37c3: Add 'Replicant struggle: past and present successes and failures' talk.

Signed-off-by: Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>

5 files changed, 105 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/37c3/Replicant_struggle/abstract.txt b/37c3/Replicant_struggle/abstract.txt
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+Replicant is an Android distribution that is certified by the FSF that
+supports some Smartphones and Tablets. After explaining some extensive
+background about the project and its situation, the talk will focus on
+the project strategic decisions and will also try to involve the
+audience to get feedback on some of the project current and longer
+term issues that we didn't solve yet.
diff --git a/37c3/Replicant_struggle/presentation.pdf b/37c3/Replicant_struggle/presentation.pdf
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+++ b/37c3/Replicant_struggle/presentation.pdf
diff --git a/37c3/Replicant_struggle/presentation.txt b/37c3/Replicant_struggle/presentation.txt
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+I started writing slides for the presentation. The presentation was to
+be made on a round table with a small display on it. While finishing
+the slides I assisted to a presentation at the same place and it was
+way too crowded for the people to be able to see the slides.
+
+So at the last moment I moved the slides to paper. While I forgot to
+show some of the papers, it also enabled not only to show them in all
+directions but also to share the paper among themselves so that
+everybody could see the slide.
+
+Here's an explanation of the various pages inside presentation.pdf:
+
+* 1/10, 2/10, 3/10: These were not part of the slides: they were
+  advertizement for the talk I made that were hang at key locations
+  where people go through a bit before the talk.
+
+* 4/10: This is the plan of the talk. It wasn't shown to people
+  directly.
+
+* 6/10: This was supposed to be the first slide but it got tainted by
+  some pizza.
+
+* 5/10: This is the first slide, re-drawn by dllud.
+
+* 7/10: Slide to explain how a smartphone work. I probably forgot to
+  show it.
+
+* 8/10: Slide about the Android architecture.
+
+* 9/10: Code in the Nexus S kernel that enabled made us understand
+  that the modem was connected through a RAM chip.
+
+* 10/10: Slide about GNU Boot and Guix. I forgot to show it.
diff --git a/37c3/Replicant_struggle/summary.txt b/37c3/Replicant_struggle/summary.txt
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+Replicant is an Android distribution that is certified by the FSF that
+supports some Smartphones and Tablets.
+
+Historically Replicant has united different struggles / concerns
+within the same project:
+
+It enabled to use hardware way longer, limiting damage on planet and
+workers.
+
+Compatible hardware could be found second hand in various ways (shops,
+free, etc). This made it accessible by a wide variety of people.
+
+Many of the supported hardware were made and sold in big numbers so
+they have a wide ecosystem around them like replacement batteries,
+repair knowledge, second hand shops.
+
+While all the supported hardware contains nonfree software
+(bootloader, sometimes another operating system loaded on the same CPU
+alongside Android/Replicant, details will be explained in the talk),
+Replicant itself is fully free, which appeals to people caring about
+free software.
+
+It avoided backdoors and chose to support only specific phones to
+limit the privacy damage (this was done by isolating the modem, more
+will be explained in the talk).
+
+While Replicant always had to take difficult strategic decisions that
+affected the above, with effects on both the amount of work required
+to support devices and the amount of work required to move to new
+Android versions, things also changed a lot in the last years.
+
+Modern off the shelf smartphones hardware made it impossible to
+address the same concerns than before: Replicant depends on hardware
+design features like modem isolation to provide some privacy
+guarantees (details will be in the talk). Supporting devices with
+batteries that cannot be replaced also lead to lot of complications
+for users (batteries that last less on second hand devices, limited
+lifespan, etc) that in turn put impossible constraints on contributors
+(supporting new devices as soon as they are released).
+
+Other issues like the disappearance of 3G networks, or the status of
+some Android related project also affect Replicant in big ways.
+
+On another hand Replicant also ended up with way more resources than
+before: it has enough money (about 200 000$) to fund development work
+during few years and also managed to get funding from NLnet to work on
+specific tasks.
+
+All that brings huge changes in the project and makes strategic
+decisions harder than before.
+
+The talk will start with information on why having 100% free software
+Android distribution(s) is still relevant today when GNU/Linux
+smartphones are becoming a reality again. It will also explain all the
+background needed to understand the rest of the talk (how smartphones
+work, what is a modem, what is TrustZone, how Android is different
+from GNU/Linux from the hardware support and contributor perspective,
+etc).
+
+A lot of the focus of this presentation will be about the project
+strategic decisions: Given the difficult context Replicant operates
+in, what difficulties it faced, how it solved them. But also current
+and longer term issues we have. In this talk we are also looking for
+feedback on our new strategy and/or ideas to address some of the
+longer time concerns we have, some of which other projects also faced.
diff --git a/37c3/Replicant_struggle/title.txt b/37c3/Replicant_struggle/title.txt
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+Replicant struggle: past and present successes and failures