[Replicant] Phoneblok project

[Bradley D. Thornton]

On 10/26/2013 1:02 AM, Richard Quirk wrote:
> On 10/26/13, Bradley D. Thornton <Bradley at northtech.us> wrote:
>> We can keep hoping though, can't we? Think Raspberry Pi, right? :)
>>
> You might not have read this, it seems the Raspberry Pi has some big
> freedom problems too.
>
> https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers

Yes that is really unfortunate. But it's really nothing we haven't been 
subject to, on pretty much all machines anyway, at least historically 
speaking.

I too would like to see a bootstrap that is completely free, but even 
Linux running on an old 486 DX2-66 required an AMI or Phoenix BIOS 
before the MBR or Lilo were ever consulted ;)

Things will improve, I am confident, they almost always do, but the FOSS 
community can only engage in reactive development for somethings, since, 
as proactive as we would like to be, we must actually wait until 
something is prototyped or the SDK is available - some kind of specs 
released, before we can go to town and produce a free solution :)

>
> """
> The Raspberry Pi requires nonfree software to start up. It can't reach
> the point of executing free software unless this nonfree program is
> part of the installed system software.
>
> The startup program is, in fact, the same program that runs the GPU
> and the video decoding hardware. Thus, the GPU and the video decoding
> hardware are unusable in the free world, but these jobs can be done
> with free software on the CPU.
>
> That program appears to implement intentional restrictions, such as
> blocking the video decoding hardware for MPEG-2 and VC-1 in the
> absence of a key that is specific to the machine in hand.
> """


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