Open source PinePhone modem firmware now supports audio, GPS, and power management
I don't know if anyone posted this here earlier, but it looks like there is a free replacement for the Pinephone modem firmware now. Apparently they can't ship with it because of FCC regulations, but this is great progress.
Firmware is even harder to reverse engineer. Almost everything in modern phones/tablets require non-free firmware, including modem, WLAN, bluetooth, audio, graphics (GPU), and even the touch screen.
Some users find out that what is missing in GNU/Linux to make certain hardware working is just the .fw (firmware) file, therefore they demand such a distribution with every available non-free firmware included. I replied, this defeats the very purpose of the free software movement. Doing so surely backfires on GNU/Linux itself, too.
It's awesome to see them making progress. Not surprised at all that the biggest hurdle to it being shipped is government. Government ruins everything it touches.
Whether a specific government constructs or destroys depends on its class character. Capitalist/imperialist governments destroy, whereas socialist governments construct.
Unfortunately, there is no socialist governments remaining on the world, after capitalist restoration of China (Oct. 6th, 1976).
The only thing socialist governments construct is the same thing non socialist governments of the modern world construct: restriction of freedom.
All governments construct one thing: themselves. Governments are no sacred cows with higher ethics, they are institutions of power. All institutions and organizations tend to turn into machines aiming at sustaining their own existence to the benefit of whatever group controls them, so institutions of power never stop strengthening their own power. Since power is a zero sum game, governments have to restrict somebody else's power, i.e. people's freedom. Also, fight each other and fight other institutions. The only desirable government would be a government without power, which would arguably not be a government. That is in essence what Karl Marx had been writing about the modern State, before he got sick of the world and chose to take drugs and go creative.
That said, I have a feeling that "power management" is to be taken in a slightly different meaning here.
I can't see how the Chinese "Great Leap Forward" was constructive in any way.