financial situation and development activity

[Simon Josefsson]

Paul Kocialkowski <contact at paulk.fr> writes:

>> >> because the last offical supported device is Samsung Galaxy S3, i wonder
>> >> if you have difficulties to accomplish a port to a newer phone,
>> >> supported by Cyanogenmod.
>> >
>> > You might want to read about the Replicant project's roadmap for the
>> > future:
>> > http://blog.replicant.us/2014/09/replicant-homepage-and-roadmap-for-the-future/
>> >
>> > I decided not to keep dedicating valuable time ressources on mainstream
>> > devices that are fundamentally flawed (non-free bootloaders) while
>> > better devices exist out there. I am now focusing on those better
>> > devices, but it takes a lot of time and I don't have much available.
>> 
>> Is this your view on use of your own time, or do you believe that the
>> Replicant project should not support devices with non-free bootloaders?
>> I think this is a bit unclear from your blog post, and I believe it is
>> an important distinction.
>
> The way I see it, everyone is welcome to contribute work for various
> areas. I don't think I would refuse to integrate some work because it
> doesn't match the idea that I have of the direction of the project.
>
> What I really like about free software projects is that people are free
> to work on whatever areas they want to, there are no obligations. Hence
> I really don't see myself telling people what they must and must not
> work on. I could suggest some tasks based on what I think is important
> but in the end, it is really not up to me.
>
> But since I'm the only developer bringing a substantial technical
> contribution to the project, what I decide to do reflects what
> development happens on Replicant. Thus, what was expressed in my blog
> post reflects my development priorities but also has a direct impact on
> where Replicant is going.

Right -- thanks for expanding on this.

>> I'm happy with Replicant on the S3.  While I also would like phone with
>> a free bootloader, the options that are available today are really far
>> away from being usable as a everyday phone.
>
> Hopefully, the LG Optimus Black should change that situation to some
> extent (even though it's a bit old, it's still easy to find and is
> stable and usable).

To me, both the I9300 and LG Optimus Black today fails the "commodity"
hardware test these dadys: they are out of production, and I can't buy a
new one.  Fortunately, the S3 is easy to find second-hand, but that will
only be the case for a year or two more.

>> I believe there is a role for free software and security/privacy-aware
>> OS's on commodity phone hardware with hardware that require some
>> non-free firmware.  Similar to how gNewSense, trisquel, libreCMC, etc
>> exists for commodity PCs/routers that may have some non-free hardware
>> components in them.  Right now, Replicant is the only contender in the
>> space as far as I am aware of.
>
> That is correct. The idea has always been to make those devices "less
> bad" by having a fully free system. Since they exist and we are going to
> use them, we might as well do it with as much free software as possible.
>
> However, Replicant differs a lot from fully free GNU/Linux systems,
> because it is very device-specific and we have to write free software
> replacements for things to work. On that regard, fully free GNU/Linux
> systems don't write free drivers or free firmwares replacements, they
> just remove them. Since x86 is generic enough and most of the
> abstraction is already there, they just provide a generic image and
> don't work on any particular hardware.

Sure.  In older times, GNU/Linux distributions had similar issues
though, things like ethernet, audio, video etc were hardware-specific.
But it was a lot of hard work to get to where we are today.

> In the case of Replicant, things are different since we have to target
> specific hardware, hence we have to chose which targets are the best. I
> think it is better to try and bring free software to the next level by
> supporting devices that run free bootloaders.

Sure -- I just feel it would be a shame if this leaves myself without a
nice phone. :-)

> There are several implications of this for the flawed (no free
> bootloader) mainstream devices:
> * I am probably not going to add support for new features on the flawed
> devices we already support, but most of what could reasonably be done is
> already there
> * I am however still going to maintain those devices, fix bugs, etc and
> in particular, complete Samsung-RIL
> * I am not going to try and keep up to the latest Android versions to
> add support for new flawed mainstream devices

Thanks again for clarifying.  I'm hoping someone will step up and feel
they have time and dedication to make Replicant run on more devices,
even if they are flawed.

Cheers,
/Simon
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