Progress update from the Librem 5 hardware department:
[...] Making a non-Android mobile phone that will run an FSF-approved OS that supports all the features that we've all come to rely on (cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, touchscreen input) has and continues to involve a lot of pathfinding, given that a RYF phone has never been attempted before and discovery involves solving issues as they come up.
The industry offers all the hardware to create a smartphone on a fast path, as the SoC vendors typically provide the modem (cellular and wifi) integrated directly on the SoC. Like a recipe in a cookbook—take an SoC, place it on a PCB, add RAM and flash chip on top of it (called a package on package—PoP), add antennas and finally power. The difficulty comes down to the firmware and the software that run these devices. The necessary firmware to operate the cellular modem, WiFi, BT etc. is provided by the chip maker, including the drivers for the GPU and more. The firmware and software included is proprietary with no source code with little to no alternatives.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday September 11 2018, @10:57PM (1 child)
Last update was eleven months ago. Yeah I'd plan a product launch around them coming through and delivering the goods.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mth on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:29AM
Last update of Etnaviv, you mean? As far as I know several people are still working on that, but since the parts have been upstreamed, the updates are now spread over different repos. The kernel driver is in the mainline kernel, for example, other parts are in Mesa, libdrm etc.