>> > No. They didn't want to provide specs in order to make FLOSS drivers possible at all. And they didn't provide good reasons for that.
> Do you have a source for this claim?
This was said by one of the Purism employees on their forums, although not specifically about phones:
I have talked to many manufacturers over the course of the past years and in most cases not releasing more as open source has more to do with unproven fear of everything and less concrete risk assessment. Very often you also encounter the “Oh, then we loose our business advantage!” argument, which IMHO is plain false. I do not know of any case in the industry where open source would have been detrimental for a chip maker’s business. Not happening.
That quote also mentions a very good reason for which radio hardware makers in particular must have firmware that users can't modify: they are not allowed to sell the hardware unless it is guaranteed to meet all radio regulations. Otherwise, if you use hardware they produced to emit radio in illegal ways, they will be held liable, if they didn't take steps to prevent this, at least in the USA. Libre radio firmware will never happen unless legislation in the area changes significantly.
I also would say, again, that I very much doubt any other manufacturer is getting the kind of specs you are hoping for. Android phones at least definitely use firmware blobs from component manufacturers. Apple does as well for the antennas, though maybe not for some other parts?
> a very good reason for which radio hardware makers in particular must have firmware that users can't modify
This is not a very good reason. By this reasoning, ordinary cars must be prohibited, since you can dangerously modify them. Also, it's not relevant for this discussion.
> Do you have a source for this claim?
This was said by one of the Purism employees on their forums, although not specifically about phones:
I have talked to many manufacturers over the course of the past years and in most cases not releasing more as open source has more to do with unproven fear of everything and less concrete risk assessment. Very often you also encounter the “Oh, then we loose our business advantage!” argument, which IMHO is plain false. I do not know of any case in the industry where open source would have been detrimental for a chip maker’s business. Not happening.
https://forums.puri.sm/t/free-firmware-for-intel-wifi-cards/...