I do not know what everyone thinks of services like Tracfone, Net10, etc.,
but I myself do not use major cellphone contract services but instead opt for
Tracfone. Many Tracfones have the JavaME capability and I already use the
devices as phones, so I see it as as only a plus that I can load some GPL
code onto that phone to, say , learn vocabulary or even play a game. Trying
to change the ROM, even if it worked (for most it does not) would make my
phone service disappear. It is unrealistic to expect one company or few
companies (the ones that accidentally make the phones that can run Free
distributions that retain phone radio operability) to be able to furnish
EVERYONE with hardware, and more people with affordable hardware has been an
undeniable driving force in the Free Software adoption process. Therefore
most of us are left with the question of how to best approach the issue. Even
the FSFE instructs people to IMPROVE their android situation, and FREE their
devices, not to trash them! Honestly not all devices have prospects for being
Replicant ready soon or maybe ever. They are right, it does take a lot of
work to do it from scratch and given the small team, it is likely they will
not get to phone XYZ in time for people to still want to use it. Which is why
I think the most should be made of the devices right now. It is great that
laptops are capable of wiping the hard drive and starting again easily, but
not so much for many portable devices. I see these not as potential e-waste,
but again, opportunities. For example, since my client bought 3 $4.99
Motorola phones, what would happen if I were to tell them they now have
e-waste and might as well go to the dumpster? I may be making a strong point,
but to what effect? Polluting in the name of the Church of True Free
Software? The devices already exist, and I would rather use an old device
than by a new one with the same or worse problems like an android tablet.
They are notably worse in that by default, they spy on the user. A few years
ago, that was only dreamed about by corporations. Now they can and actually
do do it.
As for my actual findings, it turns out one can get along without the WTK if
they have a JDK, the reference implementations for the target configuration
and profile (downloads from Sun that seem a little less restrictive) and Ant.
There is also an OpenWTK project on Sourceforge that has no files for
download and never seemed to take off.
For these phones, I cannot think of what the "next step" towards Free
Software is- they can already run it, just not on an operating system level.
I guess it is a take-it-or-leave it issue for me right now. Maybe all of you
would leave it, but I think it's worth it to "take it" for what it is worth.
It really is Free Software that they run, but I understand if everyone
disagrees. You all are free to go your own directions. I am not sorry if mine
seems a little off-center to everyone here. You have my thanks for your input
And I look forward to continuing supporting, running, and building Free
Software in the Desktop/Laptop world. I will not be using Ubuntu or anything
really crazy like that.
