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Concept
Replicant (operating system)
Summary
Replicant is a free operating system (OS) based on the Android mobile platform that intends to replace all proprietary Android components with free-software counterparts. It is available for several smartphones and tablet computers. It is written in the same programming languages as Android (from which it is forked indirectly). The modifications are mostly in the C language; the changes are mostly to the lower-level parts of the OS, such as the Linux kernel and drivers that use it.
The name Replicant is drawn from the fictional replicant androids in the Blade Runner movie. Replicant is sponsored and supported by the Free Software Foundation and partially by NLnet.
The Replicant project started in mid-2010 with an effort to consolidate various initiatives attempting to produce a fully free-as-in-freedom Android derivative for the HTC Dream device. The original team consisted of Bradley M. Kuhn, Aaron Williamson, Graziano Sorbaioli and Denis ‘GNUtoo’ Carikli. The project quickly led to the writing of replacement code for the non-free parts that were required to make HTC Dream functional. The first component to be replaced permitted audio to work without a proprietary library. Replicant originally provided its own FOSS application repository, which was later replaced by F-Droid. In June 2022, Replicant announced they had removed F-Droid.
The Radio Interface Layer software that handles communication with the modem was replaced by free code, thus making the telephony part usable. A library handling GPS was then adapted from free code that was originally written for another phone and permitted HTC Dream to have GPS working with Replicant.
Early versions of Replicant were based on Android Open Source Project code, while versions 2.2 (April 2011) and later used CyanogenMod as their base in order to make supporting more devices easier. In a blog post on February 1, 2017, the Replicant project said that the future versions of Replicant will be based on LineageOS, as the CyanogenMod project was discontinued.
Official source
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