FLOSS Smart Phones

Brad Kuhn wrote an article on the state of Smart Phones with respect to Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and says:

HTC Dream currently gives the most software freedom among Android/Linux deployments. It is unlikely that Google wants anything besides their applications to be proprietary. While Google has been unresponsive when asked why these hardware interface libraries are proprietary, it is likely that HTC, the hardware maker with whom Google contracted, insisted that these components remain proprietary, and perhaps fear patent suits... no detailed analysis of the Nexus One is yet available, it's likely similar to the HTC Dream.

With regard to permission to run one's own software on the device -- something central to phone development -- Brad points out:

Google is our best ally in this regard. The HTC Dream developer models, called the Android Dev Phone 1 (aka ADP1). permit the user to install any operating system on the phone, and the purchase agreement extract no promises from the purchaser regarding what software runs on the device. Google has no interest in locking you to a single carrier, but only to a single Google experience application vendor. Offering a user “carrier freedom of choice”, while tying those users tighter to Google applications, is probably a central part of their marketing plans.

Other interesting quotes include:

• Community-oriented forks... [must] begin in the Android/Linux space.
• A traditional “get some volunteers together and write some code” approach can achieve great advancement toward community-oriented FLOSS systems on mobile devices. Developers could initially focus on applications for the existing “mostly FLOSS” platforms of MeeGo and Android/Linux.
• We need to identify the proprietary software that is important, and write free software replacements. It's catch-up work, but our community is usually successful at such tasks. So, let's get coding on mobile! (see FSF Bulletin, Issue 16, May 2010)

Brad has some additional blog entires on android and is a co-founder of the Replicant project. I'm curious about switching providers so I'm curious about the distinction between the Hero and Dream.