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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.
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.
Joshua Davis, why doesn't the FSF start this fundraiser on a well-known crowd funding site?
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.
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.
Even if copyleft licensing is "viral", it performs the same role as the viruses in a vaccine.