On Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 11:49:53AM -0800, Mychaela Falconia wrote: > > Eventually > > I would like to be able to bundle these tools with a phone that runs only > > free software. > > A phone that runs only free software? What kind of phone would it be > hardware-wise: do you plan on building your own hw, or are you trying > to repurpose/reprogram some existing phone hw units?
It would be great if I could find some existing hardware instead of building my own. The Neo FreeRunner seems like a good candidate given what you said later (more on that below). > Not just to Denver but to everyone: please remember that with *ANY* > libre or FOSS phone goal, the software is the easy part; the hard part > is the hardware. I've created (rather unsophisticated) hardware in the past (see http://ossguy.com/ss_usb/ ). I realize that building a phone is a substantial undertaking so I'd like to avoid that if possible. > The *only* hardware feature which can be omitted if you wish to limit > cell functionality to emergency calls only is the SIM socket. The SIM > socket I use on the FCDEV3B costs $2.12 in quantity 1 at Digi-Key (or > down to $1.38 per piece when buying 1000-piece reels), and my opinion > is that if you omit the SIM socket on your phone in order to > *artificially* restrict its cellular capabilities to emergency calls > only, you are being antisocial by artificially hobbling your product > to suit your particular prejudices. I would be fine with retaining the SIM socket in whichever solution I eventually end up using. > > My understanding from being on the list for a while is that the current > > baseband firmware works for some basic use cases on existing phones, > > Not just for "some basic use cases", but 100% of standard commercial > GSM+GPRS modem functionality: My apologies. > if you have a Neo Freerunner made by > Openmoko, the Calypso GSM+GPRS modem included in that product provided > full commercial quality implementation of all standard GSM and GPRS > functionality with the official firmware those units shipped with, and > this full functionality is retained without any degradation if you > replace their original proprietary firmware with FC Magnetite. I do have a Neo FreeRunner so perhaps that should be my first goal: to run FC Magnetite and see how well it works for me. > Our Magnetite firmware has not been fully deblobbed yet, but: > > * We have a clear roadmap toward a fully deblobbed version; Does it seem like a substantial amount of work? Or is there not much left now? > 1: Neo Freerunner by Openmoko. This hw is where the original > FreeCalypso project started, and has the best support. But the > Freerunner is not a bare modem or a dumbphone, it also has a Linux > application processor that requires very complex software to make > it usable as a phone, and the community that once maintained this > complex sw is now gone. Without an active community of developers > to maintain that Linux AP software, the Freerunner makes a very > poor choice of phone: it is too complex and too power-hungry to > serve as a dumbphone substitute, yet it does not really offer > anything of practical value that a proper dumbphone can't do, thus > it is neither here nor there - "neither fish not meat" as the > Russian saying goes. Would it not still offer wifi support? If so, then it seems to be a good candidate for my use case. And I would be unlikely to find a dumbphone that would do wifi anyway. Of course, as you said, the community is mostly gone at this point. Bringing that back would be a challenge, but if I was able to work on the FreeRunner software full-time for a while, perhaps I could make that happen. > if the people who have funded > the current FCDEV3B effort wish to continue further in this direction, > we can produce a FreeCalypso modem in a packaged form factor similar > to SIM900 etc, and the liberated firmware for this mode of operation > is already here and 100% functional. That would be an excellent way forward if for some reason the FreeRunner is not suitable. > > So I'd be curious to know if the emergency-only use case is substantially > > easier to develop for, or if it's roughly the same complexity as developing > > for the all-purpose use case, or somewhere in between. [...] > In terms of software, the emergency-only use case is more complex > because you would have to do extra work to remove perfectly good and > working code for non-emergency functionality. Thanks for clarifying that. I have no intention of spending time removing such functionality - it seems fine to leave it in and retain the SIM card slot as discussed. > I hope my answers clarify things for you a little. They certainly do! Thank-you very much. Denver http://soprani.ca/ _______________________________________________ Community mailing list Community@freecalypso.org https://www.freecalypso.org/mailman/listinfo/community