Purism almost went bankrupt due to challenges like this one. They had to choose a relatively outdated, slow hardware and reverse engineer many things to make them work, e.g., camera. All companies producing the required chips refuse to work with FLOSS -- if this isn't anti-competitive and destroying competition, I don't know what is.
They say nothing of the kind in that article, the only challenge they talk about is that they couldn't use integrated chipsets like the rest of the industry does for various privacy reasons, and that various suppliers they chose didn't have open-source drivers for the OS they wanted. Nothing mentioned in this article is anti-competetive, and I would bet those manufacturers also didn't have drivers for iOS or Windows Mobile or what have you.
> couldn't use integrated chipsets like the rest of the industry does for various privacy reasons
"Various privacy reasons" is in fact the main point: You can't create a privacy-respecting device, owned by the user, with any of the available vendors.
> didn't have open-source drivers for the OS they wanted
No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that. This is gate-keeping.
> Nothing mentioned in this article is anti-competetive
Again: There is no single company in the whole smartphone industry which agrees to provide specs to their hardware, so you could write free and open-source drivers. This is serious gate-keeping for the walled gardens.
> No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that. This is gate-keeping.
Do you have a source for this claim? Because the article above definitely doesn't say this. Not that I'd be surprised if it's true, mind you.
> "Various privacy reasons" is in fact the main point: You can't create a privacy-respecting device, owned by the user, with any of the available vendors.
That is orthogonal to whether you can make a device with a FOSS OS, or whether you can compete with Apple and/or Google. If you want to make a device that doesn't trust the software your hardware vendors provide, you are going to face hurdles. This is not an anti-competitive thing - Apple or Google would face the exact same hurdles. Further, going with a non-integrated chip is a massive complication (and a significant performance loss) that they inflict on themselves.
>> > No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that.
> Do you have a source for this claim?
This was said by one of the Purism employees on their forums, although not specifically about phones:
I have talked to many manufacturers over the course of the past years and in most cases not releasing more as open source has more to do with unproven fear of everything and less concrete risk assessment. Very often you also encounter the “Oh, then we loose our business advantage!” argument, which IMHO is plain false. I do not know of any case in the industry where open source would have been detrimental for a chip maker’s business. Not happening.
That quote also mentions a very good reason for which radio hardware makers in particular must have firmware that users can't modify: they are not allowed to sell the hardware unless it is guaranteed to meet all radio regulations. Otherwise, if you use hardware they produced to emit radio in illegal ways, they will be held liable, if they didn't take steps to prevent this, at least in the USA. Libre radio firmware will never happen unless legislation in the area changes significantly.
I also would say, again, that I very much doubt any other manufacturer is getting the kind of specs you are hoping for. Android phones at least definitely use firmware blobs from component manufacturers. Apple does as well for the antennas, though maybe not for some other parts?
> a very good reason for which radio hardware makers in particular must have firmware that users can't modify
This is not a very good reason. By this reasoning, ordinary cars must be prohibited, since you can dangerously modify them. Also, it's not relevant for this discussion.
>It doesn't seem like they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, just that it's difficult to them.
Do you have anything to back that up?
Only one manufacturer agreed, who doesn't even work in the smartphone industry (NXP).
> I mean you have to do the work
This is extremely dishonest. Do you imply that reverse engineering is a normal part of writing software? Do you imply that Apple or Google don't have detailed specifications of hardware they buy from other vendors?
I'm saying you need to back up the claim that they refuse to work with FLOSS on principle, if you want to make it.
> This is extremely dishonest.
??? If you want to build a phone that works in a particular way, you have to do the work of finding suppliers and parts and such that fit your design goals. It's not someone else's responsibility to supply it to you in the exact way you want.
