Lately, I've been thinking about the future of freed phones with respect to both hardware and software. What should be discussed, and what options to we have? Should we use ARM processors without Trustzone, or use a CPU with an open Trustzone, and utilize it to increase device security (I went into more detail in an earlier post of mine, so I won't reiterate how this would be implementated.) Check this out if you want to know more: https://genode.org/documentation/articles/trustzone

It seems to me that there are several options available to us. (For now, I will ignore the issue of modem chipset's hardware isolation, baseband firmware, and possible modem hardware kill switch(s), or whether baseband will be implemented at all.)

• Triage between Debian Mobile (https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile), Plasma Mobile (https://plasma-mobile.org/), Anbox (https://github.com/anbox/anbox), and salvage Ubuntu Touch to create a mobile version of PureOS, running on a custom linux-libre-grsec kernel, and capable of running Android apps.
• Create a customized and beatiful fork of Replicant (https://www.replicant.us), which is a FSF endorsed 100% Free Software Android distribution that incorporates features from AOSP, LineageOS, and CopperheadOS. You could name is something like PureDroid. It would have a beautiful set of Creative Commons background images, have a preconfigured launcher, with all of the best and most useful apps from F-Droid. We should encourage the use of freed network communication technology such as Matrix, Ring, Diaspora, Mastodon, XMPP, etc.
• Go the extra mile with the Custom Replicant OS mentioned above and run it on a microkernel instead of Linux. This would be no easy feat, but there is already work underway for this happen. (Like I said, I went into detail in an earlier post.)
• Keep an eye on Google's Fuschia OS (w/ Magenta microkernel) perhaps for the future, if it still turns out to be Free Software and Hardware respecting.