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Episode: 1009
Title: HPR1009: John Sullivan Why should I care about Free software?
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1009/hpr1009.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 17:21:44
---
Thank you very much.
I would like to introduce you, John Sullivan.
Thank you very much, thank you Bruce and to Jonathan for organizing the event and for
having me. I'm a little bit of horse, so I'm going to use the microphone here. The title
of this is, is why should I care about that? And I realized that I was sitting there. I'm
not talking about Northeast New Linux Fest 2012, but we should care about it. It's fun.
I'm talking about free software, but we'll get to that.
So I've been the second director of the free software foundation just since this past March, so about one
year. But I've been with the FSF since 2003 doing various roles there, including organizing
our campaigns and working in the shipping department as well. So last time I gave a presentation on
St. Patrick's Day that I can remember was when I was in my school play and elementary school on
St. Patrick's Day. I'm hoping that my performance today will be a little bit better than that one. And I think I played
a little bit better than that one. And I'm hoping, you know, I'm sure the St. Patrick's Day story is some
horrible xenophobic undertones that I wasn't familiar with then, but I hope that I'm on the
side of the good guys and not the snakes this time. And it's too bad we're not presenting a building
over in the Sullivan academic center. It would have been much better for me.
So I want to talk about the problem of free software and the title of why should I care about that
is to what can we do in order to get people who don't actually work with computers or do programming to
care about free software? You know, why what can we do to get people to care that every device that they
use that runs software runs free software, even if they have no intentions themselves of modifying that
software. In order to understand that problem, it's important that we're clear about the ultimate goal
that we're trying to achieve. And that goal for the free software foundation is that we want all
users to be able to do whatever they need to do with a computer using only free software.
So anything that somebody might want to do with their computer should always be
accomplishable using free software right down to the level of driving the hardware all the way
up to the applications that they need. I publish an article about this and our Bulletin
last fall. We don't have copies of that one unfortunately, but the article is online or
we'll be online at fcf.org slash Bulletin and we have some of the older issues out at our booth
here if you want to check out past articles. So I'm going to focus in this talk on mobile devices
because when we're talking about using free software, one of the obstacles historically for people who
aren't programmers has been that they just don't use computers that much. Obviously since the
free software foundation started in 1985, that problem has changed somewhat because lots of people use
computers all the time. And now when you add mobile devices to the next people are using computers
really all of the time, even if they don't call it a computer. So mobile devices are a great
opportunity for us to communicate the importance of free software to people because they are already
using the technology. So now it's the next step of helping them understand why that
technology, why that software should be free, why they should be in control of the device,
instead of the device being in control of them. I also want to talk about it because of
time when it's just for this weekend, the new iPad came out. I was not in line. And also this American
life episode that was discussing Apple's manufacturing practices for the eye devices is being
retracted due to some factual errors. So there's a lot of discussion in the media again about the
manufacturing processes and these devices for the hardware. And to me that discussion is a good
opportunity for free software advocates to chime in. Obviously we're not going to put free
software concerns on par with people jumping off of factories and committing suicide. But as
soon as we start talking about the way devices are manufactured, that's an opportunity to also
talk about the way the software is manufactured and the ethical concerns that go into that while
we're talking about the other ethical concerns about the production of the device.
So I'm optimistic about this. I think that people do in many different contexts actually
share about freedoms that they don't themselves make use of on a daily basis.
People might not be a programmer, but I think people who aren't programmers, we can still convince
to use free software or to advocate for free software. And I look at other examples like Freedom of the
Press, which is the example that I talked most about in the Bulletin article. And I'm not a journalist.
I don't write for a news publication. Most people don't. And yet they believe in the value of Freedom of the
Press because they know that they can't have news that is serving that serves a foundation for
a democratic society if that news is not published under free press conditions. And I think in the
same way we can communicate to people about how in order for the software to work the way that
they wanted to, in order for them to actually be in control of their devices, that software has to be
made under conditions of freedom, even if they aren't the ones making it or using that freedom.
And, you know, there are freedoms that they do use. And those are easy ones to communicate.
So it's easy to explain to people why copying and sharing is a good thing.
As long as we can cut through the RIA, MPAA, etc., propaganda about how sharing a copy of something useful
with your neighbor is theft. Everybody in an ideal world can understand the value of copying and sharing.
Studying is a pretty easy one too, you know, for studying the idea that people share the freedom.
If they wanted to learn about computers, they should be able to look at how the software works.
And those are relative easy to communicate, modifying the freedom to modify the software is a little bit harder.
Because if a person isn't going to modify the software running on their computer, then they might be
fine with the idea that they're not allowed to do that. So that's really the tough one that we have to break down.
And I think that mobile devices provide a good opportunity for doing that.
First of all, because so many people are carrying the computers, like I mentioned at the beginning,
I know companies would love to have us believe that these devices are only toasters or appliances that they're not actual computers.
But like Mad Dog, we're talking about the history of things this morning and how, you know, 64k at RAM cost $28,000 at one point in time.
The computer that I'm carrying around in my pocket now is much more powerful than the computer that got me through college.
And well, it's more powerful than one that got me through grad school too, but that was a typewriter, so that's easy.
But these things are computers. They're general purpose computers that a user could in theory install software on.
The only reason that they are appliances is because of the companies that make them lock them up and make them that way.
So the reason why one of the reasons why we want to free and modify the software we use is because it helps us make sure that other people aren't using the software to control us.
And mobile devices are a very one of the clearest examples we've had of this in years.
You want to be able to modify your device to remove malware or what one of our directors calls anti features.
These are things that your device does that you wish it didn't.
And mobile devices we can come up with lots of examples on being handcuffed to a particular carrier.
So you can't take your team mobile phone and switch to AT&T or having a back door provided so that a company can come in literally while you're sleeping and delete ebooks off of your device over the network.
A crippling functions of the hardware so that even though your device has a Wi-Fi chip inside of it, you're not allowed to use it as an access point for other people.
Turning your mobile device into a surveillance device. And you know there's no tin foil on my head here.
You can read the court cases where this is being done.
The they can turn on the cell phone microphone and listen into your conversations.
Obviously if it's nearby they can activate the phone remotely.
In some cases they can check the GPS in some cases.
So these are all examples of things that you start talking to people about they're not very happy about.
You know they want the phone so they can talk to their kids so they can check their email for work.
That sort of thing they don't want to be carrying around a tracking device.
If they pay for a Wi-Fi chipset when they bought the phone they want to be able to use it.
So these are pretty clear examples of things.
People certainly don't want their materials deleted off of their devices while they're sleeping.
So these are all good examples. And even though somebody isn't going to modify their own software to remove those.
There's anti features themselves because they would have to learn how to program in order to do it.
We can communicate with them about how if the software is free first of all those things won't happen.
Because that's not in anybody's interests to do so.
It's not a company in control of the software who has the ability to force others to accept their direction.
Community develops in free software goes in different directions because of the people in the interests behind it.
And also just the fact that if they found something about their software that they didn't like they could pay somebody else to do it.
To make the change for them.
And accessibility as a theme of the conference overall I think it comes into play here as well.
All the usual reasons why free software is important for accessibility apply on mobile devices just as much as on any other computer.
And we'll get to an example later about particularly egregious case of proprietary software being used to damage accessibility in the area of mobile devices.
So I want to run through some of the specific problems and and cast of characters that we have currently we have apples iOS.
Apples operating system for mobile devices does not permit free software period.
You cannot install free software on an iPad or an iPhone without jail breaking the device which will get to you in a minute also.
This is for a few different reasons.
The only allowable distribution point for software to run an iOS device is the Apple application store.
The Apple application store in order to submit software to it or to download software from it comes with a set of terms of service which you have to agree to.
As a developer if you do distribute your software through the app store you agree that that is the only place you will distribute it.
Which means you cannot distribute the source code from your own website for example since you have you distributing your code from a place outside of the app store.
So obviously you can't have free software if you can't have the source code.
There are also other restrictions that are incompatible with free software in the terms such as you are not allowed to it says that you can only run the program on whatever their limit of the hour is four or five different devices in your home.
Obviously that's incompatible with GPL which says that you can run as many copies on many devices as you want.
So that restriction in the terms prevents you from using a software freely and effectively means that no free software is permitted in the app store.
This is not to say that you will not find software which is free in the app store.
People upload it Apple allows it because Apple loves to take advantage of free software when they can.
But when someone points out to them that it's not being distributed in compliance with a free software license and it's not actually respecting user freedoms Apple will just remove the software.
You know exercising the authority that they have as the sole approvers of the software that goes into the app store.
And that's the second important point is not just no free software but no unapproved software at all is allowed in the app store and this is important.
Obviously we're only carrying about free software at the FSF but when you have applications whose sole purpose is to present political cartoons and other forms of media.
I just wanted to highlight that Apple is also using their control over the software in order to quash political expression and anything that they don't agree with as a company they won't allow into the app store.
DRM digital restrictions management is used on all applications ebooks and lots of other media that's found in the app store that's incompatible in and of itself with free software.
Apple justifies this control by twisting the kind of quality control phrase and desire that people have.
They say that if they open up the app store and allow free software to come into it or allow the iPhones and iPads to run third party software that that will hurt the quality of the user experience and the device will break and the network will crash and you know all of this stuff.
So whether you believe that or not is irrelevant to the question of whether Apple should therefore be able to legally prevent you from installing software on your own device.
If you have a model where people opt in to an exclusive arrangement, you can check a box in the user settings on a phone which says I only want approved software.
That's all the problems that they're highlighting.
People could voluntarily opt into the app store.
The problem comes in when Apple uses the digital money and copyright act the DMCA to say that anybody who tries to install third party software in the device is a criminal.
That's where the problem comes in they can have the voluntary call it quality control that's fine but to take the next step and say that you don't have the right to modify your own device is what's incompatible with free software ideals.
Now we said when the iPhone first came out that Apple we suspected Apple was going to have this plan in mind for the laptop and the desktop as well.
And then people were like you know what another not going to do that there's no way well now they're doing it.
So they are now making the laptop and desktop operating system only available through the app store.
That's the only place you can buy it now and there are grumblings now as well that the that version of the operating system will by default only allow app store or official software to be installed.
Now in that case they are still currently allowing the user to uncheck that box and allow other software to be installed but it's pretty clear where the trend is going now.
We have Amazon I'm including ebook readers and in the definition of mobile devices here but also Amazon has its own tablet.
So all these companies Amazon Apple use free software on their devices but they mix it up with some proprietary software and then they don't tell anybody that they're using free software and then they tell people that if we use free software then the sky will fall down.
So the Kindle does use a lot of free software you can go to amazon.com and you can find the source code that they are required to publish for the free software that they use on the device on the Kindle.
But you should be aware that you see headlines to say Amazon publishes Amazon release the Kindle source code is free software that's not correct Amazon publishes the source code that they are required to publish for the free software and gpl components that they use but they have not published the source code for things like the actual ebook reader interface or a lot of the other features that are important for people.
The Kindle is what I was referring to at the beginning with back which has back doors that allow company to come in and delete your ebooks without your permission.
They and I'm not making this up did this with the book 1984 on lots of people's gintles.
Now there was some explanation for it that it was an unauthorized version of 1984 that had been inadvertently uploaded to the Amazon marketplace and then they came out and they apologized and they said they would never do it again but they did not change the terms of service they did not change the software.
So what we have at this point is a forum post from Bezos saying oh we want to do that again don't worry free software is about not having to put your trust in somebody who has an interest in antagonizing you.
Free software is about putting you in control so you don't have to trust in empty statements like that and the Kindles proprietary software is what enables them to take these kinds of actions.
DRM in the Kindle store is optional for publishers so if you upload something to the Kindle store you are able to do so without DRM that is nice but I think we can all see that the Kindle is heavily marketed on the basis of the DRM's media rather than the DRM free media and Amazon.
You know people love to blame DRM on the publishers and the publishers do certainly bear a lot of responsibility for DRM.
There's the ones who want really strict protection of the restrictions on copyright and distribution that they want to have but companies like Amazon and Apple benefit a great deal from those restrictions because it creates a stack that people buy into.
So if you want the Kindle if you want somebody's evil queue have to buy a Kindle because it's only available in the Kindle format the Kindle format is all about DRM.
So Amazon and other companies profit also from use of DRM is a way to lock users in you can't take your Kindle books elsewhere unless you also use the Kindle application to read them in those other places.
Accessibility was an issue with the Kindle as well and it was related to DRM.
When the Kindle came out it had the ability to maybe was the second version of the Kindle but anyway it had the ability to read the book to you in a computerized voice.
This was useful for people who can't read the book by site.
And but it wasn't great you heard a Rubens demo of Trisco in the way the computerized voice sounds it's no oral performance of the work and yet the authors go to the United States argued that the text to speech feature was a public performance of the book and so would require their copyright permission to have that feature enabled.
So Amazon capitulated to the publishers in that instance so now when you when a publisher uploads a work they can set a bit which says this book may not be read aloud and that bit is included in the overall DRM scheme.
There's another example where we need for software why does anybody get to tell you that you can't have your computer read a book out loud to you while you're doing the dishes or you know if you need that to be done because you can't read the book because you don't have site.
That's just one example when you can imagine lots of other accessibility features that we won't get unless we get free software and mobile devices.
Windows mobile the main issue I want to highlight here is what Microsoft has been pushing recently under the name secure boot.
They started out pushing this for all computers desktops laptops and mobile devices.
This feature it's something that's designed to make sure that you can't have a really low level infection on your computer that opens up security halls for other people.
It's a nice motivation you they want to protect user security.
So that's not really the motivation as we'll be seeing what they want to do is to make sure that you can't install a operating system that is not windows on a piece of hardware.
So the way the security system works if it detects an unauthorized operating system it will not boot.
So in other words you would not be able to install a new Linux on a computer that had the security feature security feature installed.
And so therefore we refer to this as restricted boot rather than secure because it's not security when the user is not in control of their own computer.
So we launched a statement opposing this last year and it's got a lot of signatures on it got a lot of press attention to the issue.
And a lot of other people covered it as well and Microsoft's sort of back down maybe now what they're saying is that on an x86 computer the user must have the ability to install their own signing keys so they can load their own operating system.
That's good. And they're saying that the user must be able to disable that feature entirely that's also good.
However, now they are saying that when it is an armed device such as your cell phone your tablet those things must explicitly not be possible.
So they are essentially saying that secure boot will always be restricted to do on any kind of mobile device.
Also, we don't trust them on the desktops anyway. I mean the first thing they said when they came out with this announcement was oh no, we're not going to say anything about how how whether or not the secure boot feature can be disabled or enabled.
We're just saying it's good to have to exist in this fashion.
And now obviously they've gone back on that because they are requiring that it be implemented a certain way on certain types of architectures.
So this is enforced under the windows logo certificate windows eight logo certification program.
So any piece of hardware that wants to be certified to run windows eight is going to have to comply with this requirement.
So that's up to Motorola or not if they want to manufacture two branches of the device one which is windows eight certified one does not maybe they could do that.
So we're going to talk about the patents issue briefly now actually with Android.
So the Android operating system is based on free software but as it's usually distributed in phones that you buy in the store it comes with a lot of non free software as well.
You have Google applications like Google maps etc. They're installed on the phone which are actually proprietary software.
You have an application which may be installed by the different carriers like Verizon T mobile like to put their random deal of the week with universal studios stream sports whatever application on there.
Those are usually proprietary DRM's media flash which unfortunately has become kind of a marketing point for Android devices because of the iPhone's commendable lack of support for flash and binary blobs for hardware drivers are all issues.
So while you can go and you can get the Android source code if you go and buy a phone is most likely going to come with a bunch of stuff that isn't technically part of Android but is still except for the binary blobs and the drivers but is still proprietary software.
Also there's the problem that Android is largely released under a non copy left license which allows it to be released as proprietary software as well as free software.
We saw this actually being put to use when recently Google did not release the source code for one of the Android versions that they put out.
Now they've since released that source code it took a while but they did to their credit go back and release the unreleased versions as well.
Anyway that was scary and it shows how kind of tenuous Android is because it's at any moment the copyright holder or anybody who decides to realistically be a copyright holder can release that software only in binary form so users won't be able to get access to the source code.
The official market for Android also contains non free software and it doesn't even flag what software is free and what software isn't free and that's a problem like Ruben mentioned with Triscold this morning it's important in the free software movement that we not only provide free software initially but that we also create a world where people can live comfortably only in free software.
If a user makes a decision one time that they only want to run free software then a free software operating system should only present them with free software they've already made that decision they don't want non free software so you know stop pushing it in the markets and that sort of thing.
Of course Android you can install a third party software so you do not have to only install things from the official Google marketplace and that's definitely a big criteria and a favor.
The patents issue I mean this would be a whole presentation on its own but as was said Microsoft has been collecting patent revenues on Android devices and unfortunately companies have been capitulating to that to a large degree and this is definitely a problem for the future free software on mobile devices we are going to have to get rid of software patents if we're going to actually succeed in the mobile area otherwise look they made a great free software operating system in Android
and what happens Microsoft makes licensing fees off of each Android device sold by most companies selling Android devices.
It's not the only issue I mean there's so many codex in there where things that you know whether or not Microsoft has a patent from those other people have this.
Yeah and Microsoft will I mean any.
I mean patents are a problem for the new like desktop in general every program has lots and lots of patents that read on it the codex that we use for our media have patents on them so.
But mobile devices for some reason is where these companies have decided to really go to war with each other and free software suffering in the crossfire so it's an area where we especially have to pay attention but the media codex are really relevant for mobile devices as well because.
Your typical device has hardware acceleration built in for mp4 which is a patented codec and does not have hardware acceleration for web m for example which is a codec released by Google with a patent license that allows it to be used in free software so.
Google has said in the past that hardware accelerated web and phones are coming you know we haven't seen those yet and now we have Mozilla unfortunately make an announcement that Firefox mobile will work with mp4 if it exists on the device that's a you know a weakening of their stance which previously said that Firefox would not support patents and formats so you know it's definitely one of the main issues that we're going to have to face up to.
Okay so how do we change this direction the first thing that we need to do is make sure that we can install free software in our devices so if you haven't signed the FSF statement against the restricted boot that Microsoft is pushing please do that.
That's just the first step in organizing this campaign and then you know we'll be able to contact you and follow up with you about future actions that will take place in this area and obviously it's good to have a lot of signatures on its statement to help show companies that people don't want restrictions on their computers like that.
It's not just Microsoft you know we also are trying to communicate with the OEMs and the hardware manufacturers to let them know that because it's their choice whether to go into the Windows 8 certification program or not so if we can convince them not to do that or to push back against Microsoft so that users can not just navigate through some bios menu to eventually arrive at the option to turn off that security but to make it actually easy for somebody to install a free software operating system over top of windows.
Gel breaking is the main thing that people do right now in order to get free software on their restricted devices generally this is done by manipulating some bug in the operating system in order to get them root access on the phone so they can install software that they want to install in the US under current rules because of exemptions that have been issued to the DMCA this seems to be legal actually as of a few years ago.
A couple of things about that though one is those exemptions are being reviewed right now and could be taken away Apple of course is pushing for them to be taken away in particular they want to make sure that these exemptions do not apply to the iPad because these exemptions are issued originally tablets were in a big thing yet so they are very specifically written for cell phones so it's unclear under the current exceptions whether you're able to jailbreak your tablet the other ridiculous thing is that is unclear whether you are able to help somebody else jailbreak theirs so two different things are banned.
Under the DMCA one is circumventing the restrictions that are placed by a copyright holder on a device the second thing is distributing the tools that are necessary to do that the exemptions very clearly say that you are allowed to do the first thing they don't say that you are allowed to share the tools with other people so despite those exemptions we still continue to live in a gray area here.
I don't like the word jailbreaking very much a prisons actually kind of serve an important function in society arguably so jailbreaking kind of gives some weird credibility in my mind but whatever.
A jailbreaking doesn't solve the fundamental problem I commend the people who are doing the jailbreaking and making those tools because they're doing good work when they're doing it with free software they're enabling users to have control over their devices and I think that's an important thing to do but we need a more permanent solution.
A jailbreaking people doing it are always on a treadmill where they have to keep up with new updates people Apple pushes out updates over the air to their devices that sometimes break jailbroken phones or they set up situations where you really have to un jailbreak your phone in order to get some new feature and then the new jailbreaking tools aren't out yet so it's really not a good situation for users to be in.
Also they probably do this deliberately but that's just my speculation I don't have evidence about that and this doesn't help non technical users your average person that buys a phone last thing they want to do is take it home and void the warranty and possibly make it not work anymore so understandably people weren't very willing to take those risks especially when it means they have to navigate to some website that has a shady feel about it because it's maybe not entirely legal and download something and that creates opportunities for people to actually take advantage of it.
They actually take advantage of non technical users in malicious ways so it's not a permanent solution and especially not at the exemptions that I talked about get taken away so we have a five step plan on how we can change the situation one tell people about the ethical issues with the proprietary mobile devices and support political actions to improve situation this is pretty straight forward but it's something that we just need to talk with each other about you need to blog about you'll notice when the New York Times writes a new review
of the latest iPad the restrictions are hardly ever even mentions you know it's just not something that's even talked about and writing I've actually done this with David Pogue at the New York Times I've written them a couple times saying can you at least mention the DRM exists on the device when you're writing a review of it and you did actually start doing that so writing to reviewers in particular telling your friends and family about it when I said a conversation with my girlfriends dad recently about it and it's obviously it's a little bit uncomfortable sometimes to tell somebody who just bought something that they
maybe you know there's problems with it but if you're nice about it people are open-minded and no listen and maybe they won't throw that phone in the garbage but the next time they buy a phone they'll know a little bit more about it and you know I often say at the FSF that our goal is not obviously we want everybody to be running a free operating system but our short-term goal is actually more about getting people advocating for free software and advocating the ideas of free software and understanding those ideas that's more important than getting them to actually change the operating system on their computer right now
because there's a lot of obstacles people doing that it's hard they have to have certain software at work they have to have certain software at school they need to be able to exchange photos with their relatives you know whatever it is people are in a variety of different situations that may impede their ability to take immediate action on that but they can immediately start advocating and helping us and that will enable us to achieve larger change that will then make it easier for them to switch so anybody whether you're using windows or using new Linux can advocate for free software and that's why it's the first step up here before anything else
second step is to stop rewarding companies for taking away your freedom so yes you know don't buy the iPhone you know don't buy the Kindle don't buy those devices that are produced by companies that are actively seeking to restrict the things that you can do that's you know a second step after telling other people about it it's a very important thing to do and I know that you can jailbreak some of these devices but keep in mind that even if you're jailbreaking it you did pay for a DRM license when you buy it
you got the device you did fund the company and that company Amazon is not looking at that saying oh well we sold this many Kindles but we know that these 10 people bought them so that they could put getting Linux on it right that's not what they're doing they are selling these devices if they're sales figures are good they're going to assume it's because their pro DRM marketing approach is working so it's not sending a good signal
step three then after you don't buy that device is to buy the freest device that you can and also to consider I mean I'm not going to preach about like you know commercialism and stuff like that but think about what you actually need to get your work done and need to to live your life you know our president Richard Stallman still doesn't carry a cell phone
even though it would be quite nice if he heard sometimes because he's traveling all over the world and we can't always get a hold of him easily but we work around it you know we keep track of his hosts phone numbers and we find ways to stay in touch with him
he doesn't carry one not only because of free software issues but because of other concerns he has like the very nature of cell phones being trackable because of triangulation off the towers and that sort of thing but if you do and do you really need a tablet you know I know that they can be nice for some things but can you get by without it until a better option is available
just keep those questions in mind if you do need to buy a device then get the freest one that you can do some research and we're trying to help people do that
there's also a new campaign called freeyourandroid.org that our sister organization FSF Europe started that I've been working with them on as well to help provide information about this to people
after you have that freest device then install a free operating system on it because it won't come with one when you buy whatever you buy is not going to have a free operating system on it they're not sold that way unfortunately at the moment
so at the moment for an Android device that's replicant she'll talk more about in a minute and no matter what firmware you're using on your Android device you can use the fjoyed marketplace which only includes free software applications it's a replacement for the Google marketplace that doesn't include any proprietary software
so anything that you install you know it's free and has been better to be free step five then is to help improve those operating systems once you've started using it and or make a new operating system or support to people who do if you're not a programmer you can help by finding new applications to be included in the
fjoyed store as a manual process applications are reviewed to make sure they're free and then they're submitted to the marketplace that requires help you can give contributions and financial terms to people that are working on on replicants and other mobile free software devices bad news about buying a device all phones use proprietary firmware for gsm there's no way around this right now there is a project that's going to reverse engineer the gsm stack and implement it in free software
but it's not done yet however despite that on the architecture of the firmware which differs from device device I mean they're exactly the device in its relation to the firmware is relevant some phones this is a Nexus S has proprietary firmware to run the gsm however the proprietary firmware I've been told cannot access the microphone cannot access the GPS and cannot access the application space other phones like the HTC dream or the g1
has proprietary firmware which can access all of those things which means that even if you're running free software on everything you installed on the device there is a massive back door available for anybody to turn for the carrier cooperating with somebody to access your microphone access your GPS and access the space that all of your free applications are running in so it's still better but you are not really getting the full freedom that you're trying to get so pay attention to that the replicate website has information about that's
www.replicant.us also all Android phones and I'm pretty sure tablets but not positive require proprietary firmware for Wi-Fi to work the new version of the open moco free runner also does unfortunately the original free well the previous version did not so if you open moco free runner open moco free runner is still as far as I know that the freest device you can buy
but it says has some practical issues with making phone calls and some other things that make it unpleasant for people who aren't enjoying that the hacking experience to use I mean talking to you wrong I use one as my main phone for a good year so it's still usable but it's not the way the future exactly.
Replicant already run down most of these things Nexus 1 is the other model currently supported.
Replicant takes Android and removes all of the proprietary software so it removes the hardware blobs for the drivers it does not install any other proprietary Google applications it installs
Afteroid by default as it's marketplace and so it sets you up really nicely and I just got this next success using it which is a relatively recent model phone and it's working very well so far so I highly recommend that as an option.
I just got an email before this presentation actually that says that they're working on Samsung Galaxy S support and GTA 04 which is the new open moco they're also working on a port for that.
If you can donate some money to buy test devices then that can really help their development along.
It's just a handful of people doing this and so just getting a device in their hands is a big part of the battle you know these devices are expensive the $300-400 if you're buying them without a contract and also a lot of these developers are in Europe so they're not able to necessarily or they have to pay the more money sometimes to get the devices.
So if you are able to support provide some support for that to talk to me or email me and we can work that out that's a good way for for helping pave the way to a better feature that doesn't require knowing how to write your own free software gsm stack.
Also a canoe has some mobile plans in the works.
I personally and a lot of other people would prefer to have a canoe Linux based mobile system as opposed to the Android based system.
Nice thing about free software is we can have a lot of different things to meet different people different preferences you know different desktops Katie you know as long as they're all free then that stuff is going to support a variety of options so we want a canoe Linux based system.
One of the reasons we wanted is because we want a copy left strong system because we want to make sure we have a mobile system that cannot be randomly reverted to proprietary software for a few months at a time you know we want.
Copy left for the same reasons that we wrote the gpl in the first place.
So if you're interested in this please do talk to me and my email address is there you can just drop me a line or talk to me along here.
And lastly I hope that you'll support the FSF in general we are funding comes from thousands of individual members that's the most important source of our funding you can make a donation or join as a member we set up a table outside or you can join online.
And I hope if you do write software you'll use gplv3 for your mobile applications gplv3 protects against utilization which means that companies like Apple aren't allowed to take your software and distribute it with DRM on it which is what they would very much like to do when your software is good so gplv3 is a shield that protects against that kind of manipulation.
You can stay informed about what the FSF is doing and what we're working on this area by subscribing for a newsletter just goes out once a month and please do sign this statement against restricted to one of the most important things that we're working on right now.
And to indicate your support and use the new Linux we have these lovely stickers which we are selling outside a table we have to sell them because they are heavy beauty high quality they're meant to replace those windows stickers that you have their metal so these won't rub off unlike the ones that we used to sell just put one on there should be forever.
I'm hoping we're going to get some replicant stickers that will cover up these little Google and Samsung logos on the back of the phone as well.
Just a little things that we can do to show support free software to other people.
So I've got a few minutes here it takes some questions happy to do so.
So the question is is there a useful place to donate?
So that support for it can be worked on.
And I think the answer to that project dependent for the wireless card for example from most proprietary chips at the required price are drivers there are projects going on where people are trying to reverse engineer those.
So it's about I think finding that project for that chipset.
The Linux that's why if you search for Linux that wireless that's kind of the name for the wireless section of the kernel which is where those drivers live and you can you know that will probably take up some useful contact points and lists of projects that are working on supporting currently on supported devices.
It is has a lot of that is at its core yet.
I mean that you max comes by default on OS X as well.
Yeah, I mean they I don't know not up to date on how much of their own special sauce they roll in so that to the BST license stuff.
But yes, that's how they started that's certainly a fair statement and you just go to the about section on iPhone or any iOS device and you'll see loads of free software licenses.
Lots of you know the GPL the LGPL and then you can go to apple.com and they have an area where they distribute the source code that they're required to distribute.
Oh, well, I mean not the ST person and myself, but I you know I think that community is kind of I know there's people who think that that is an important aspect of free software that companies should be able to do that.
And there are people who vehemently oppose that but just don't think licensing is the way to correct it.
So I don't know for us it's a difficult position with copy left because I wanted to stand up here and tell people that all of these exciting new products that have come out in the last 10 years have came out largely because of free software.
You know what the iPad have happened without free software with a kind of what happened without free software would have taken longer.
You know they're using free software to drive their core components you know the kindle has also you know the sound system on it.
Would they have had to reconstruct all of that stuff themselves.
You know, but obviously we don't want to encourage people to buy those things.
It's just the inferior any part for us is that the companies you know I call it kicking away the ladder basically they they built their business on the back of free software.
And then they want to kick away the ladder so that nobody else can climb up and catch them.
So it's a problem for us for sure.
When you develop a free operating system for multiple device.
Why don't you still kind of tie into the carriers because that's how you get into the network.
Yeah, so the question is even if you have a free software mobile device or you're still going to be tied to the carrier in some way.
And the answer to that is they are separate problems.
You know you can have you you have a especially when you have one large chunk of proprietary firmware still living on the device that could itself be locked to the carrier.
Even if you have completely free software applications running on it.
But you know these companies the devices to lock the hand cover they put on the device really covers the whole device.
So generally if you jailbreak it you are able to move it to a different carrier as a side effect of that.
And likewise as a side effect of wanting to move to a different carrier oftentimes you're able to install your own applications.
But there are some examples of why a free software system makes that situation much better.
For example, the iPhone I don't know if it's still the case but when it came out it would not boot without a SIM card without a SIM card or without network without being activated.
You couldn't do anything else with the phone.
And that's ridiculous because the phone could be a music player you know it could be a role control for your stereo or your television set.
It could be just that you could keep your grocery list on it.
I mean there's any number of uses that you could put that piece of hardware to but because it was a proprietary system marketed exclusively for you says a phone they wouldn't let you run it without phone access.
Because they were simultaneously selling a device called the iPod touch which was the iPhone without a phone they wanted you to buy that.
So yeah the carrier unlocking is kind of a separate problem and it's not necessarily a free software problem.
Ethically speaking you know that's kind of a problem about monopolies and and the industry structure assuming that they don't use proprietary software to force you into that but they could for example have a piece of hardware which only operated on their network and not anybody else's network.
And strictly the every software problem it would certainly be you know dumb and worth avoiding but not exactly the same thing.
Well you do to an extent yeah you you have devices so you know this thing runs on a you can use this on T mobile or AT&T GSM network.
But yeah I can't use this on Verizon I would have to buy it a different phone.
In part of that it's also the financing of the phone when Apple first came out the only first going carrier you could buy a phone was AT&T.
You bought it from that for this part of the fraction of the price.
And so would you sign the way with your ability to use that for another carrier's program or another carrier's system.
In exchange for the fact you got it at much lower price.
Yeah you bought it next this one from Google you bought it at list price and it came unlocked and I'm signed.
So you can put any outbreak system you wanted to wouldn't provide you all the best for that one.
Yes yep and that's yeah when we are promoting open local people people were like that that's $450.
And yeah that's a that's a problem and it is it's about the deals that companies cut with carriers and for that we need a company that is going to
pursue different deals you know there's really no way that I can see around that particular problem.
It is easy you separate financing the phone from a carrier that's there.
So you sell the phone to a financing program that allows you to pay off the photo every time but let you choose any carrier.
Yeah that's what we need to do.
So we can I know that the current open current version of the open moco I believe got institutional funding to help its development which you know the cost is still high but it helps keep the cost down lower than it would have been.
We can pursue other options like although it's not been used that much for free software projects thing and maybe it's problematic in some ways but the idea of Kickstarter crowdfunding to possibly find some of these devices.
You know we can be creative like you say and find ways to fund these devices or a company can be creative in the way that they sell the device to consumers and allow them to finance it that don't require cutting the deals with carriers.
I you know I hope those things will happen and I hope we have the free software system ready when they do happen.
Sometimes we buy a refrigerator from a large store and a big ticket item and get the financing to the store as opposed to the financing through the person is going to be parent for you.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah I think yeah I think you're right there's there's definitely different ideas out there we need somebody to actually do them and you know the nice thing about Android is it has created a set that has separated the operating system away from the hardware to an extent.
So there is a theory of possibility for a company to just take Android and get into the hardware business and and and follow a different model like what you're talking about and get that out there or for a store to you know a retailer working combination with somebody to do that as well.
Yes.
The answer is question.
There is a group project that you have to take a little bit to create the project.
Yeah the sparkles what's that what's called?
It's a pretty thing to stop the tablet that is able to install whatever you want and while they have some time to place up for blocks in order to get work the goals to make it so that you can buy it.
Yeah I did notice the news about that and we'll be keeping an eye on it so anybody couldn't hear it's a tablet that's being developed designed to run KDE by I assume it will run.
You can buy whatever you want on it in theory and it sounds like they actually have a plan to use some of the money to help fund developments eliminate the proprietary parts that they did feel they had to use you know I it's always a little bit discouraging to see we have had a device with a free wireless chipset the open moco free runner.
So I really wish that somebody would make a new up to date and other ways device possibly just reusing that chipset and so that we could have the Wi-Fi on the device as well since that's one of the major sticking points the other one is 3d acceleration for graphics.
Because on mobile devices that's being done with proprietary software and currently we don't we're not doing very well in that area either so yeah I mean a lot of this comes down to you we know what we need.
We need somebody motivated enough as a company to produce these devices or we need these 3d printers to you know hurry up and get there so that we can make our own one or the other but to have a set for our part is going to keep advocating for the software component of things and then also we are running our hardware certification program.
We're still looking for our first candidate for certification and that's you know I think the program even though we don't have anybody listed there yet serves an important purpose which is to define these criteria and you know we're not going to I'm going to insult people that they come close but we're not going to certify them either because we're trying to set what the ultimate goal here is we want to phone that yes it's it's great that we have a tablet that is almost all free software and it's great that you know if I have a phone where the only thing that doesn't work on it is Wi-Fi then that's also great because I just want to use the Wi-Fi.
I find in my life that I can get by with that so those that type of study progress is important but we're going to keep the definition of the program what constitutes an actual endorse device to be very firm and high so that it gives something to find that people can strive for making compromises when you don't have a goal in mind is a very ineffective way to achieve change.
So I think people often want the FSF to compromise more what we want to do is set the ideal and safeguard that ideal and that way and promote that ideal and that way when people make compromises they know what they're compromising toward and so that we don't get confused and end up thinking that what we've achieved is already good enough and we should just stop the progress.
We know if I'm a second.
Well thank you all for having me and I'll be here.
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