The Free Software Foundation announces the Librephone project, a 'free' smartphone

The Free Software Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes the spread of free software that allows users to freely modify and redistribute it, has announced ' Librephone ,' a project that aims to bring mobile phone freedom to users.

librephone Project

Librephone — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software

FSF announces Librephone project — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software
https://www.fsf.org/news/librephone-project

The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985 and has been working for software freedom in computing for 40 years. Now, we are moving into one of the most challenging areas of computing: mobile phones.

Various efforts are being made to liberalize mobile phones, but even LineageOS , the smartphone operating system that is said to be closest to 'free software,' contains binary blobs , so mobile phone computing is still largely restricted.

The Librephone project aims to break free from these blobs, but it is not intended to create a new Android distribution, but rather a long-term project to better understand and reverse-engineer the non-free blobs used in nearly every SoC currently in production.

'I've been using LineageOS phones with MicroG and F-Droid for years, eliminating the spyware and controls Google embeds in Android,' said John Gilmore, a director of the foundation that funds the project. 'However, we discovered that the LineageOS distribution links to a critical proprietary binary module copied from the firmware of certain phones. Rather than accept this sad situation, we sought out collaborators to reverse engineer the module and replace it with completely free software.'

The technical lead for the project is Rob Savoy, whose previous work includes OpenStreetMap , DejaGNU , and Gnash . When asked about the project, Savoy said, 'As a veteran embedded systems engineer with decades of experience working on mobile devices, I'm excited about this opportunity to work towards a mobile phone that supports freedom and helps users take control of their own devices.'