Omar Radwan wrote: > Since 1989 till about 2005, desktops where the main computing > platforms, and from then till about 2010, laptops where the main > computing platforms. The GNU project and other free software projects > have been able to maintain a fully free operating system on both > devices.
To an extent, but there are some areas that haven't been so successful, e.g. WiFi, graphics, not sure about printers. > But the problem now it that phones and tablets are taking up massive > market share from both laptops and desktops. And as of right now, > there is no way to run a fully free operating system on those > devices. And that's bad. Completely agree. > I was wondering if there is any plan within the GNU project to start > making GNU phone and tablet compatible. Like all the stuff under the > hood can be used, the problem is writing free firmware drivers to be > able to use the device. There is Replicant, an Android/CyanogenMod distribution that aims to be fully free. However, free firmware for some peripherals on most smartphones is missing, typically for the modem part, which is a significant setback IMHO. I actually don't know if Replicant loads up a non-free blob or if the modem is independent of the main CPU. AFAIK Replicant doesn't contain much GNU at all, but I don't necessarily think this is important for providing a free smartphone OS. Their website: http://www.replicant.us/ [I'm just a GNU/Linux user, not authoritative on GNU or Replicant.] -- Andrew Roffey http://andrew.roffey.org [mailto|xmpp]:and...@roffey.org see website for GPG/OTR pubkeys
