Musings on Software Freedom for Mobile Devices

I started using GNU/Linux and Free Software in 1992. In those days, while everything I needed for a working computer was generally available in software freedom, there were many components and applications that simply did not exist. For highly technical users who did not need many peripherals, the Free Software community had reached a state of complete software freedom. Yet, in 1992, everyone agreed there was still much work to be done. Even today, we still strive for a desktop and server operating system, with all relevant applications, that grants complete software freedom.

Looked at broadly, mobile telephone systems are not all that different from 1992-era GNU/Linux systems. The basics are currently available as Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS). If you need only the bare minimum of functionality, you can, by picking the right phone hardware, run an almost completely FLOSS operating system and application set. Yet, we have so far to go. This post discusses the current penetration of FLOSS in mobile devices and offers a path forward for free software advocates.

A Brief History

The mobile telephone market has never functioned like the traditional computer market. Historically, the mobile user made arrangements with some network carrier through a long-term contract. That carrier “gave” the user a phone or discounted it as a loss-leader. Under that system, few people take their phone hardware choice all that seriously. Perhaps users pay a bit more for a slightly better phone, but generally they nearly always pick among the limited choices provided by the given carrier.

Meanwhile, Research in Motion was the first to provide corporate-slave-oriented email-enabled devices. Indeed, with the very recent focus on consumer-oriented devices like the iPhone, most users forget that Apple is by far not the preferred fruit for the smart phone user. Today, most people using a “smart phone” are using one given to them by their employer to chain them to their office email 24/7.

Apple, excellent at manipulating users into paying more for a product merely because it is shiny, also convinced everyone that now a phone should be paid for separately, and contracts should go even longer. The “race to mediocrity” of the phone market has ended. Phones need real features to stand out. Phones, in fact, aren't phones anymore. They are small mobile computers that can also make phone calls.

If these small computers had been introduced in 1992, I suppose I'd be left writing the Mobile GNU Manifesto, calling for developers to start from scratch writing operating systems for these new computers, so that all users could have software freedom. Fortunately, we have instead been given a head start. Unlike in 1992, not every company in the market today is completely against releasing Free Software. Specifically, two companies have seen some value in releasing (some parts of) phone operating systems as Free Software: Nokia and Google. However, the two companies have done this for radically different reasons.

The Current State of Mobile Software Freedom

For its part, Nokia likely benefited greatly from the traditional carrier system. Most of their phones were provided relatively cheaply with contracts. Their interest in software freedom was limited and perhaps even non-existent. Nokia sold new hardware every time a phone contract was renewed, and the carrier paid the difference between the loss-leader price and Nokia's wholesale cost. The software on the devices was simple and mostly internally developed. What incentive did Nokia have to release software in software freedom? (Nokia realized too late this was the wrong position, but more on that later.)

In parallel, Nokia had chased another market that I've never fully understood: the tablet PC. Not big enough to be a real computer, but too large to be a phone, these devices have been an idea looking for a user base. Regardless of my personal views on these systems, though, GNU/Linux remains the ideal system for these devices, and Nokia saw that. Nokia built the Debian-ish Maemo system as a tablet system, with no phone. However, I can count on one hand all the people I've met who bothered with these devices; I just don't think a phone-less small computer is going to ever become the rage, even if Apple dumps billions into marketing the iPad. (Anyone remember the Newton?)

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