The time is right, but I still don’t think this project can accomplish much because people are generally happy with their phones.
That said, the phone market is huge. They could sell enough devices to fund future development which might be good enough even if it doesn’t slow down Apple or Google. At least then there will be a device for those of us who are not happy with the state of things.
> because people are generally happy with their phones.
Maybe thats exactly why it can succeed now. The phone tech has plateud to the point where a 5 year old phone performs almost identically as a new one and this is when people can afford to experiment and take more risks.
Also its much easier for free software to catch up now as most problems are already solved and/or easy to copy.
I don't mind having a second phone, esp. if it's a foldable which can be a great reader and a small "linux in a pocket". There might even be some use-cases, for example I recently wanted to implement a type-c external GPS antenna, and found out that it's a pain on Android (done via "developer mode" hacks etc.), and impossible on iOS.
That being said, very low expectations on this project.
I'm not. Samsung treats my phone like dirt. I'd love to have some actual ownership of a device I spent $900 on last year.
I don't think my wife is happy with her iPhone either. She bought one of those little NFC fridge magnet things that locks your phone out of social media apps. She and I are dissatisfied in different ways, but there's a theme here.
The project will accomplish much if those who want it have better choices, even if they’re not perfect.
They don’t need to replace or even challenge Apple and Google for market adoption, just be there and be a viable alternative used by a noticeable minority of people.
Getting half as far as desktop linux would be a fantastic achievement.
> much because people are generally happy with their phones.
Talked to many iPhone owners this year? The 17 hardware has a bizarre choice of a camera button / pointless physical change, and IOS 26 is pretty much hated by everyone.
I use iPhone, and have happily for years but F if this isn’t the worst OS I can remember. The first downgrade really.
Have you been around when iOS 7 was released? If not, I’d say that was the same, whatever that means. Things might get better, but we’re not entitled to it.
I think they will fail because they fundamentally don't understand the problem.
Android does not contain binary blobs because of some evil conspiracy against free software. If they could get away with it, the whole damn thing would be open source.
The problem is those blobs do things that interact with complex hardware for which only blobs are available. Even if you reverse engineer them, you are going to get sued into oblivion because of the patents you are going to need to infringe on to make functional replacements.
But even if you get a blessing from the component manufacturers, your new hippie binary blobs need to be certified to legally operate on cellular and wifi frequencies in most parts of the world. If you decide you don't like something and change it - as is the open source way - that new version with your modifications needs to be certified too. Carriers do not allow uncertified devices on their networks.
> If they could get away with it, the whole damn thing would be open source.
Who is "they"? Certainly not Google. Google has been moving open-source Android functionality into the closed-source Google Play Services for many years.
No one is going sue the fsf into oblivion. The movement has decades of legal experience, if a company would be dumb enough that company would just burn money and lose. Especially about reverse engineering software, as if patents had any power there. Apple, the end boss in that regard, not fighting on that level against the m1 project is proof enough.
Second, fuck the carriers. Certifications will not persist as soon as real Foss phones are available. Nothing persists against a world of free hardware invading a realm. And even if: freeing everything around a modem blob would still be a big step forward.
It's frankly ridiculous to assume the people working on this and the organisation that already supported replicant knowns nothing about the mobile space.
I understand it might seem confusing if you are not familiar with the requirements, but they are not trivial to bypass.
Cell phones operate in licensed radio spectrum, so they need to have proper testing and certification (https://www.fcc.gov/oet/ea/rfdevice). Any device not properly certified would be illegal to manufacture or import into the US.
Separately cellular networks require PTCRB certification of the devices to ensure they are interoperable with the network (https://www.ptcrb.com/). The FSF could in theory write custom firmware for baseband and wifi chips, but they would need to seek certification as this would be considered a substantial modification. It would likely require cooperation from the chip manufactures to provide samples with various testing/debugging harnesses enabled.
Qualcomm and the like would probably sue to stop the FSF on the basis that it could put their own device certifications into jeopardy.
That isn't even touching on non-transmitting components like GPUs or sensors where the actual functional logic may be split between hardware and software (your blob driver). Even by doing a clean room reimplementation, you risk infringing on software patents, and will have little flexibility to work around them since the hardware will expect things to be done a specific way.
You would think it would be ridiculous to assume the people working on this know nothing about the mobile space, yet their actions do bring that into question.
I think all your concerns are valid but they are not necessarily insurmountable. The FSF or whatever other entity could do just what you suggest and seek certification within the current legal frameworks. They could also talk to the carriers and negotiate individually which is probably going to be quite annoying and slow but it's not impossible and it's not like that's not done in the commercial space. The could build mechanisms into the hard-/firmware that takes your device off whatever regulated spectrum/provider if you modify anything that is in regulated territory (as watched over by some form of maintainer-quorum-signing-negotiation-structure). I'm sure there are many mechanisms and processes one could come up with that could keep with regulatory or other control aspects while still keeping things open.
All that patent and legal business is probably a more important/existential concern and a go/nogo-factor if you want to be a commercial player in a market-driven environment and less so for an entity like the FSF.
> The time is right, but I still don’t think this project can accomplish much because people are generally happy with their phones.
Is there survey data available on this? Anecdotally, everybody I know hates their phones. In fact, I think if you asked, "what's the biggest pain point in your life right now?" I think most people will point to their phones.
You might need to expand your social circle a bit.
If you asked normal average people "what's the biggest pain point in your life right now?" they would point to financial, societal, or health issues.
The vast majority of people when asked specifically about their phones probably wish that they were a newer model or had a longer battery life. As long as it communicates with people, lets them access banking and social media, and has a few of their niche hobby/entertainment apps nobody actually cares about the licensing of the modem firmware or the fact you can't install TempleOS on it.
Maybe, but that pain point isn't something free software is going to fix. Obviously not everyone has the same problems with their phone, but largely I think they fall into a few categories: notification overload, apps designed to keep you scrolling for every last minute of the day, and dark patterns or other design choices aimed at separating users from as much of their money as possible.
Every single one of these is fixable on any modern phone. Stop using social media, take a hatchet to what apps can send you notifications and when, and be more mindful of what tricks are commonly deployed to steal your attention, time, and money.
But people can't even manage that. They don't even have to do anything, they just have to stop doing certain things, but they can't or won't. Those same people aren't going to go through the effort to switch, and even if they did they would end up re-creating the same thing that makes them miserable currently.
That said, the phone market is huge. They could sell enough devices to fund future development which might be good enough even if it doesn’t slow down Apple or Google. At least then there will be a device for those of us who are not happy with the state of things.