Fairphone - a free Android device?

[Tobias Platen]

On 01.08.2014 12:12, Torsten Grote wrote:
> On Thursday 31 July 2014 17:56:32 Carsten Agger wrote:
>> Which apps are under a proprietary license? The "About" section
>> in the settings doesn't list any proprietary licenses at all.
>> Only "Open source" licenses, mainly Apache and GPL.
> 
> Proprietary software usually does not require a license to be
> shipped with it to end-users and only sometimes you have an EULA.
> 
> When looking for proprietary software in our phone, looking for
> licenses will not get you very far. You have to look at the
> software itself.
> 
> Most of the apps that my script removes [1] are non-free. Still, in
> order to have a working device, some non-free apps and other
> modifications to the Android user land are required.
> 
> The sources for the Linux kernel are also incomplete [2] in
> possible violation of its GPLv2 license. This is one of the things
> that prevents us to build better and newer versions of Android for
> the Fairphone ourselves.
> 
> Kind Regards, Torsten
> 
> [1]
> https://github.com/grote/fairphone-barebone/blob/master/freephone.sh
>
> 
[2] http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2636257
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The fairphone launcher seems to be free software[1], but all third
party programms are be nonfree, as long the corresponding source code
is not released. I did not try to build those programs from source.

[1] https://github.com/Kwamecorp/Fairphone