Group:Hardware/Computers/Smartphones/Nokia 8110 4G Dual SIM

Warnings

This page is a draft, it might still contain errors at this stage and lacks references. Feel free to improve it.

Introduction

The Nokia 8110 4G Dual SIM is a smartphone that has a feature phone like formfactor:

• It runs KaiOS (a derivative of FirefoxOS) and a modified Linux kernel
• It has already an active community with at least one community distribution:
  • GerdaOS:
    • Source code: https://gitlab.com/project-pris
    • Website: https://gerda.tech/

Caveats:

• All existing and future smartphones have very serious freedom issues as the network can track them with a huge accuracy (20 meters with GSM, 10 meters with 3G).
• This device uses a Qualcomm System on a chip with additional extremely serious freedom issues

Goal:

LibreCMC is an FSDG compliant distribution that is based on OpenWRT. And OpenWRT was made possible thanks to the source code from the WRT54GS device.

Here, the community behind the Nokia 8110 4G Dual SIM or devices using the same operating system don't have the corresponding Linux source code, nor the FirefoxOS derivative source code. Maybe nobody asked for it, so the goal here is to ask for it and see what happens.

Note that the manufacturer of the phone is not Nokia but HMD Global. The Nokia brand was probably lent somehow by Nokia to HMD Global.

In the long run, getting the source code might help a lot that community, and we may get a new (partially) free software distribution that could work on devices with feature-phone formfactors, hoping that it could support other smartphones with less problematic hardware components.

The Nokia 8110 4G Dual SIM was chosen for this project as it's the most documented device and you can get root on it and install alternative distributions on it (which reuse the kernel binary).

On other devices or versions (like the single SIM version) it might be way more time consuming to do that research, and it would benefit less that community that is mainly trying to support that specific device.

Looking for source code offer

I was advised by someone familiar with GPL enforcement not to connect the device to the WiFi at all. This will make sure that the OS stays the same.

I will start looking for an offser source code offer in the package, and then proceed to a more in depth analysis while making sure that the software is not modified during the analysis.

Package content:

• One Paper 'Quick guide' for each of these languages: English, Italian, German, French, Finnish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish
• 1 Phone (Variant: TA-1048)
• 1 Headphones
• 1 Battery
• 1 Charger

The 'Quick guide' has a 'Copyright and other notices' section with the following text:

                          [...] A copy of the Declaration of
Conformity can be found at https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/
declaration-of-conformity.
[...]
This product includes open source software. For applicable copyright
and notices, permissions, and acknowledgements, select
Settings > Devices > Legal information > Open Source Licenses.
[...]

Terms and conditions

The device requires to accept some terms and conditions to be used.

During the first boot (and all the subsequent ones if you don't accept the conditions), a not very welcoming 'Welcome' screeen has the following text:

Thanks you for choosing
Nokia 8110 4G.
Your use of HMD Global ser-
vices and applications in
your device is governed by
the HMD Global Privacy Pol-
icy, available at:
www.nokia.com/mobile-pri-
vacy. Your use of KaiOS
software, services and appli-
cations in your device is
governed by KaiOS EULA
and privacy terms, available
at
https://www.kaiostech.com
/privacy-policy-nk/.
The device activation infor-
mation with one-time de-
vice location along with your
unique device and network
information will be sent to
KAI. This information en-
ables us to better meet de-
mand in your country, pro-
vide software updates, cus-
tomer support, and active
services. Data charges may
apply.
Privacy or other notices
may be provided when you
use different features of
your device.

I do not intend ever to accept the KaiOS conditions as they contains the following:

You shall not:
[...]
* reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits,[...]

So I need to find another way to understand if there is a source code offer within the device.

I've looked to the declaration-of-conformity for the TA-1048 in French (Nokia_8110_4G_DS_TA-1048_DoC_FR_SW_0.1803.11.03.pdf) and I found no information on licenses, only on compliance with FCC-like regulations.

I found a copyrights-and-other-notices page on the Nokia website.

The Nokia 8110 is not mentioned on the free software source code release page on the Nokia website

Offer for source code and licenses

At first boot, the phone asks users to accept a license but I don't want to accept a nonfree license, so I asked someone with the same phone if there was some licenses information and/or some offer for source code inside the device. We looked for it and found that, though I don't recall the exact details.

So I'll probably lend my phone to someone to get the licenses accepted by that person, and then request the source code to HMD Global and see where it goes.