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FSF Launches Fundraiser For Replicant
gnujoshua writes "The FSF has launched a fundraiser for Replicant, the fully free Android distro. As of version 4.0 0004, Replicant runs on 10 different devices, but, the hopes are that with additional funds, the developers will be able to purchase more devices and grow the project so it will run on more devices. Yesterday, the FSF asked Mark Shuttleworth if the Ubuntu EDGE would commit to using only free software and be able to support Replicant. But, in an AMA on Reddit, Shuttleworth confirmed that Replicant would not be supported because the EDGE hardware will require proprietary drivers/binary-blobs."
Replicant now supports ten devices, compared to only the HTC Dream not all that long ago.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like tears... in... rain. Time... to die...*
...so, honestly curious, why is the FSF engaged in an exercise which promotes the Google ecosystem?
They've always struck me as being far-sighted, not narrow-sighted.
Bah! Whoever is responsible for not giving away their work for free should be shot. This is worse than nVidia not giving away all of their IP and writing open source drivers. This is worse than M$ not porting and SUPPORTING DirectX on all distributions of linux. This is worse than M$ not porting .NET to linux. This is worse than Adobe not providing FLOSS Photoshop on linux. The list goes on and on.
On a side note - does anyone have a 3D printable model of Stallman's dick? I'd like to shove it in my ass when I'm hacking my linux boxen.
...so, honestly curious, why is the FSF engaged in an exercise which promotes the Google ecosystem?
They've always struck me as being far-sighted, not narrow-sighted.
Who said they are promoting the Google ecosystem?
According to their FAQ (http://replicant.us/faq/):
"Replicant includes only free software. We don’t include any google app, we have libre alternatives for each of them."
They want in on the lucrative for-profit surveillance market, courtesy of your taxpayer dollars.
( ...and for the one or two dumbasses who say its open source and anybody can view the source code, then you can pour through SELinux source code and sell me with 100% certainty that there are no clever tricks, or compromised compilers, which make it completely exploit-proof )
-- Ethanol-fueled
he's saying that by being able to run android apps you're promoting googles ecosystem.
and yes you are, but so what? it's not that far from saying that since apache can serve IE it's promoting IE.. or that wine is promoting microsoft.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Android, as a platform, is independent from Google's ecosystem. Replicant has little to no control over their future due to Google being a largely insular upstream that dictates where it goes, but nonetheless the platform is not fundamentally tied into Google's services.
Joshua Davis, why doesn't the FSF start this fundraiser on a well-known crowd funding site?
I too am honestly curious.
What is the value in slagging what appears to be a completely Free/Libre OS?
And what other "ecosystem" did you have in mind, other than that of Apple/iOS or Microsoft/WinWhatever? Is either of those somehow more worthy?
Like the man said, you gotta serve somebody.
Enlighten me. Because as far as I can tell, you're the one being narrow-minded.
BTW, I notice my S3 is on the list of supported devices. Might be a good time and way to nuke all the Samsung crapware from it.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I don't give a damn about Android, really. It's relevant, but my biggest hobby is a different way to design OSs and programming models. Having devices with all the driver code available means I don't have to use a C compiler at all, I can port the code into the OS proper and gain more security and efficiency -- I use very different sub-routine calling constructs to prevent stack smashing and isolate all data from code pointers, so it's inefficient to switch into CDECL or other insecure C-ish compatible calls.
TL;DR: Replicant is awesome not just for Android / Linux, but for everyone.
You could have nuked the Samsung stuff last year by putting Cyanogenmod on it.
It's a totally reversible process... BRICKED IT
Sounds like it corrects one of my main problems with Android...I'm going to set up an Android tablet as the nav system in my 4x4 soon, I think I'll give it a try.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I believe it would be better to build a privacy-oriented free alternative to all the spy-on-me crapware. This year there are several new mobile OS'es up for release, but they all seem all to be designed for HTML5 or the "cloud", which in my book, are even more evil than Android or iOS. There was a time when I had hope for Nokia, but then Stephen Elop happened.
I want a phone that can run applications, on the device. I want to decide which applications. I want to be able to block any company or service I see as evil, or that may not respect my privacy. I don't want any backdoors or phone-home bs.
Basically, I want free software that behaves well. Designed by good people who focus on usability, security and privacy - rather than data gathering and me-as-a-product.
No I couldn't, since I didn't have this phone last year.
And I deliberately avoided mentioning Cyanogenmod. :)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I want my own replicant
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
do you dream of Electric Sheep?
No, but Pokemon trainers dream of electric mice.
If you're not cop, you're little people!
And even if you are a cop, you can still be little people.
If seeing the non-free film Blade Runner is a requirement of keeping a geek card valid, what method do you recommend to see this film without breaking the law, both inside and outside the United States? Redbox carries only new releases.
Even if copyleft licensing is "viral", it performs the same role as the viruses in a vaccine.
Have gnu, will travel.
Posting AC to avoid invalidating my mods
One thing I was wondering - if the FSF is interested in Replicant, why not do it by taking something like GNU Mach, or forking Minix 3, and then building on top of it? That way, they can not only make it GPL3, they can even make it AGPL3, and build their 'libre' services on top of it. I'd suggest that since the battle for both desktops & servers are over (and won by Windows/Linux/BSD), they should focus their liberated OS efforts just on Replicant. Re-orient HURD towards it, and start with creating the microkernel for it. Instead of debating another 30 years over what it should be, just fork Minix to make the fork AGPL, and then build things on top of it. Build a liberated VM on top that will run Dalvik/Java on it, thereby being backward compatible with Android apps, without being Android. Don't try to do this on Libre-Linux or anything like it.
I'd like it if Nokia's Lumias and other phones get supported by this, so that one can uninstall Windows Phone 8 and replace it with Replicant.
Samsung, watch yo ass!
You thought it, now you can't un-think it.
Given that Android is already mostly free, wouldn't this be a bit of a timewaster vis a vis the FSFs goals?
The Free Software Foundation promotes the viral GPL license. They should not be supported.
Ideas are viral. We should not support ideas.
Because Mach is terrible. I do a little work with the GNU Hurd (yes, I've heard all the jokes you're about to make), and by far Mach is the biggest obstacle to Hurd's usability. And no, the answer is not "throw developers at Mach, anything is possible when you have enthusiasm!," the answer is "scrap Mach and redesign Hurd around something sane like L4". In Hurd's case this isn't very feasible because the design is too tightly integrated with Mach (see: all the failed L4/Viengoos/etc ports of the Hurd), but for a new project, there are plenty of other kernels out there.
Also, I seem to detect a bit of an assumption in your post that "micro means small, therefore microkernels are small and fast." This may not be what you intended, or what you wanted to say, but I've run across a lot of people with that assumption, and it is, by and large, wrong. The 'micro' in microkernel refers to the small amount of responsibility that the kernel has compared to a hybrid or monolithic kernel. I believe a microkernel would still be a good choice for an embedded device due to increased stability-- but I digress.
Many of the status items on the ReplicantStatus page. So, it's hard to be too critical of Shuttleworth at this juncture.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
hobby is to design OSs and programming models
AHAHAh, what a tard. I've seen too many bozos like you
Other than Blade Runner and the original Star Wars trilogy, what other movies are geeks required to add to their collections?
It takes healthy gut flora to make a healthy person, and it takes "a little bit of shit" transmitted from mother to child after vaginal birth to bootstrap a newborn's gut flora. Occasionally, a shit transplant is even indicated. Your analogy needs work.
I too am honestly curious.
What is the value in slagging what appears to be a completely Free/Libre OS?
And what other "ecosystem" did you have in mind, other than that of Apple/iOS or Microsoft/WinWhatever?
Meego, and it's fully open source successors? They're also true GNU/Linux, so I'm surprised why the FSF would NOT choose them first.
Looks to me like Meego's DOA, and it appears that Mer and Tizen are not yet viable.
BTW, I've not received any direct answer to my first question.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Meego was killed by Nokia in favour of WP.
Jolla seems to be pre-selling meego-derived phones without any issues.
Also, if you're wondering about the benefits of free software, there's plenty of sources out there, nobody's going to explain that to you on slashdot.
Copyleft makes sure that users retain freedoms, including the freedom to hire developers to make the software do what the user wants.
No, copyleft puts software first, and the user second.
How is that the case? A free software license guarantees four freedoms to the users of a work. Because the work is free, all of its users are free, even if this is freedom is at the expense of some developers' business models.
Without strong copyright laws, something like GPL is totally impossible.
Without software copyright, anybody can obtain a copy of a proprietary program and lawfully disassemble, document, and distribute it.
Without strong copyright laws, something like GPL is totally impossible.
Without software copyright, anybody can obtain a copy of a proprietary program and lawfully disassemble, document, and distribute it.
Exactly. With the GPL, the same does not apply. There are a lot of usage restrictions.
...so, honestly curious, why is the FSF engaged in an exercise which promotes the Google ecosystem?
They're being pragmatic, promoting the only working Free Operating System for smartphones out there. The fact that Replicant is a fork of Cyanogenmod, which is a fork of AOSP, it's of no consequence.
Mind Booster Noori
Replicant has little to no control over their future due to Google being a largely insular upstream that dictates where it goes
Hm, I would say that replicant has total control over their future, due to the fact that it is a free software project. If its upstream (Cyanogenmod) turns to a direction Replicant doesn't like (either by CM's decision or AOSP), they can simply not pull those changes into Replicant.
Mind Booster Noori
What sort of "usage restrictions" are you referring to? As I understand it, the GNU GPL imposes no restriction on making private use of a covered work, and each of the restrictions on distribution (GPLv2) or conveying (GPLv3) appears designed to preserve a specific aspect of the four freedoms for downstream users. If there were no copyright to enforce the terms of the GPL, anybody could still obtain a proprietary derivative of a free program, disassemble and comment it, and share that.