What operating system will the Librem phone use?

Hardware Librem 5
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Hi. Do you have any links to more information about Librem Phones?

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Brandon, Todd speaks about it in an interview with Leo Laporte: https://twit.tv/shows/new-screen-savers/episodes/65?autostart=false (starts at 52:15).

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What Todd tells about the Librem Phone sounds quite interesting! I’m looking forward to it!

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I particioated on the Librem Phone Survey and ist was quite interesting!

In the Video, Todd said we can expect it 2017, I assume near the End of 2017?

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Yes, end of 2017, but there will possibility to pre-order it earlier.

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A interested project of a libre baseband:

sounds nice for librem phone

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Are there any considerations that they are going to be supported? Because if I am not able to download Whatsapp or Signal from the Google Play Store, that will be a disappointment for me. Sure I like to have as much privacy as I can but the phone also have to be pragmatic too.

Off topic questions:

And also, will the phone compatible in Singapore’s cellular network ?

Finally, hopefully this is not too obvious, I hope you all will not forget some sort of MAC like Cyanogenmod’s Privacy Guard.

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James, Librem phone will not run Android. It will run our PureOS, based on Debian.

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If that’s the case, librem phone will be useless for many users who needs to communicate to other users on iOS and Android via native apps. Unless there are going to be ports of such apps.

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gapps=no privacy, so with gapps librem phone is not libre and should be like all the others, useless, because the strenght of this project is all about privacy, if u trash it, you will just have something more expensive, less performing than any android and with the same privacy level

if u buy it is for comunicate safely, if your friend still have android the comunication isnt safe, so you should speak with them for let them know the privacy issue ios and android have

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Librem phone will not run Android, and even if it does it won’t include any proprietary stuff. Please have a look at our Philosophical Contract once again.

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I think FreeSpirit actually knows that, James has some other views.

Anyway, regarding Librem Phone, we will run it with Debian based OS and regarding communications we plan to develop cross-platform communication services (maybe based on Ring maybe not). Second option might be in there as Android but not the one you use atm and more like Replicant (clean stack, Free software - maybe even Copperhead if they some collaborations happens and we port it to such phone).

In any way, we don’t plan to move away from Free software/hardware ideas. Also, if you want to help, you’re free to contribute code to any project that try to liberate things such as 2g/3g/4g and so on, or to donate to any project/campaign that will make future more Free rather than giving up and opt-in into surveillance state.

Cheers.

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Hi guys!
Any plan to collaborate with the Replicant project for your Librem Phone ?
Cheers!

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as i know they are gonna plan a phone with pureos, so that’s a pure linux!! that’s alot better than any kind of android imho

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Any way to use apps available in fdroid with pureOS?

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There are emulators which can do this, and it will probably be possible to install android x86 on Librem Phone.

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Not to beat a dead horse, but is there any chance you might consider basing the Purism phone on CopperheadOS? They’ve done an immense amount of work over the past few years to create some amazing infrastructure that is currently best-of-breed. I think if Purism attempt to run with non-Android alternatives you will essentially be duplicating an enormous amount of work, and will be several years until you reach the level of security, privacy, stability and features that they have already attained.

Yes, it’s based on Android, but CopperheadOS is libre/FLOSS.

A collaboration project between Purism, Copperhead, Replicant, OmniROM/LineageOS could work wonders, and get to amazing places fast.

Also pie-in-the-sky but in terms of hardware, collaborating with Fairphone might be cool. See also

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I think the idea is to move away from Android, but I think that a “free” (as in freedom) phone means you are free to do what you want with it, and I would expect to see copperhead/replicant/sailfishOS or even windows mobile done for it by the community.

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My limited understanding is that CopperheadOS is dependent on Google to accept the kernel security patches that Copperhead Security suggests. This process of Copperhead Security trying to harden the security of the underlying kernel is called “backporting” i think…Copperhead Security tries to “upstream” CopperheadOS security patches to the kernel, which would benefit all Android users (and would reduce the workload of CopperheadOS development–otherwise, Copperhead Security needs to keep re-applying the same security patches to the CopperheadOS upon each new anual Android release, which is currently Oreo).

Android, AOSP, alternative Android ROMs, and CopperheadOS all use the same kernel (i think) which is based on Linux but modified by Google. Google might not want to incorporate security patches to the kernel if there is even a small performance hit. Privacy is not Google’s top priority, and can u really hav security without privacy? (um, not trying to criticize Copperhead Security or derail this thread, sorry if im necrobumping, but the Librem-5 Kickstarter campaign is half over, while the funding goal is less than halfway met. People need to know this stuff–it’s not easy to learn IMHO)

@sptankard – Yes, collaboration is ideal, thank you for that request! Note also, however, that both Copperhead Security and Purism are selling products and must try to stay afloat financially. Which maybe is why Purism frowns on posters criticizing their competition here in this forum–i.e., because Purism doesnt want to be criticized by their competitors. Copperhead developer Daniel Micay (nicknamed strncat at the CopperheadOS subReddit) replied to a request regarding his feedback of the Librem-5 in the post linked below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CopperheadOS/comments/6z32jm/species_defender_privacy_phone_external_design/

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That is a noisy thread. His basic points:

  • Revisit decision against using AOSP as the software; it would offer better privacy / security and wouldn’t require making an entirely new viable software stack
  • be careful misinformation about AOSP is not propagated: it doesn’t require Google to do anything
  • support Android and prioritize security features
  • offer verified boot and A/B updates
  • for security reasons, either ship firmware updates for nonfree components or do not use any
  • microphone switch is a plus
  • hardware support for virtualization is irrelevant
  • CopperheadOS should not be run in containers
  • harden the host OS
  • desktop Linux stacks have weak areas: systemd, pulseaudio, tons of C and C++ at the application layer, no real application security model, permission model, no comparable full system SELinux policy…
  • applications should not be trusted especially if installed through bleeding edge flatpak
  • Android works fine on generic arm / arm64 hardware with mainline kernels; the frozen LTS branches are for out-of-tree drivers SoC drivers regardless of Android use
  • provide an AOSP board support package and properly configured kernel
  • get AOSP at least close to fully passing the Compatibility Test Suite on the L5
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