Re: [free-software-melb] Fairphone: The smartphone with social, values
Fairphone is a work in progress from what I can see. The first revision was mostly focusing on just making a phone that was built from conflicts-free materials, and much easier to self repair. There has been a great deal of moral support from them for free software but it hasn't been a major focus as of yet. With the Fairphone 2 they are trying to get much more free software friendly but this isn't going much deeper than the current AOSP level, the drivers will still be proprietary simply due to the manufactures not playing nice as usual. It isn't much more free than a phone running Cyanogen. Now that they have already successful shipped a product and are going into a second round they will start to get more leverage in trying to free up the lower level hardware. They heading in the right direction but this will take time and trying to get stubborn hardware manufacturers to pay attention. About the only warning I will give about the current phone is 529,38 € before shipping which is approximately $780 AUD, also considering the phone is designed for EU phone standards and I am not sure how compatible that is with our local networks. Michael Verrenkamp On 01/07/16 22:00, free-software-melb-request@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Fairphone: The smartphone with social values (Ben Finney)
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Message: 1 Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 08:40:08 +1000 From: Ben Finney <ben+freesoftware@benfinney.id.au> To: free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au Subject: [free-software-melb] Fairphone: The smartphone with social values Message-ID: <85bn2iuwqf.fsf@benfinney.id.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Howdy all,
Many of our recent meetings have touched on the difficulty of obtaining a handheld computer (a “smartphone”) that works with only free software.
Has anyone looked into the Fairphone <URL:https://www.fairphone.com/>?
There have been some models historically that could be made to work with some degree of free software, but this is one where the designers are proud of how the hardware is in control of the owner who bought it.
They deliver only within Europe for now. Does anyone know someone in the EU (which for now still includes the UK!) who could help some of us by ordering a few Fairphone devices and delivering them to Australia?
I used to to have the Fairphone 1 working, first in the Optus network and then Vodafone back in 2014. Both working fine with the FP. -- Sven
On 2 Jul 2016, at 11:19 AM, FVZ <jabjabs@fastmail.com.au> wrote:
Fairphone is a work in progress from what I can see. The first revision was mostly focusing on just making a phone that was built from conflicts-free materials, and much easier to self repair. There has been a great deal of moral support from them for free software but it hasn't been a major focus as of yet.
With the Fairphone 2 they are trying to get much more free software friendly but this isn't going much deeper than the current AOSP level, the drivers will still be proprietary simply due to the manufactures not playing nice as usual. It isn't much more free than a phone running Cyanogen.
Now that they have already successful shipped a product and are going into a second round they will start to get more leverage in trying to free up the lower level hardware. They heading in the right direction but this will take time and trying to get stubborn hardware manufacturers to pay attention.
About the only warning I will give about the current phone is 529,38 € before shipping which is approximately $780 AUD, also considering the phone is designed for EU phone standards and I am not sure how compatible that is with our local networks.
Michael Verrenkamp
On 01/07/16 22:00, free-software-melb-request@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au wrote: Send Free-software-melb mailing list submissions to free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au
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or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to free-software-melb-request@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au
You can reach the person managing the list at free-software-melb-owner@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Free-software-melb digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Fairphone: The smartphone with social values (Ben Finney)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1 Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 08:40:08 +1000 From: Ben Finney <ben+freesoftware@benfinney.id.au> To: free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au Subject: [free-software-melb] Fairphone: The smartphone with social values Message-ID: <85bn2iuwqf.fsf@benfinney.id.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Howdy all,
Many of our recent meetings have touched on the difficulty of obtaining a handheld computer (a “smartphone”) that works with only free software.
Has anyone looked into the Fairphone <URL:https://www.fairphone.com/>?
There have been some models historically that could be made to work with some degree of free software, but this is one where the designers are proud of how the hardware is in control of the owner who bought it.
They deliver only within Europe for now. Does anyone know someone in the EU (which for now still includes the UK!) who could help some of us by ordering a few Fairphone devices and delivering them to Australia?
_______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list Free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software-m...
Free Software Melbourne home page: http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/
Hi, On 4/07/2016 6:13 AM, Sven@GMX wrote:
I used to to have the Fairphone 1 working, first in the Optus network and then Vodafone back in 2014. Both working fine with the FP.
Yes, but the FF2 only has these LTE radios.... Bands 3 (1800 MHz), 7 (2600 MHz), 20 (800 MHz) Compare that to the similarly priced Nexux 6P global version: LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 9(1800), 17(700), 19(800), 20(800), 28(700), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500) That's just for starters. I've just bought myself the Nexus 6P -- I do have a OnePlus One which is very close in lots of ways to the 6P right now. The latter only has FHD screen, but that is more than enough. I would have liked the HTC 10, but it was a bit too much. I do understand the pros and cons of Google and use Google as little as possible; regularly using DDG over their .onion address and with Orbot and Orfox together with ChatSecure and Signal on the phone. The Google account is simply a means to get the apps I want from the Play store and not much else. If the FF2 or FF3 offered more in terms of network radios, to be much less restricted in capability ..... then I would consider them; but I think the biggest failings of many phones relate to their network radios -- oh and of course, normally very late or never software updates; something that I am hoping the Nexus 6P will fix for me. The OnePlus One dropped the game for a while, but it seems to be back on track for software updates at least. Still, I have a very cheap ZTE 4G Fit phone that has all the right radios and performs very well in terms of network connectivity; but it is a very basic phone otherwise. Very good value for money in terms of network radios though. Cheers AndrewM
On Mon, Jul 04, 2016 at 06:17:58PM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
The Google account is simply a means to get the apps I want from the Play store and not much else.
You can also flash your phone with a stock CyanogenMod ROM, with neither Google Apps nor Cyanogen (?) Apps, and be Free(tm). Add F-Droid, and all needs are pretty much catered for, with no account anywhere. -- Olivier Mehani <shtrom+fsau@ssji.net> PGP fingerprint: 4435 CF6A 7C8D DD9B E2DE F5F9 F012 A6E2 98C6 6655 Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed on emails sent or received unencrypted.
On 4/07/2016 6:40 PM, Olivier Mehani wrote:
On Mon, Jul 04, 2016 at 06:17:58PM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
The Google account is simply a means to get the apps I want from the Play store and not much else.
You can also flash your phone with a stock CyanogenMod ROM, with neither Google Apps nor Cyanogen (?) Apps, and be Free(tm). Add F-Droid, and all needs are pretty much catered for, with no account anywhere.
Yes, which phone did you mean the OnePlus One or the Nexus 6P -- I don't think the ZTE will be wroth mucking around with. Both the better phones are probably good candidates if I could find the time to do it. I've got an S3 running a CM version that was supposed to be getting updates monthly; that stopped almost immediately -- people seem to move on too quickly. Would have liked that phone to get a bit more life. It's still good, nice screen and in very good condition, so it is not a junker by any means, but probably best suited to offline use or WiFi without any SIM. Cheers A.
On 05/07/16 00:04, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
I've got an S3 running a CM version that was supposed to be getting updates monthly; that stopped almost immediately -- people seem to move on too quickly. Would have liked that phone to get a bit more life.
I'm still using my S3 with CM 11 and getting regular security updates. You just need to switch to the "nightly" (not really) updates. CM 13 is currently being worked on as well. Cheers, Andrew
On 5/07/2016 12:24 AM, Andrew Pam wrote:
On 05/07/16 00:04, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
I've got an S3 running a CM version that was supposed to be getting updates monthly; that stopped almost immediately -- people seem to move on too quickly. Would have liked that phone to get a bit more life.
I'm still using my S3 with CM 11 and getting regular security updates. You just need to switch to the "nightly" (not really) updates. CM 13 is currently being worked on as well.
And does everything work perfectly on CM 11 ? Thanks A.
On 05/07/16 01:18, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
And does everything work perfectly on CM 11 ?
Yes, and has done for a long time. The only issue is that sometimes the UI restarts immediately after unlocking the phone and I have to unlock a second time. Otherwise everything works perfectly. Cheers, Andrew
On 5/07/2016 1:54 AM, Andrew Pam wrote:
On 05/07/16 01:18, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
And does everything work perfectly on CM 11 ?
Yes, and has done for a long time. The only issue is that sometimes the UI restarts immediately after unlocking the phone and I have to unlock a second time. Otherwise everything works perfectly.
Excellent, I'll keep it in mind if I can find the time to give it a go. Thanks and Cheers A.
On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 01:54:58AM +1000, Andrew Pam wrote:
Yes, and has done for a long time. The only issue is that sometimes the UI restarts immediately after unlocking the phone and I have to unlock a second time. Otherwise everything works perfectly.
I have a similar issue due to the PIN of my SIM: First I need to unlock the SIM, then immediately after, the phone itself. Would you be using the same PIN code for both? q: -- Olivier Mehani <shtrom+fsau@ssji.net> PGP fingerprint: 4435 CF6A 7C8D DD9B E2DE F5F9 F012 A6E2 98C6 6655 Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed on emails sent or received unencrypted.
On Tue, 5 Jul 2016 12:04:56 AM Andrew McGlashan wrote:
I've got an S3 running a CM version that was supposed to be getting updates monthly; that stopped almost immediately -- people seem to move on too quickly. Would have liked that phone to get a bit more life.
The problem is not people moving on quickly but hardware designers moving on. Pentium class PCs ran MS-DOS well, it's quite likely that modern AMD64 PCs can run MS-DOS too although I've never tested it. Modern AMD64 systems run i386 builds of Linux. If you wanted to support all PCs from the 1980's to well past 2000 you could make 2 builds of your software, 8086 and i386. If you wanted to support all PCs from the early 90's to today you only needed i386 and AMD64 builds. During those times hardware interfaces changed but adding new drivers is easier than changing OSs and applications, for example I believe Red Hat backports drivers to their distribution so it can run on newer hardware. So far for Android hardware support has anyone even managed to make the same OS run on 2 consecutive models from the same manufacturer? -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On 5/07/2016 1:27 AM, Russell Coker wrote:
On Tue, 5 Jul 2016 12:04:56 AM Andrew McGlashan wrote:
I've got an S3 running a CM version that was supposed to be getting updates monthly; that stopped almost immediately -- people seem to move on too quickly. Would have liked that phone to get a bit more life.
The problem is not people moving on quickly but hardware designers moving on.
Yes it is the people.... those developers/testers with the S3 have probably upgraded to newer phones and so most have abandoned the S3 in terms of getting CM working fully and properly with everything. I see that you've moved on to the Nexus 6P too.
Pentium class PCs ran MS-DOS well, it's quite likely that modern AMD64 PCs can run MS-DOS too although I've never tested it. Modern AMD64 systems run i386 builds of Linux.
Yes, but the way PCs are going, they'll be Wintel boxen or nothing; it's going to be continuous hard work to make sure that machines purchased can run Linus or any other OS different to Windows. The manufactures seem intent on forcing us down that road, perhaps with huge incentives from M$. :( A
On Tue, 5 Jul 2016 01:32:57 AM Andrew McGlashan wrote:
The problem is not people moving on quickly but hardware designers moving on.
Yes it is the people.... those developers/testers with the S3 have probably upgraded to newer phones and so most have abandoned the S3 in terms of getting CM working fully and properly with everything. I see that you've moved on to the Nexus 6P too.
For my Debian development work I do most of my development and testing on the AMD64 platform. I also have some i386 class systems that I can use for the rare situations where a bug shows up on i386 but not AMD64. That allows me to cover the vast majority of Debian systems that have EVER been in production. The Debian user-space doesn't rely on anything unusual in the Linux kernel (you can run Debian fine with a kernel you build from upstream sources or a kernel from another distribution such as Fedora - the same can't be said for Android). Of the kernel dependencies in Debian that's usually limited to a few things like systemd, so if we had a Debian system that was locked to a particular kernel (EG due to ARM not having a hardware support system for initial boot that's as effective as a PC BIOS) then it could run with an older version of systemd or sysvinit. If you happen to have a Pentium 3 system from 16 years ago on your desktop you can run the latest version of Debian with KDE or GNOME on it and expect that it will just work. Every DD has the ability to run an i386 chroot for test purposes so you can safely assume that most things will just work. KDE or GNOME on a P3 will in every way apart from speed work just as well as on the latest AMD64 system.
Pentium class PCs ran MS-DOS well, it's quite likely that modern AMD64 PCs can run MS-DOS too although I've never tested it. Modern AMD64 systems run i386 builds of Linux.
Yes, but the way PCs are going, they'll be Wintel boxen or nothing; it's going to be continuous hard work to make sure that machines purchased can run Linus or any other OS different to Windows. The manufactures seem intent on forcing us down that road, perhaps with huge incentives from M$.
Yes that is a significant problem. But on the topic of Android support those secure boot issues are making the PC platform like the typical Android devices... -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 12:04:56AM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote:
The Google account is simply a means to get the apps I want from the Play store and not much else. You can also flash your phone with a stock CyanogenMod ROM, with neither Google Apps nor Cyanogen (?) Apps, and be Free(tm). Add F-Droid, and all needs are pretty much catered for, with no account anywhere. Yes, which phone did you mean the OnePlus One or the Nexus 6P --
Most of the common ones. I have a Nexus 5 ATM, had various other brands before. First thing I do is clean them up and flash CM on them. Oh like any other computer.
I've got an S3 running a CM version that was supposed to be getting updates monthly; that stopped almost immediately -- people seem to move on too quickly. Would have liked that phone to get a bit more life. It's still good, nice screen and in very good condition, so it is not a junker by any means, but probably best suited to offline use or WiFi without any SIM.
There is definitely more support on the more standard phones with CM, that's sure. However, you could also see if a newer version of CM would actually work for you, sometimes they just start working on maintaining the next release, and gradually forget about the one you might be running. Or build updates yourself (: Not as nice, but that's the entire point: you CAN actually do it! -- Olivier Mehani <shtrom+fsau@ssji.net> PGP fingerprint: 4435 CF6A 7C8D DD9B E2DE F5F9 F012 A6E2 98C6 6655 Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed on emails sent or received unencrypted.
So apparently you can run Ubuntu Touch on Fairphone 2. That's a really nice development. https://twitter.com/Fairphone/status/751428733148561408 Michael On 04/07/16 06:13, Sven@GMX wrote:
I used to to have the Fairphone 1 working, first in the Optus network and then Vodafone back in 2014. Both working fine with the FP.
-- Sven
On 2 Jul 2016, at 11:19 AM, FVZ <jabjabs@fastmail.com.au <mailto:jabjabs@fastmail.com.au>> wrote:
Fairphone is a work in progress from what I can see. The first revision was mostly focusing on just making a phone that was built from conflicts-free materials, and much easier to self repair. There has been a great deal of moral support from them for free software but it hasn't been a major focus as of yet.
With the Fairphone 2 they are trying to get much more free software friendly but this isn't going much deeper than the current AOSP level, the drivers will still be proprietary simply due to the manufactures not playing nice as usual. It isn't much more free than a phone running Cyanogen.
Now that they have already successful shipped a product and are going into a second round they will start to get more leverage in trying to free up the lower level hardware. They heading in the right direction but this will take time and trying to get stubborn hardware manufacturers to pay attention.
About the only warning I will give about the current phone is 529,38 € before shipping which is approximately $780 AUD, also considering the phone is designed for EU phone standards and I am not sure how compatible that is with our local networks.
Michael Verrenkamp
On 01/07/16 22:00, free-software-melb-request@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au <mailto:free-software-melb-request@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au> wrote:
Send Free-software-melb mailing list submissions to free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au <mailto:free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au>
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or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to free-software-melb-request@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au <mailto:free-software-melb-request@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au>
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Free-software-melb digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Fairphone: The smartphone with social values (Ben Finney)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1 Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 08:40:08 +1000 From: Ben Finney <ben+freesoftware@benfinney.id.au <mailto:ben+freesoftware@benfinney.id.au>> To: free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au <mailto:free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au> Subject: [free-software-melb] Fairphone: The smartphone with social values Message-ID: <85bn2iuwqf.fsf@benfinney.id.au <mailto:85bn2iuwqf.fsf@benfinney.id.au>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Howdy all,
Many of our recent meetings have touched on the difficulty of obtaining a handheld computer (a “smartphone”) that works with only free software.
Has anyone looked into the Fairphone <URL:https://www.fairphone.com/>?
There have been some models historically that could be made to work with some degree of free software, but this is one where the designers are proud of how the hardware is in control of the owner who bought it.
They deliver only within Europe for now. Does anyone know someone in the EU (which for now still includes the UK!) who could help some of us by ordering a few Fairphone devices and delivering them to Australia?
_______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list Free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au <mailto:Free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au> http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software-m...
Free Software Melbourne home page: http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/
participants (7)
-
Andrew McGlashan -
Andrew Pam -
FVZ -
Michael Verrenkamp
-
Olivier Mehani -
Russell Coker -
Sven＠GMX