The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is starting a new project called LibrePhone. Announced during the FSF’s 40th birthday celebration earlier this month, this initiative is to build a mobile platform starting right from the firmware all the way up to the operating system.
This isn’t the first time an attempt has been made to create a fully open-source smartphone. Over the past decade, we’ve seen efforts with mobile Linux distributions on devices like the PinePhone and Librem 5, as well as de-Googled Android operating systems like GrapheneOS and /e/OS. However, the core problem with most of these is that they still have to rely on some proprietary drivers and code to talk to the hardware.
There are no concrete plans just yet, but the LibrePhone project is aiming to go further than anything we’ve seen before. The project is a partnership with veteran free software developer Rob Savoye, which is great news because this guy has serious credentials. Savoye has been a developer for the GNU Project since the 1980s. You might know his work from major projects like the GNU Compiler Collection, GNU Debugger, and even leading the effort to create Gnash, which was a fully free replacement for Adobe Flash.
Apparently, the immediate goal isn’t necessarily to start completely from scratch. Instead, the plan seems to be to take an existing operating system like Android and essentially reverse-engineer all the proprietary components, or “binary blobs,” that currently prevent users from having a phone that runs entirely on libre software. The presence of proprietary firmware is one of the biggest roadblocks to making a truly free mobile device.
FSF Executive Director Zoë Kooyman announced the project and said that since mobile phone computing is so widespread now, the LibrePhone has the potential to bring software freedom to many more people across the globe. To be fair, the announcement is a little light on the specifics right now, and that’s likely because this is at the idea stage. The team can make a concept, but any form of a prototype may take years to develop.
Other open-source phones like the PinePhone and Librem Phone have been made, but they remain niche products miles away from the kind of mass adoption we see with Apple and Android phones. It is important to remember that this isn’t an easy task, and the FSF has tried to develop a “free phone operating system” before, back in 2017. That project eventually had to be abandoned, so it’s not like the team hasn’t tried already. That doesn’t mean the team can’t, and learning from an experience like that can help a lot.
Developing a platform this pure in its commitment to free software could take a while, and there are major hurdles to overcome. However, I would say to keep expectations low until the team can actually make something close to it and give a real prototype that works.
Source: Free Software Foundation, Liliputing