[Replicant] making non free versions of replicant

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 13:08:18 +0300
"ni nhar" <ninhar at inbox.lv> wrote:
> My reasoning is, it is better if people have a lineage os phone than
> an iphone or android phone. 
> It is better if people have a replicant phone than a lineage os
> phone.
> It is better if people have a non free software replicant phone than
> a lineaga os phone.
[...]
> Because also those who have a non free replicant phone will know
> about replicant.
The reality is more complicated and it depends on the details.

I've met several people that think that laptops made by Purism are
fully free software which isn't the case. If people also think that
Ubuntu, Mint or other similar GNU/Linux distributions are fully free,
then we have some big issue.

The issue here is that the fact that something is fully free or not
get blurred, and if we make it crystal clear by simplifying things, we
can manage to somehow get the message across.

The other issue is that to get something fully free you often need to
have intermediate steps where you free hardware step by step.

For instance when I was working on adding support for the Thinkpad X60
GPU in Coreboot I could reuse a lot of the work that was made for the
Chromebook pixel which has a Management Engine that still needs to run
a nonfree OS.

Many devices with Allwinner processors/system on a chip can also now
run fully free software and can run Parabola, with only the GPU driver
needing more work. It wasn't the case years ago.

A way to handle both constraint at the same time would be:
- To try as hard as possible to make thing crystal clear in each
  project. For instance:
  - In Replicant we have the freedom privacy and security
    article but we probably also need a shorter and more simple version
    for less technical people and publicize the issues more, in order
    to make it clear that while Replicant is approved by the FSF, the
    hardware it runs on still has many issues.
  - Android also makes it clear that it's not a free software project:
    "The companies that have invested in Android have done so because we
     believe an open platform is necessary. Android is intentionally and
     explicitly an open source effort (as opposed to free software); a
     group of organizations with shared needs has pooled resources to
     collaborate on a single implementation of a shared product. First
     and foremost, the Android philosophy is pragmatic. The objective
     is a shared product that each contributor can tailor and
     customize."[1]
- Try to work with upstream (which includes open source projects with
  people from both open source and free software) to include more and
  more of our work there, and so be able to leverage the code for
  devices that now become fully free.

References:
-----------
[1]https://source.android.com/setup

Denis.
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