Last Fall, Richard Stallman published an article in which he states that, "for a computer user that values freedom", the most important question to be asking yourself about the Android operating system is: "[t]o what extent does Android respect the freedom of its users?"

If you are interested in finding the answer to this question, then the Free Software Foundation Europe has just the resource for you! Their new campaign, Free Your Android, delves into issues of freedom, privacy, and control as they relate to the various services, markets, and apps for Android. While there is only one distribution of Android that does not include some nonfree software — Replicant — the site does provide helpful information, as well as cautionary warnings on other, nonfree distributions of Android. The purpose of the site is to eliminate proprietary software for Android and replace it with free software — or, as they write: "Liberate your Android device: learn how to regain control of your data, with a free operating system and free apps!"

Here at the FSF, many of us are fortunate enough to own phones that are able to run Replicant. But, we have put Replicant on our list of High Priority Reverse Engineering Projects to encourage people to work on Replicant so it will be able to support more devices than just the HTC Dream and the Nexus One phones. Please support FSFE's campaign, and also stay tuned for more news very soon about the FSF and GNU working in the area of mobile device freedom!