[cyphar]

> AOSP is completely open source.

This is only true in the most technical way possible. Yes, AOSP is open source -- but none of the standard applications on any stock version of Android use AOSP anymore. The calendar and other applications are all proprietary. The AOSP versions feel like they stopped being developed in 2010 -- which coincidentally is when Google started developing proprietary replacements.

I use LineageOS (and have for a while), which is mostly AOSP, and the applications from AOSP today feel older than the ones I used on Google's Android ~5 years ago. As a simple example, Google's Calendar application can create very complicated recurring events while the AOSP one is much dumber.

> Hardware and firmware is a much different story, but that applies to the device you're promoting just as much...

The Librem 5 hardware was specifically chosen so that it contains no firmware blobs and all the firmware is free software and upstream in Linux. There is a caveat for the baseband, but that's because it's not legal in most countries to sell or use baseband hardware that is free software (unless the user is licensed and even then it's non-trivial).

[Tepix]

OK, so with AOSP we have a good base to build upon. Why NOT use AOSP to create new FLOSS standard applications? It's certainly less work than having to start from scratch. Besides, there are already some really good free open source Android apps in the F-Droid app store

[cyphar]

LineageOS already exists -- if you want an updated AOSP, use that. I'm not sure why folks seem to think that all free software phone projects must necessarily just reinvent the Android ROM.

Android itself has a wide variety of issues which might be solved (or at least solutions might explored) by creating projects that go outside of the mold of Android ROMs.

[nextos]

> AOSP is open source -- but none of the standard applications on any stock version of Android use AOSP anymore.

I want a real Linux in a phone as much as anyone. In fact, I have stuck to the Maemo N770-N9 saga as much as I could.

But I am also realistic. Developing a new secure Linux distribution for phones and, most importantly, a healthy ecosystem with useful applications will take a lot of time and effort.

In the meanwhile, as discussed in other threads here, using AOSP on a Pixel (or even better, GrapheneOS) is a really good solution. It's remarkable how few people use it in comparison to the benefits it brings into the table, and given it's quite easy to migrate to it with the appropriate hardware (hopefully device-independent ROMs make this less restrictive).

If standard applications in AOSP are lagging behind, then it'd be probably worthy to spin off an effort to replicate all proprietary functionality. An equivalent to MicroG.

That said, I've never missed anything major. For me, Firefox/Chromium, K-9, Conversations/Signal, OsmAnd and Termux provide a great userland experience.

[wuschel]

> There is a caveat for the baseband, but that's because it's not legal in most countries to sell or use baseband hardware that is free software (unless the user is licensed and even then it's non-trivial).

Interesting, I did not know that. What are the reasons for this? Military application? Are these laws subject to change?

I always thought that there is no way to separate the CPU from the baseband/communications PU.

[cyphar]

It's my understanding that the issue is one of FCC certification and licensing -- the FCC won't approve something which can be easily modified to transmit on non-free frequencies (tools which can usually are sold to hamradio license holders, which should know better and know how much trouble they can get into).

[strcat]

>This is only true in the most technical way possible. Yes, AOSP is open source -- but none of the standard applications on any stock version of Android use AOSP anymore. The calendar and other applications are all proprietary. The AOSP versions feel like they stopped being developed in 2010 -- which coincidentally is when Google started developing proprietary replacements.

AOSP sample applications like Calendar are exactly that: samples. I'm not sure why those are at all relevant. There's a very healthy and active open source app ecosystem, along with many other apps that work on AOSP. Those AOSP apps are included as samples, and they're being removed from the project as at this point there's no real need to have these samples.

It's also not true what you claim about the stock applications shipped on a phone like a Pixel. Apps like Dialer, Contacts, DeskClock, etc. are still actively developed and maintained in AOSP with the Google variants being extended versions of those apps. It's true that some apps like the keyboard forked away from the AOSP version, but it doesn't make AOSP any less viable of a basis for an OS. It's not a bad thing for AOSP to not ship a bunch of user-facing apps when there are a bunch of good alternatives outside of it. Apps do better without a release cycle tied to the slower pace of the OS releases.

> The Librem 5 hardware was specifically chosen so that it contains no firmware blobs and all the firmware is free software and upstream in Linux. There is a caveat for the baseband, but that's because it's not legal in most countries to sell or use baseband hardware that is free software (unless the user is licensed and even then it's non-trivial).

This is completely untrue and absolutely a false claim. The SoC is entirely proprietary with proprietary hardware, firmware and microcode along with the other components like Wi-Fi, the baseband, etc. being the same. The cellular baseband is not an exception. It applies to all of the hardware components in general. Librem 5 is not open hardware and does not have open firmware or microcode. It's simply untrue, and you're falsely representing it. I can see why you would be under that misunderstanding based on their incredibly misleading marketing but they never actually claim what you are claiming.

Not providing firmware updates for these things is a security disaster. The firmware that's upstream in Linux is rarely open source. It's a subset of the necessary firmware for most devices and is still proprietary. Projects like linux-libre / PureOS do not ship these upstream Linux firmware updates. They strip all of this out of the kernel. They also don't provide all the additional firmware updates beyond what is upstream.

The hardware and firmware is just as proprietary. The boot chain has open source components near the end before the OS (coreboot), just as many mainstream devices do (https://source.codeaurora.org/quic/la/abl/tianocore/edk2).

There's a huge difference between choosing hardware that has built-in firmware and can work without the OS supplying it each boot and hardware with open firmware... what they are doing is shipping a device that can work without the OS providing firmware updates, since they don't do that to keep it 'pure' of proprietary code. The firmware is still present and running, except it's out-of-date and vulnerable to many patched security vulnerabilities. You're completely misrepresenting the reality and falsely portraying it as having open hardware and firmware when it absolutely does not.

https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1129124275464441856

What you claim about not being allowed to have open cellular baseband firmware is also nonsense. It's also not particularly different from how Wi-Fi works. Wi-Fi firmware is a comparable secondary OS, and the same applies to a lot of other components. These hardware and firmware components on the Librem 5 are not any more open. What you're doing is spreading misinformation and false claims to promote it as something that it's not.