Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

Someone (not clear who) said:

> > [...] The calypso is just to outdated to be interesting
> > for anything 'useable' beyond pure hacking-fun.

I violently disagree with that statement.  I personally carry a
cellphone for one and only one purpose: so I can call my significant
other (soon to be wife) and she can cell me at any time.  A handset
based on the Calypso chipset does this job wonderfully, and is IMO
the optimal tool for the job.

But the problem is that at the present time there does not exist any
cellphone at all, of any kind (dumb, smart, old, new, whatever) that
can make and receive cellular phone calls using only Free Software, as
defined by the Free Software Foundation, i.e., providing the user with
the most essential Four Freedoms:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Hence I am currently forced to use a cellphone that runs proprietary
firmware, such that I lack the ability to fix any of the UI design
flaws that constantly drive me nuts.  This situation causes me severe
distress, hence I have committed my hobby time and cash budget to a
multi-year project to solve this pressing (for me) problem.

OsmocomBB is not a solution: it works wonders for "hacking-fun" (the
wording in the comment I'm responding to), but is utterly useless for
a practical phone which one can carry around in a pocket or purse: my
back just isn't strong enough to carry a supersized backpack containing
a full PC for running the L23 stack plus a bank of lead-acid batteries.
(Continue reading)

Re: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

I think this desire is recognized. I remember an initiative some years back, started with some enthusiasm, that never got passed the stage of deciding on NuttX as the OS to use, and forking it.


On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:44 PM, Michael Spacefalcon <msokolov@ivan.harhan.org> wrote:
Someone (not clear who) said:

> > [...] The calypso is just to outdated to be interesting
> > for anything 'useable' beyond pure hacking-fun.

I violently disagree with that statement.  I personally carry a
cellphone for one and only one purpose: so I can call my significant
other (soon to be wife) and she can cell me at any time.  A handset
based on the Calypso chipset does this job wonderfully, and is IMO
the optimal tool for the job.

But the problem is that at the present time there does not exist any
cellphone at all, of any kind (dumb, smart, old, new, whatever) that
can make and receive cellular phone calls using only Free Software, as
defined by the Free Software Foundation, i.e., providing the user with
the most essential Four Freedoms:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Hence I am currently forced to use a cellphone that runs proprietary
firmware, such that I lack the ability to fix any of the UI design
flaws that constantly drive me nuts.  This situation causes me severe
distress, hence I have committed my hobby time and cash budget to a
multi-year project to solve this pressing (for me) problem.

OsmocomBB is not a solution: it works wonders for "hacking-fun" (the
wording in the comment I'm responding to), but is utterly useless for
a practical phone which one can carry around in a pocket or purse: my
back just isn't strong enough to carry a supersized backpack containing
a full PC for running the L23 stack plus a bank of lead-acid batteries.
Hence I need a totally different Free Software GSM handset
implementation, one that actually runs on the phone itself with proper
power management exactly like the original proprietary firmware.  And
because no one else is working on such a thing, I started my own, and
made quite a bit of progress:

https://bitbucket.org/falconian/freecalypso-sw

But I am using the same Calypso GSM chipset for my project as OsmocomBB
uses, simply because it is IMO the optimal tool for the job at hand:
allowing a person to communicate with his or her significant other by
way of cellular phone calls.  The word "outdated" does not exist in my
vocabulary; I evaluate a tool based on how well it does the job, rather
than some arbitrary irrelevant criteria like manufacture date stamps
or whatever.

Viva la Revolucion,
SF


Re: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

Hi Michael,

On 05.08.2014 20:44, Michael Spacefalcon wrote:
> But the problem is that at the present time there does not exist any
> cellphone at all, of any kind (dumb, smart, old, new, whatever) that
> can make and receive cellular phone calls using only Free Software, as
> defined by the Free Software Foundation, i.e., providing the user with
> the most essential Four Freedoms:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[...]
> power management exactly like the original proprietary firmware.  And
> because no one else is working on such a thing, I started my own, and
> made quite a bit of progress:
> 
> https://bitbucket.org/falconian/freecalypso-sw

I don't quite see how waving the Free Software flag and distributing
proprietary source from the TSM30/Locosto leaks (pretty much everything
in freecalypso-sw/gsm-fw/) go together. Your efforts would be of much
more use if you based them on top of osmocom-bb itself.

As long as this main issue with your project remains, I kindly ask you
to refrain from making false claims and further advertising your
project on this list.

Best Regards,
Steve

Re: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

Steve Markgraf <steve@steve-m.de> wrote:

> I don't quite see how waving the Free Software flag and distributing
> proprietary source from the TSM30/Locosto leaks (pretty much everything
> in freecalypso-sw/gsm-fw/) go together.

That source is NOT proprietary, it is *ex*-proprietary.  It *was*
proprietary, but not any more - it is now in the public domain.

Free Software is not just a "flag" to be waved, it is a practical
reality: in *practical* terms, software that is based on ex-proprietary
code that has been liberated through the exercise of Eminent Domain
and subsequently developed and maintained in the manner of a free sw
project gives its users all of the 4 freedoms defined by FSF.

However, I shall leave it here -- any further replies or comments or
questions in this thread will *not* elicit a further reply from me.
But if there is anyone else on this list who desires a usable cellphone
for talking to his or her significant other like I do, please be assured
that I have no plans of dropping the project; the work is progressing
at a steady pace as you can see from the Mercurial commit history, and
I have high hopes of some actually-usable result some time around the
end of 2014.

VLR,
SF

Re: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

Hi Michael,

On 05.08.2014 21:50, Michael Spacefalcon wrote:
> That source is NOT proprietary, it is *ex*-proprietary.  It *was*
> proprietary, but not any more - it is now in the public domain.

Even though the circumstances under which this code now suddenly should
be public domain in the US are unclear to me:
There is no such thing as the public domain in most countries -
including the country where the code was written in (France) and the
country where the current entity holding the copyright resides in
(Germany).

> However, I shall leave it here -- any further replies or comments or
> questions in this thread will *not* elicit a further reply from me.

You are taking the easy way out...

Best Regards,
Steve

Re: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

> However, I shall leave it here -- any further replies or comments or
> questions in this thread will *not* elicit a further reply from me.

How about you do us a favor, take this a step further, and stop
posting here all together ?

Cheers,

   Sylvain

Re: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

Hi Scott,

On 8/5/14, Scott Weisman <sweisman@pobox.com> wrote:
> I think this desire is recognized. I remember an initiative some years
> back, started with some enthusiasm, that never got passed the stage of
> deciding on NuttX as the OS to use, and forking it.
>

We got NuttX running on compal phones (Motorola C1xx, W220, etc),
including display support using NuttX's native graphic subsystem. The
code was submitted to NuttX mainline and now it is integrated.

Unfortunately nobody with more knowledge about GSM L1/L2 layers was
available to help in the stack porting. During the porting we got help
from Steve Markgraf.

Now the scenario is more complex, the original "team" is separated and
we don't have spare time to help.

Best Regards,

Alan

Aw: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

Pleae, then tell me where to get phones with a Calypso 
baseband. And I'm talking about marked relevant prices. 
Don't waste my time with numbers like 5000$.

And to be relevant these phones must still be produced so
I can get many, if I want. 

Do you know a source?

Beside, I think its better to work on reverse engineered
GSM stacks like the Qualcom project as started in

https://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/events/4735.en.html

This would capture a lot of phones, since it seems they
use more or less the same real-time GSM-OS in most (all?) of
their products.

> Gesendet: Dienstag, 05. August 2014 um 20:44 Uhr
> Von: "Michael Spacefalcon" <msokolov@ivan.harhan.org>
> An: baseband.devel@lists.osmocom.org
> Cc: mark.neuhaus@email.de, sebastien@lorquet.fr
> Betreff: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)
>
> Someone (not clear who) said:
> 
> > > [...] The calypso is just to outdated to be interesting
> > > for anything 'useable' beyond pure hacking-fun.
> 
> I violently disagree with that statement.  I personally carry a
> cellphone for one and only one purpose: so I can call my significant
> other (soon to be wife) and she can cell me at any time.  A handset
> based on the Calypso chipset does this job wonderfully, and is IMO
> the optimal tool for the job.
> 
> But the problem is that at the present time there does not exist any
> cellphone at all, of any kind (dumb, smart, old, new, whatever) that
> can make and receive cellular phone calls using only Free Software, as
> defined by the Free Software Foundation, i.e., providing the user with
> the most essential Four Freedoms:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> 
> Hence I am currently forced to use a cellphone that runs proprietary
> firmware, such that I lack the ability to fix any of the UI design
> flaws that constantly drive me nuts.  This situation causes me severe
> distress, hence I have committed my hobby time and cash budget to a
> multi-year project to solve this pressing (for me) problem.
> 
> OsmocomBB is not a solution: it works wonders for "hacking-fun" (the
> wording in the comment I'm responding to), but is utterly useless for
> a practical phone which one can carry around in a pocket or purse: my
> back just isn't strong enough to carry a supersized backpack containing
> a full PC for running the L23 stack plus a bank of lead-acid batteries.
> Hence I need a totally different Free Software GSM handset
> implementation, one that actually runs on the phone itself with proper
> power management exactly like the original proprietary firmware.  And
> because no one else is working on such a thing, I started my own, and
> made quite a bit of progress:
> 
> https://bitbucket.org/falconian/freecalypso-sw
> 
> But I am using the same Calypso GSM chipset for my project as OsmocomBB
> uses, simply because it is IMO the optimal tool for the job at hand:
> allowing a person to communicate with his or her significant other by
> way of cellular phone calls.  The word "outdated" does not exist in my
> vocabulary; I evaluate a tool based on how well it does the job, rather
> than some arbitrary irrelevant criteria like manufacture date stamps
> or whatever.
> 
> Viva la Revolucion,
> SF
>

Re: Usefulness of the Calypso (was Re: seL4 is open source now)

mark.neuhaus@email.de wrote:

> Pleae, then tell me where to get phones with a Calypso 
> baseband.

www.ebay.com

> And I'm talking about marked relevant prices. 
> Don't waste my time with numbers like 5000$.

Several OsmocomBB-supported models are currently available on ebay for
dirt cheap.

> And to be relevant these phones must still be produced so
> I can get many, if I want. 

How many?  My company will be happy to produce 5000 Calypso-based
phones for you if you make a non-cancelable purchase order and prepay
the cost of parts and production.  (5000 is the number of Calypso&co
chipsets I can buy immediately from my established supplier *without
doing any extensive searching*; one can probably get more with some
effort.)

> Beside, I think its better to work on reverse engineered
> GSM stacks like the Qualcom project as started in

It's easy to tell other people what they should work on.  While you
are busy doing that, I'll just keep working on my own solution which
will actually result in a usable phone less than a year from now.

VLR,
SF