LibrePlanet: Conference/2010/Hacking/Free phones workshop

This workshop will be held at [[Boston_Software_Freedom_Day]].

This document is in-progress and is being discussed via IRC in #futurephonefreedom on OFTC.

We will go over the following:

== General overview of free / partially free smartphones available in the US market ==

List of free/mostly-free phones:
* OpenMoko
* Prē ([http://www.freesmartphone.org/index.php/Palm_Pre on freesmartphone.org]) ([http://www.webos-internals.org webos-internals])
* G1, MyTouch (Android)
* ADP (Android)

To be released soon:
* N900 (Maemo 5)

Criteria to be counted: 

* available for purchase
* ability to make phone calls
* ability to let users develop software for it
* not required to void phone warranty to benefit (in some way) from freedoms provided. Eg. sure you can install Debian on an iPhone, but that doesn't mean the iPhone counts.

== Usability vs. Freedom ==

OpenMoko is completely free, but not really usable. Usability should be graded as follows:

# can be used as a phone reliably (includes address book)
# can be used for common smartphone tasks, such as calendaring and web browsing
# can synchronize with external services
# ...

== Developer freedom ==

Ability to develop on the phone using a free development environment. (I think all of them can be developed using only free software. [look into Android]).

== Stack freedom ==

Go over, for each phone, what parts of the phone stack are [not] free. Maybe a chart to show all of the phones in comparison (there's bound to be something online that compares this already; if not, let's make it).

== Hackability freedom ==

Ok, so you want to "root" your phone (if it is not already rooted). What can you do with that power? How hard is it to gain this access?

What cool things has this given to users? (I suspect there are a lot of interesting hacks in the OpenMoko world)

=== Community ===

Is there a community around the phone? How healthy / vibrant is it?

https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisedroid

== Carrier freedom ==

If the phone is locked to a carrier, what is that carrier's attitude toward exercising your SW freedom and what are the potential repercussions of going against their stated desires?

== Going forward toward a usable, free phone ==

What parts of the SW stack are missing to make each platform entirely free and usable?

== Comparison Table ==

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: center; width: 95%"
|-style="background: #ececec;"
! style="width:12em" |
! Freerunner<br/>(Openmoko)
! G1, G1 ADP, MyTouch<br/>(Android)
! Prē<br/>(WebOS)
! N900<br/>(Maemo 5)
|-
! Radio (GPS, GSM, Wifi)
| non-free
| non-free
| non-free
| unk
|-
! OS
| GNU/Linux
| Android/Linux
| GNU/Linux
| GNU/Linux
|-
! GUI layer
| free (varied)
| free (Android)
| unk
| Maemo
|-
! Base applications
| free (varied)
| some free (Android)
| unk
| unk
|-
! Dev kit
| free
| some free
| unk
| unk
|}

== See also ==
[[Freest_hardware_comparisons#Mobile_Phones_and_PDA.2FTablets]]