[Freedombox-discuss] Debian FreedomBox = Existing Debian packages on plug hardware

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 01:53:33PM +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

>>> The target for the Freedom Box is a plug device. These have  
>>> 800Mhz/1.2Ghz ARM processors and 512MB of RAM and at least 512MB
>>
>> Yes, you're describing a low-end Android phone here.
>
> No, plug devices are not phones.

My point you possibly failed to get was that openi-sh cheap (~100 EUR) 
smartphones have equivalent to superior hardware specs to plug 
computers, plus come with GPS, multiple, powerful radios, 3G/4G 
uplink, built-in UPS and are energy-efficient (can be easily run on 
galvanic separation on a remote, elevated point, and be powered via a 
PV-backed battery and a cheap USB charger).

This is an interesting platform with complementary capabilities
to plugs, and is worth pursuing.

>> The only problem I see is Android specifics, which won't play nice with 
>> the Debian toolchain.
>
> If I am not mistaken, the topic of this mailinglist is the _Debian_  
> FreedomBox project.  Not the Google FreedomBox project or whatever else.

I'm not sure what your point is.

> Hardware is Plug devices and software is existing packaged Debian!

Sense you're not making too much!

> I encourage anyone to work on whatever hardware and software that fancy  
> their interest - but please treat such as separate from this project.

If you're deliberately trying to damage interoperability between
different fledgling projects you're not in the solution set. 

> I do not mean to say that you cannot call your project "Freedom Box"  
> (but possibly Eben has an opinion on your using that term he coined),  
> just that I strongly fear that discussing all sorts of freedom-related  
> projects together here on a single mailinglist does more harm than good.

I would suggest rather keep technical lists focused on their respective
topic, but build an inclusive umbrella platform with multiple ongoing 
external projects having their sublists and wikis and code depositories, 
with some crosscommunication do avoid duplication of effort and encourage 
crossporting of existing and emerging packages.

Is there any reason why Debian would officially oppose hosting such
a project?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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