Board of Directors meeting - 2025-10-16

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The next meeting of the F-Droid Board of Directors will be held at 15:00 UTC on Thursday the 16th of October.

Due to external interactions relating to the introduction of “Android Developer Verification” by Google, this meeting will not have a normal agenda. Part of the meeting can be expected to proceed in private, so if you are not a member of the F-Droid Board of Directors, please ask any questions you might have at the beginning of the meeting.

Video conference URL: <https://meet.ffmuc.net/OverallStrokesDeriveAutomatically>

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Not sure if i’ll be up at that time, so i’ll ask a question here.

Given the EFF’s recent announcement of creating a free phone os, will there be (more) collaboration from F_Droid with the EFF, and free/open phone hardware manufactures? If there are such plans how soon will there be an announcement of them?

Thank you

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Hello @AdmFubar and thank you for the question. May I ask whether you are referring to the recent announcement from the Free Software Foundation (FSF)? I couldn’t find any relevant news from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

We’ll make sure to discuss your topic and I will respond in this thread after the meeting!

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oh yes it is the FFS!

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This?

Seems appealing. May success follow.

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Here’s a new 4-minute video summary of the Librephone project from the always-entertaining Fireship channel:

https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=qJle6Bki4Og

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Thank you, Mr. marcprux, for the link. Found it at:
youtu.be / qJle6Bki4Og

Sometimes, I suffer from the self-delusion of considering myself a visionary. Many of the troubles that we face today regarding smartphones and OS+app universe would have been solved with my ideas, I still seriously think.

From 2013 to 2016 I tried to have my lap/desk -top to function as a smartphone with a calling+data dongle and a close-talk headphone.

This would have helped bypass the need for another OS+application packages ecosystem separate from the robust FOSS environment, thus consuming our already dwindling resources, including positivity, and money for buying a phone with a powerful processor + huge memory.

Our existing infrastructure would have been sufficient, just a few add-ons would have sufficed. Sometimes, a big screen, sometimes a close-talk headphones+mic, sometimes a dongle with a SIM card, sometimes a datacable, et al.

In any case, a small dongle having the ability to access the mobile telephony network, data network, WiFi, BlueTooth and wired connection with a small screen would have sufficed nearly all the time. The rest work the laptop and its FOSS environment would have taken over.

I wrote to many forums and individuals in the positions of movers and shakers, but no solution emerged. As if people had left aside the versatility of laptop and multi-window OS environment to limited capabilities of the smartphones.

Those posts still lie unused as evidence:

If Mobile-> Internet access Modem, why not datacard->mobile

Voice call with softmodem, tel_Line & close-talk headset

If Mobile-> Internet access Modem, why not datacard->mobile

Reading SIM data via file managers using USB datamodem

Usb 3g modem to make/receive calls

Various forum posts capture them.

I still believe that we waste unnecessary money/resources/manpower when we already have a ready ecosystem of Lap(desk)top, networking, internet and the FOSS ecosystem.

But who is going to listen to me, or carefully consider my thoughts?

An adage often comes to my mind: if you see sufficiently ahead than the rest, then you will find yourself walking behind them.

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I too have been searching for a solution that would free me from the constricted, stifling smartphone universe.

I have a list of products, but did find no group who has been using them. A little guidance/input would have helped from actual users.

E.g., waveshare sim7600g-h 4g dongle, gnss positioning, global band support and similar such products.