[Replicant] Replicant Digest, Vol 225, Issue 1

Sun Aug 6 13:56:37 UTC 2017

Allan Mwenda writes:

> Well if you look at it like that it'll be a long long time before you use any smartphone ever. 

I use a smartphone (running Replicant), but that's not the point. I just
wanted to clarify what non-free parts are there in LineageOS. Only
mentioning non-free firmware in that regard is misleading at best. I
think it's important to explain this to people interested in the subject
in the best possible way, without being too technical. This is
especially important for such a page like the FSFE campaign page. People
who are well informed on the subject can then make their own decisions
without the need to directly recommend a certain option to them.

> HALs are on pretty much every droid ever.

Yes and that's no problem. They are needed to make the hardware
work. The non-free ones among them are the issue.

> I think it is good to get people off relying on Google Play, and
> LineageOS is the best place to do that. As long as no replicant device
> has Wi-Fi, it'll always be a hard sell to the casual smarphone
> user. Its also more likely that they own a device listed by LineageOS
> than one listed by Replicant. So this person who already has a phone,
> and wants to free their device, do you them "don't even bother its
> hopeless" or "you can use this rom its better than what your
> manufacturer put and has no Google"

I agree, if you don't have a device supported by Replicant and if you
are not able to acquire one, LineageOS seems to be the best option right
now. If only missing Wi-Fi is a deal-breaker and if using an external
dongle is no option, using Replicant with the firmware installed is
still a lot better than using LineageOS because there is still no
non-free software running on the main CPU.

Best regards,
Wolfgang

>
> On 19 July 2017 22:15:50 GMT+03:00, Wolfgang Wiedmeyer <wreg at wiedmeyer.de> wrote:
>>
>>Allan Mwenda writes:
>>
>>> LineageOS is a suitable replacement to CyanogenMod in the post. It is
>>basically the community effort to keep Cyanogenmod "open source" after
>>the attempt to close it and monetize it to manufacturers as CyanogenOS.
>>
>>> The community CyanogenMod (not to be confused with CyanogenOS that is
>>highly proprietary) is dead and the servers were killed by Cyngn Inc
>>(so much for loving open source) It is important to also remind users
>>not to flash the suggested Gapps package that Lineage suggests. This is
>>the package that adds Google apps/Playstore. Without it, Lineage is
>>acceptably free, bar the usual loading proprietary firmware. 
>>
>>It's not only proprietary firmware. LineageOS includes non-free
>>Hardware
>>Abstraction Layers (HALs) that run in user-space. They add a non-free
>>layer between Android and the kernel. Depending on the device, they can
>>cover almost every aspect of the hardware because there aren't yet free
>>HAL implementations for that hardware.
>>
>>Furthermore, the hardware repositories contain code with non-free
>>licenses. So even if it appears that code is available for a certain
>>hardware, it still may have a non-free license.
>>
>>And there may be more non-free code. For example, the unrar tool is
>>included which has a non-free license. It is nice that LineageOS
>>doesn't
>>use the proprietary Play library anymore that was used by CyanogenMod,
>>but that alone doesn't make it suddenly acceptably free.
>>
>>Best regards,
>>Wolfgang
>>
>>> On 6 July 2017 15:00:04 GMT+03:00, replicant-request at osuosl.org
>>wrote:
>>>>Send Replicant mailing list submissions to
>>>>	replicant at osuosl.org
>>>>
>>>>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>>>>	https://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/replicant
>>>>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>>>>	replicant-request at osuosl.org
>>>>
>>>>You can reach the person managing the list at
>>>>	replicant-owner at osuosl.org
>>>>
>>>>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>>>>than "Re: Contents of Replicant digest..."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Today's Topics:
>>>>
>>>>   1. Volunteers Needed to help Update FSFE's "Liberate your
>>>>      device" page (Kurtis Hanna)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>Message: 1
>>>>Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2017 16:52:00 +0000
>>>>From: Kurtis Hanna <kurtis at riseup.net>
>>>>To: replicant at lists.osuosl.org
>>>>Subject: [Replicant] Volunteers Needed to help Update FSFE's
>>"Liberate
>>>>	your	device" page
>>>>Message-ID: <6c92098d-e692-12c4-74f1-9fecb87d9ac1 at riseup.net>
>>>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>>>>
>>>>If you are able and willing, please coordinate with Max to help
>>update
>>>>these two pages related to FSFE's "Liberate your device" campaign:
>>>>
>>>>https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Android
>>>>https://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/liberate.en.html
>>>>
>>>>The information about Replicant, LineageOS, and various F-Droid apps
>>>>need to be evaluated and updated.
>>>>
>>>>-------- Forwarded Message --------
>>>>Subject: Re: "Liberate your device" page
>>>>Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2017 14:50:35 +0000
>>>>From: Max Mehl <max.mehl at fsfe.org>
>>>>To: android at lists.fsfe.org
>>>>
>>>>Hi all,
>>>>
>>>># Marcos Marado [2017-01-22 19:24 +0100]:
>>>>> At least at https://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/liberate.en.html we
>>>>> have references to CyanogenMod.
>>>>> As you might know, the CyanogenMod project died, but a fork has
>>born
>>>>> from its ashes[1], in the form of Lineage OS.
>>>>> 
>>>>> For our purposes, there are no distinctive differences between CM
>>and
>>>>Lineage.
>>>>> So, I'd suggest that the liberate page in particularly should be
>>>>> revised to change CM references do Lineage, update the logo and the
>>>>> links, and also pay attention to the wiki[2].
>>>>
>>>>Some months passed and LineageOS proofed to be a sustainable
>>successor
>>>>of CyanogenMod. So I think it's time to tackle an update of the FYA
>>>>pages!
>>>>
>>>>I'd be happy to help but I don't feel confident to evaluate LineageOS
>>>>from the Free Software perspective. Also I'm sure that many other
>>apps
>>>>and details have changed on
>>>><https://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/liberate.en.html>
>>>>
>>>>Would someone here volunteer to create an updated version of the text
>>>>which we can discuss on this list afterwards? Don't care about the
>>>>XHTML
>>>>source code at first, that's something where I can help with as soon
>>as
>>>>we finished the text.
>>>>
>>>>If wanted, I can provide collaboration tools like a Kan Board or
>>>>Etherpad.
>>>>
>>>>Best,
>>>>Max
>>>>
>>>>-- 
>>>>Max Mehl - Free Software Foundation Europe - Program Manager
>>>>Contact and further information: https://fsfe.org/about/mehl
>>>>Private weblog: (blog.mehl.mx) | Private homepage: (mehl.mx)
>>>>Support advocacy for Free Software:  https://fsfe.org/donate
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Android mailing list
>>>>Android at lists.fsfe.org
>>>>https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/android
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>Subject: Digest Footer
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Replicant mailing list
>>>>Replicant at osuosl.org
>>>>https://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/replicant
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>End of Replicant Digest, Vol 225, Issue 1
>>>>*****************************************
>>
>>
>>-- 
>>Website: https://fossencdi.org
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>>Key download: https://wiedmeyer.de/keys/ww.asc

-- 
Website: https://fossencdi.org
OpenPGP: 0F30 D1A0 2F73 F70A 6FEE  048E 5816 A24C 1075 7FC4
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