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Finally! It took the FSF long enough to catch up with the overwhelming usage of mobile devices, but it's better late than never. I like that this project is tr

Finally! It took the FSF long enough to catch up with the overwhelming usage of mobile devices, but it's better late than never. I like that this project is trying to tackle something much more challenging that can't be done with just software: reverse engineering device firmware and binary blobs, the pieces of software that actually make hardware components interface with an OS. Understanding how this stuff functions is key to being able to write replacement software, so we may have less non-free software to deal with. I don't have any experience in trying to reverse engineer software, so the best I can do for now is cheer on from outside, unless I want to try my hands at this stuff later. I also like that this project is not intending to produce an Android-based distro, but focusing more on reverse engineering. Although I read that the results are targeted at helping developers of Android-compatible OSes, the results can hopefully be used by non-Android [GNU/]Linux distros and perhaps other *nix stuff, like the BSD distros. The FSF (by way of developer Rob Savoye) recognizing that a project like this is not going to be quick, easy, or cheap, and is a long term effort is good, as that likely means this project isn't going to be easily abandoned just because of not being able to produce quick results. I hope that this whole effort can eventually let us break free of the Apple-Google mobile device duopoly, as it sure is getting tiring for me to stick with one of these two companies for my mobile computing needs.

r283492 11mo ago
> the results can hopefully be used by non-Android [GNU/]Linux distros That was stated as a goal at the FSF 40 event, videos of which should be online in the next few days.
SchemaLoad 11mo ago
I hate to complain, but I can't help but feel this is kind of impossible with the resources available to the people working on it. Reverse engineering a modern phone would take years and years of work from many people, and by the time you have it worked out, the phone is obsolete and very few people still use it. The Apple Silicon macbooks seem a good example. The M1 came out about 5 years ago now and with a whole project and a lot of work later there is still limited hardware support. Having to put this effort in for all the models of phones seems massive.
- NetMageSCW 11mo ago
  1) The article states they are focusing on the phone model that they guess will require the least work to become totally free. This may make the project useless, but it does give it some hope of finishing. 2) The hope is that the M2-M5 won’t be that different from the M1 models - after all, Apple doesn’t want to spend their money reinventing the wheel without compelling reason. I think that is less likely with phones from different manufacturers, though Android phones typically share a lot of single source components.
  - fsflover 11mo ago
    > The hope is that the M2-M5 won’t be that different from the M1 models - after all, Apple doesn’t want to spend their money reinventing the wheel From the Asahi Linux website, M2 is sufficiently similar to M1, while M3 and M4 won't likely be supported soon due to significant differences.
    - zozbot234 11mo ago
      They're aiming to perfect their support for M1/M2 prior to working on the M3 and later models. Seems like a sensible choice, given that even a baseline M1 or M2 Mac is still a highly compelling device for a vast majority of uses. And Asahi will become more relevant as these devices cease to be supported by newer releases of macOS.
      - panny 11mo ago
        >a baseline M1 or M2 Mac is still a highly compelling device for a vast majority of uses. Maybe in 2020. Lenovo released an ARM chromebook this summer which has benchmark performance of M1/M2 chips and is perfectly supported by Linux (ChromeOS) out of the box.
- torben-friis 11mo ago
  One would hope that enough things stay similar between devices that replacing, say, the galaxy s25 paves the way for a far easier implementation of the s26, particularly now that the market is stagnating a bit. And I’m not knowledgeable about this at all, but intuitively I’d expect apple stuff to be much more customized than the average android phone - they’re famous for vertical integration and owning the end to end process.
eptcyka 11mo ago
When it is this late, it might as well have been never.
- goku12 11mo ago
  That's certainly not the case here, even if it's true sometimes. The duopoly is gradually tightening their grip on the customers' wallets. It's worth it at any stage to reverse their cash grab.
  - pjmlp 11mo ago
    This is bound to fail unless they get the full stack and even then, it will be for specific phone models, x86 is an anomaly in having a cloning freedom that IBM did not intended.
    - fsflover 11mo ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975
      - pjmlp 11mo ago
        If you think just by using Librephone powered device is going to be safer, good luck.
        fsflover 11mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870406
        eptcyka 11mo ago
        Open firmware is but one part of the equation. The evolutionary pressure of state actors trying to deploy malware on iOS and Android forces those platforms to develop vulnerability mitigations and security architectures that currently just are not matched by anything in FOSS. Desktop linux is woefully insecure compared to these platforms. I don't want it to be, but it seems that, unless you are ready to use Qubes, no one has the time and effort to further the security of desktop linux in any meaningful way.
a456463 11mo ago
Been running the latest lineageos without google crapware on oneplus 6. It is amazing

r283492 11mo ago

> the results can hopefully be used by non-Android [GNU/]Linux distros That was stated as a goal at the FSF 40 event, videos of which should be online in the next few days.

SchemaLoad 11mo ago

I hate to complain, but I can't help but feel this is kind of impossible with the resources available to the people working on it. Reverse engineering a modern phone would take years and years of work from many people, and by the time you have it worked out, the phone is obsolete and very few people still use it. The Apple Silicon macbooks seem a good example. The M1 came out about 5 years ago now and with a whole project and a lot of work later there is still limited hardware support. Having to put this effort in for all the models of phones seems massive.

NetMageSCW 11mo ago
1) The article states they are focusing on the phone model that they guess will require the least work to become totally free. This may make the project useless, but it does give it some hope of finishing. 2) The hope is that the M2-M5 won’t be that different from the M1 models - after all, Apple doesn’t want to spend their money reinventing the wheel without compelling reason. I think that is less likely with phones from different manufacturers, though Android phones typically share a lot of single source components.
- fsflover 11mo ago
  > The hope is that the M2-M5 won’t be that different from the M1 models - after all, Apple doesn’t want to spend their money reinventing the wheel From the Asahi Linux website, M2 is sufficiently similar to M1, while M3 and M4 won't likely be supported soon due to significant differences.
  - zozbot234 11mo ago
    They're aiming to perfect their support for M1/M2 prior to working on the M3 and later models. Seems like a sensible choice, given that even a baseline M1 or M2 Mac is still a highly compelling device for a vast majority of uses. And Asahi will become more relevant as these devices cease to be supported by newer releases of macOS.
    - panny 11mo ago
      >a baseline M1 or M2 Mac is still a highly compelling device for a vast majority of uses. Maybe in 2020. Lenovo released an ARM chromebook this summer which has benchmark performance of M1/M2 chips and is perfectly supported by Linux (ChromeOS) out of the box.
torben-friis 11mo ago
One would hope that enough things stay similar between devices that replacing, say, the galaxy s25 paves the way for a far easier implementation of the s26, particularly now that the market is stagnating a bit. And I’m not knowledgeable about this at all, but intuitively I’d expect apple stuff to be much more customized than the average android phone - they’re famous for vertical integration and owning the end to end process.

eptcyka 11mo ago

When it is this late, it might as well have been never.

goku12 11mo ago
That's certainly not the case here, even if it's true sometimes. The duopoly is gradually tightening their grip on the customers' wallets. It's worth it at any stage to reverse their cash grab.
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  This is bound to fail unless they get the full stack and even then, it will be for specific phone models, x86 is an anomaly in having a cloning freedom that IBM did not intended.
  - fsflover 11mo ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975
    - pjmlp 11mo ago
      If you think just by using Librephone powered device is going to be safer, good luck.
      - fsflover 11mo ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19870406
        eptcyka 11mo ago
        Open firmware is but one part of the equation. The evolutionary pressure of state actors trying to deploy malware on iOS and Android forces those platforms to develop vulnerability mitigations and security architectures that currently just are not matched by anything in FOSS. Desktop linux is woefully insecure compared to these platforms. I don't want it to be, but it seems that, unless you are ready to use Qubes, no one has the time and effort to further the security of desktop linux in any meaningful way.

a456463 11mo ago

Been running the latest lineageos without google crapware on oneplus 6. It is amazing