Max,

I cannot tell how a kill switch is going to take my freedoms, at least
any more than whatever else already currently happening with the cell
phone industry. This article you linked doesn't really give much
information on what the actual bill would look like either. The theft of
cell phones is a real problem though, and the companies that manufacture
and sell the phones do not have any real incentive to bring a stop to it
because most people buy another one once they lose their original.

What exactly are you looking for in a "libre" phone? Open source software?

Android is licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0. which
according to gnu.org "It is a free software license, compatible with
version 3 of the GNU GPL." In fact android has many different forks on a
lot of the common Handsets. The Google apps are non-free but a person
can install a fork of Android without GAPPs instead using F-Droid as a
package manager which only has open source apps.

Also you can get a FirefoxOS phone from ebay for $75 unlocked:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/281165818989?lpid=82
I had one of these when they first came out. The hardware leaves much to
be desired but the software is open-source and built using things like
standards and such. It is licensed by the Mozilla license

There is also the Jolla which runs Sailfish. Sailfish os uses the linux
kernel.

There was the TuxPhone project that aimed to provide open source
hardware as well but I believe that is way dead.

Ben







On 01/27/2014 02:00 PM, Max Shinn wrote:
> This looks like a threat for those of us who want libre phones...
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/legislation-phone-thefts_n_4653392.html
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> -Max
> _______________________________________________
> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
> 
> 


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 555 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20140127/11632a17/attachment.pgp>