals are diametrically opposed to yours.
I'd welcome the day that I can block google from my Internet experience. Their insistence on wanting your personal data just because you want to use a smart phone with features and services that are provided by several other parties is annoying me highly. Not to the point that I'd step over to Apple, because they essentially do the same, but to the point that I choose not to use smart phones. If an alternative to android would become available, I'd be more than happy to try it out.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Great tld for an open source project.
Replicant starts where CyanogenMod left off. It ships with most of the CM tweaks, and then adds in things like F-Droid, which is an Android Free Software repository client.
While I appreciate the thought that all software should be open-source, I can't shake the feeling that FOSS advocates are wasting their time and talent attempting to endlessly reinvent the wheel. I'm sure that avoiding proprietary blobs would be great, but it is worth all this effort with so little gain? You'll have a (very) small audience that will download it and put up with the inevitable incompatibilities, but why is so much effort being thrown at projects like this and nouveau; projects whose ideal result is something that perfectly mimics something that has already been made and is already in widespread use. Since ideal results are never possible, you are inevitably left making the excuse "sure, it's not as good, but it's more ideologically pure!" which is only really convincing for the most hardline ideologues.
Instead of endless FOSS projects just trying to replicate things we already have, I'd like to see these supremely generous and talented people work on new projects. Why spend time on nouveau when you could work on, say, a new cross-platform graphics API? I just don't think FOSS will ever gain significant mindshare as long as it is continuously trying to emulate functional applications that people are already using.
There are people working on that, but why does that have to be the real focus rather than a real focus? You seem to suggest that there ought to be only one area of effort, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
The part that will cause problems for Replicant is that they cannot be an upstream. They will forever trail Google as the platform goes where Google desires and nowhere else. All of the components, Dalvik, Bionic, the GUI and rendering subsystem, all remain exclusively developed behind closed doors by Google.
Until they can fully fork it, there's no more reason to use Replicant rather than CyanogenMod. If you're interested in a truly Free mobile platform, take a look and put some weight behind the other projects out there like Tizen or, for a really open platform, Mer. Letting Google lead everyone by the nose won't get those interested in mobile FOSS anywhere.
People can reach me just fine on a phone that is ONLY A PHONE.
This is really awesome. People are welcome to take a look Linaro's Android builds, which are aimed at the development boards that most of the SoC manufactures are creating. The builds are easy to try. Insert an SD card into your computer, run one command and bingo! There even easy to build from source. See http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cost-development-boards for the complete list of boards.
We've got:
AOSP clone (Panda):
AOSP with 4.6 (Panda)
Snowball
iMX6
iMX53
Origen
... CarrierIQ is embedded as well?
It's almost as if the people who voluntarily work on open source projects do so out of self-interest, and don't consider the demands of third parties at all. It's almost as if volunteering requires self-interest.
What the hell else did he expect? You can't make demands on open source. If you want something done, you can (A) offer money, or (B) do it yourself. This isn't an insult to anybody; this is simply reality.
B^2LOB ?
I don't expect many current smartphones to still be in use 4 years later.
In fact, I might rename my phone "Roy," if that's not too Batty.
Get off my launchpad!
It's much easier to sell vendors on "Hey, use this, you don't have to develop your own" than "Open up that code you wrote because it's the right thing to do." Good, working, open solutions trickling in upstream because they are established and convenient is the best way to make a platform open, even if the fully open versions are never quite as friendly. The strictly Free systems, like Debian and Replicant, are how the open solutions get developed, improved, and established as standard so that everyone benefits.
I'd love it if the SoC vendors were on board, but that would require a very large external disruption. Making open (preferably GPL-style so it stays open) code the standard will win out by attrition.
Yes, I am sure they are already aware of that clusterfuck failed attempt at producing an open phone. While OpenMoko was standing around holding their dicks, the rest of the industry moved in a completely different direction. I mean, take one look at the OpenMoko and tell me one person NOT fluent in any programming languages who would use that phone.
As this continues, they will end up with a competitive advantage over the closed hardware, which will open, or perish. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
Yeah, that's what they said about Linux too.
It is clear from a single glance at this web site that who's ever behind this effort doesn't have the first CLUE about anything except engineering. If I have to scroll and down your web page a few times and dig through four or five paragraphs just to figure out what your device IS, you are doomed. I still don't even know what it's GOOD for. And I'm an electronics technician, embedded programmer, etc...etc...etc! Marketing FAIL.
Yeah, they got the gold mine, and the rest of us got the shaft
You're overgeneralizing. It's quite clear that in this specific instance, it is a much smarter allocation of scarce resources to a) develop ACTUAL open silicon, thus also building an owned ASSET (knowledge of how to produce said silicon, and improve/upgrade it and spin off as a business committed to your open ideals), or b) form some kind of an alliance with a company who is willing to supply you with open hardware, rather than the worse choice which is c) spending 10x the effort trying to hack into, understand, then duplicate (poorly) someone else's efforts.
Further, even if it was the area most likely to have impact, the people with the skills to pursue it aren't necessarily the same people with the skills to pursue better and more complete open mobile software, so it wouldn't be an real "either/or" situation, since the resources available for each effort aren't freely convertible.
You don't think those software people spending all that time and energy hacking into someone else's shit, couldn't instead better utilize their resources writing a new (and possibly better) implementation from scratch? Which they can have full ownership of and maintain, upgrade, and occasionally replace as the years go by, instead of always having to follow the manufacturer be three steps behind?
Agreed
What the hell else did he expect? You can't make demands on open source. If you want something done, you can (A) offer money, or (B) do it yourself. This isn't an insult to anybody; this is simply reality.
As you touched upon, the whole purpose of doing things and giving them away "free" is to flatter one's ego (stating factually, not judging) which has a need to feel as if one is contributing to society. And yet our ego also tends to become defensive at criticism, shouting things like "well if you don't like it do it yourself!" if anyone has the audacity to mention a way in which our contribution is helpful, but could even be further improved. This is because acknowledging that the other person may be right, would imply to our fragile little ego that it might be WRONG, and it just can't accept that.
So is the problem the person making the feature request...or the developer who is so wrapped up in himself he can't be bothered to listen to or accept another person's ideas? Quite an egotistical position to take indeed, especially considering all of "his" ideas aren't HIS to begin with; they are merely his (in many cases, quite unoriginal) interpretations of ideas already held and propagated through society. There are 7 billion more interpretations where his came from.
The stupidest part of this very commonly-held mindset is that it's self defeating. People spend so much time clinging to mediocrity that they are unable to do anything great. They reject all conscious ideas which originate from anything other than their own thought processes, rather than have to face some negative ones while at the same time accepting good ones and turning them to their own advantage. They doom themselves to failure in the marketplace and at life, sinking into obscurity as their names are buried in history.
truly free open-source blade runners!