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Guidelines for evaluating a new device [last edit: 21/12/2019]

Added by Paul Kocialkowski over 11 years ago

Adding support for a new device in Replicant takes some time and effort.

Because of that, adding new devices in that page doesn't guarantee at all that the device will be supported in Replicant, even if that device has significantly less freedom issues than the ones currently supported by Replicant, as some people still need to step up and do the work.

Adding devices in nevertheless very useful. Replicant users, contributors, and many other people can use that page for many purposes. For instance:
  • If the device you add has the same or less freedom issues than the ones supported by Replicant, it Replicant and its present or potentiality developers plan ahead and decide whether or not to add support for a given device or a class of devices. It also helps Replicant decide on which strategies are best for the long term, based on which devices are possible to support.
  • If the device is known to be very bad (signed kernels), it helps gathering information on how spread the issue is, which in return can help fighting it back through communication (by making presentations on it, helping the FSF campaign against it, etc) or by engaging with legislators.
  • If the device has features that are rare it might be interesting to document that as well.
  • If a given device is common and bad, information there can be used to point that out.

If the device has good support upstream, it is also very interesting to add it in the Upstream page, even if it's very bad for freedom, as we also need to evaluate our relationship with other projects like LineageOS and Linux.

To add a device in TargetsEvaluation:
  • Only fill the fields you know about it or add some '?' if you're unsure. Try hard not to put misleading information and/or fix it if you do.
  • Try to follow the order in which the devices are added. For instance, currently they see to be sorted alphabetically so it might be a good idea to keep that. The advantage of doing that is that a device won't be added twice.
  • It's also a good idea to read the Evaluation-criteria section section in that page to get an idea of what could be interesting to mention.

Also note that some Replicant contributors like me tend to be less on the forum but read the wiki.

Before, that page was only used to track which devices were considered to be added to Replicant, but information on devices Replicant didn't want to support turned out to be useful as well.

Edited by Denis Carikli the 21/12/2019.

Before suggesting a new device, make sure your suggestion complies with the following points:
* Your devices matches at least the minimal requirements matched in TargetsEvaluation
* Your device is not a "known to be bad" target as explained in TargetsEvaluation
* Your device was not already evaluated in the TargetsEvaluation page
However you might want to open a thread nevertheless if you think we overlooked one or more aspect(s)

* Your device was not already suggested by someone else
You might want to post in the already-existing thread to back the suggestion