
Windows Phone Internals Opens the Custom ROM World for Lumia Phones - ukz
http://www.xda-developers.com/windows-phone-internals-opens-the-custom-rom-world-for-lumia-phones/
======
mschuster91
The biggest problem for ANY alternative ROMs is the total and utter lack of
transparency for chipset drivers and documentation.

And even if the manufacturer publishes source trees for drivers, they're based
on year-old kernel versions. Same goes for bootloaders.

And that's a problem for the entire embedded Linux ecosystem, not just phones.

I wonder what prevents the vendors from committing their drivers upstream? Can
that be worked against, i.e. by the manufacturers or independent organisations
financing people to integrate and maintain the drivers?

It 'd be a huge benefit for the entire embedded ecosystem if people could find
and fix bugs in out-of-mainline drivers, there are a shitload of bugs in them.

edit: oh, and another thing, mainly concerning Android phones: the refusal of
the Linux userland community to learn from Android and cut the craft
accumulated in decades (x-server! the need for autotools which check for stuff
that's been standardized for 10 years or longer without a way to cache certain
tests systemwide! lack of really deep sleep, central to embedded systems! a
shitload of "sound servers" resulting in 100+ms latencies!) to keep
compatibility with even OLDER systems certainly does not help developers of
alternative OSes.

~~~
gue5t
You've hit the nail entirely on the head.

Re: the reasons vendors never push code upstream, have you read
[http://lwn.net/Articles/662147/](http://lwn.net/Articles/662147/)?

~~~
mschuster91
Yes. I seriously hope someone finds a local-root exploit for some out-of-tree
driver used in a lot of devices, bonus points if it affects multiple vendors.

Only when the pain/cost of going out-of-tree is too high, vendors will be
forced to listen to the FOSS community instead of their bonehead lawyers
telling that "drivers are our IP!!!!!!!!!!!".

I'm shocked neither Heartbleed, Stagefright or that (iirc) Samsung kernel
driver bug had enough of an effect. Or that Google does not require a (Github)
published source tree for kernel+AOSP in order for certification.

~~~
throwaway2048
The problem is this: Ask a lawyer if arbitrary activity is a legal risk, they
are always going to answer yes. After-all somebody can sue you for any reason
whatsoever.

Without a strong counterballacing party to that point of view, the default is
always going to be closed with a collective shrug from developers that tacitly
accept the "legal realities".

It will probly take a worm of sasser-like porportions on android to break this
pattern of closed drivers that work on one 3 year old kernel that never get
updated.

------
hackuser
It's great to have more open hardware.

Even more, we need open OS's for mobile. There are no serious options beyond
what the the market leader, Google, generously releases the code for: From
what I can tell, almost all the 'custom ROMs' for Android phones are 99% AOSP
[1] and do little to differentiate themselves from Android; by comparison,
think of how different Linux is from Windows and MacOS. We need the BSDs,
Linux distrbutions, GNUs, etc. for mobile.

[1] Android Open Source Project, the free/open source version of Android that
Google generously releases for devs to hack on. (Maybe it would be better for
the open source world if they had to develop their own.)

\-----

EDIT: I might as well provide visibility to a few projects, though I know
little about them; some might be defunct or dormant, for example. If someone
can fill in details and gaps, it would help me (and others who are interested,
I imagine) make sense of what's out there. Right now, I hardly know where to
start.

* OpenPhoenux ([http://openphoenux.org/](http://openphoenux.org/)): Several open hardware projects compatible with multiple OSes (imagine that - hardware on which you can install different OSes!), including the Neo900 discussed below and the GTA04.

* OpenMoko ([http://openmoko.org](http://openmoko.org)): "a project dedicated to delivering mobile phones with an open source software stack. Openmoko was formerly associated with Openmoko Inc, but is nowadays simply a gathering of people with the shared goal of "Free The Phone"."

* Jolla and Sailfish OS ([https://jolla.com](https://jolla.com)): An open system thhat looks commercially designed. Decended from Meego?

* Meego and its many decendents: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Mer_and_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Mer_and_mobile_operating_systems.svg)

* SHR ([http://shr-project.org/](http://shr-project.org/)): GNU/Linux based OS

* QTMoko ([http://qtmoko.sourceforge.net/](http://qtmoko.sourceforge.net/)): "debian distribution for Openmoko Freerunner and Goldelico's GTA04 phone. Phone and user interface is based on QT Extendeded formerly known as Qtopia" defunct?

~~~
mmastrac
The long tail of mobile OSes doesn't exist. Just look at the comments on any
FirefoxOS thread -- lots of voices saying "why bother" since the top two are
so heavily entrenched and the #3 is barely moving the needle.

We do have alternatives, but nobody is using them.

~~~
hackuser
> Just look at the comments on any FirefoxOS thread -- lots of voices saying
> "why bother" since the top two are so heavily entrenched

I've noticed that too. Imagine if Torvalds, GNU, or the Mozilla team (to name
just a few) responded that way. However, it's possible that they faced just as
many naysayers.

~~~
mmastrac
Exactly. The same people who balk at running alternative OSes on a phone would
be running Linux Mint on the desktop.

I'd love to see more open competition on mobile, but it's a tough market to
crack.

------
chiph
If there's anyone who wants to get into this, I have a Lumia 920 (AT&T USA
model RM-820) with Windows Phone 8.1 that I'm not using. Promise here
(publicly) that you'll only use your skills for good, and it's yours.

~~~
internet2000
Odd that no one's responding. If you want to get rid of your 920 and find no
other takers, I promise I'll only use it for good.

~~~
chiph
PM me with your address (instructions are in my "about" field). I'm waiting on
AT&T to unlock it (hopefully only 2-3 more days), and then I'll send it on. If
they can't unlock it, I'll let you know (would be a bummer)

~~~
internet2000
Sent an email from f※※※@z※※※.org. Thanks!

