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I’m looking for a tablet that ships with FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) only.

For the FLOSS smartphone (which I‘m also looking for), I was willing to accept the compromise that firmware/drivers may still be proprietary; however, this is not acceptable for the tablet. Everything has to be FLOSS.

Price, size, and hardware specifications don’t matter. No need for SIM card support.

Requirements (no compromises):

  • all pre-installed software (e.g., firmware/drivers, operating system, apps, modifications) has to be FLOSS (i.e., licensed under a license approved by the FSF and/or the OSI)
  • it has a touchscreen
  • it has to support WLAN

Optional (would be great):

  • slot for SD card
  • USB port (which allows to connect it to a PC where folders/files can be read/written, just like with a regular USB stick)
  • Bluetooth support
  • no void of warranty because of installing a different OS
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  • What about the drivers of the embedded hardware? Many of them contains binaryonly firmware. :-(
    – peterh
    Commented Sep 17, 2015 at 22:05
  • @peterh: In this question I’d like to keep it 100% free/libre. However, I (or someone else) might create another question with a similar compromise like with the smartphone, where firmware/drivers may be proprietary.
    – unor
    Commented Sep 18, 2015 at 11:50
  • 2
    @peterh If there is nothing, that is a valid answer :)
    – Zizouz212
    Commented Sep 20, 2015 at 21:20
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    DO NOT go for Android with proprietary drivers. You'll lose the ability to upgrade Android in no time. Vendors usually stop upgrading system software for "old" devices (0.5..1 years is old) to force customers buy newer devices. And old Android versions tend to suffer badly from security holes.
    – Display Name
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 16:16
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    @JonasCz The Raspberry Pi is not fully open source, though there are efforts to create FLOSS software to replace some proprietary drivers for the underlying broadcom processor. raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/27005/…
    – Adam Davis
    Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 15:29

1 Answer 1

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There are two tablets which are officially supported by Replicant - a fully open source Android distribution - namely Galaxy Tab 2 10.1" and Galaxy Tab 2 7.0". However, they run on proprietary hardware and firmware.

Another possibility is an open source LuneOS Linux distribution, which runs on HP Touchpad. But it has proprietary hardware as well.

We will see if BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Tablet is fully open source when it hits the shelves.

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