Librephone is a new initiative by the FSF with the goal of bringing full freedom to the mobile computing environment. The vast majority of software users around the world use a mobile phone as their primary computing device. After forty years of advocacy for computing freedom, the FSF will now work to bring the right to study, change, share, and modify the programs users depend on in their daily lives to mobile phones. "Forty years ago, when the FSF was founded, our focus was on providing an operating system people could use on desktop and server computers in freedom. Times have changed, technology has progressed, but our commitment to freedom hasn't," said Zoë Kooyman, executive director of the FSF. "A lot of work has been done in mobile phone freedom over the years that we'll be building on. The FSF is now ready to do what is necessary to bring freedom to cell phone users. Given the complexity of the devices, this work will take time, but we're used to playing the long game." Practically, Librephone aims to close the last gaps between existing distributions of the Android operating system and software freedom. The FSF has hired experienced developer Rob Savoye (DejaGNU, Gnash, OpenStreetMap, and more) to lead the technical project. He is currently investigating the state of device firmware and binary blobs in other mobile phone freedom projects, prioritizing the free software work done by the not entirely free software mobile phone operating system LineageOS. The initial work is funded by a donation from FSF board member John Gilmore, who explained, "I have enjoyed using a mobile phone running LineageOS with MicroG and F-Droid for years, which eliminates the spyware and control that Google embeds in standard Android phones. I later discovered that the LineageOS distribution links in significant proprietary binary modules copied from the firmware of particular phones. Rather than accept this sad situation, I looked for collaborators to reverse-engineer and replace those proprietary modules with fully free software, for at least one modern phone." Triaging existing packages and device compatibility to find a phone with the fewest, most fixable freedom problems is the first step. From there, the FSF and Savoye aim to reverse-engineer and replace the remaining nonfree software. Librephone will serve existing developers and projects who aim to build a fully functioning and free (as in freedom) Android-compatible OS. The FSF has been supporting earlier free software mobile phone projects such as Replicant, and is excited to launch this new effort. Gilmore added: "We were lucky to find Rob Savoye, a great engineer with decades of experience in free software, embedded systems, and project management." When asked to comment on the project, Savoye said: "As a long-time embedded systems engineer who has worked on mobile devices for decades, I'm looking forward to this opportunity to work towards a freedom-supporting phone and help users gain control over their phone hardware." He added: "Making fully free software for a modern commercial phone will not be quick, easy, or cheap, but our project benefits from standing on the shoulders of giants who have done most of the work. Please join us, with your efforts and/or with your donations." Besides the campaign information at https://fsf.org/campaigns/librephone, the project will have its own website at https://librephone.fsf.org and anyone can connect using #librephone irc on irc.libera.chat. About the Free Software Foundation The FSF, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its websites, located at https://www.fsf.org and https://www.gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. The FSF is a remote organization, incorporated in Massachusetts, US. MEDIA CONTACT Greg Farough Campaigns Manager Free Software Foundation +1 (617) 542 5942 [email protected]