I don't necessarily want a Linux phone, I want a trustworthy portable communication terminal. As of today the smartphone is de facto the standard in portable communication terminals, and Linux is the standard in open, therefore trustworthy (PEBKAC issues aside), operating systems for general use.
It is then normal for many people to want a Linux phone, but give us a BSD, or whatever, based phone, and we're in business.
The gist is that most of us simply find unthinkable to use a piece of hardware that we don't 100% trust, for personal communications, writing or receiving mail, keeping personal data and documents, banking etc. therefore we need an open platform because allowing public scrutiny of the code base - device drivers and user apps included - is the only working method to prevent both software and firmware from doing nasty things behind the user. So far, a Linux phone is the closest we can get to that dream device.
The gist is that most of us simply find unthinkable to use a piece of hardware that we don't 100% trust, for personal communications, writing or receiving mail, keeping personal data and documents, banking etc. therefore we need an open platform because allowing public scrutiny of the code base - device drivers and user apps included - is the only working method to prevent both software and firmware from doing nasty things behind the user. So far, a Linux phone is the closest we can get to that dream device.