@&amp;#&amp;!@)(@&#x27;in phones is what. Specifically the cellular radio components; put a cell radio in a device and suddenly you are hardcore rammed into proprietary software land. The halo seems to extend even to tablets that don&#x27;t hook up the cell network since all the hardware still sources from phone-land.<p>I&#x27;d rather have open software slowly and even ungracefully get phone functionality merged into it, but that&#x27;s basically not possible, so instead we&#x27;ve been forced to go the other way, laboriously, slowly, and largely unsuccessfully trying to open hardware and software up that is starting from a position of totally proprietary.<p>This is one of the most frustrating development to me of the past ten years. We&#x27;ve made huge strides towards proprietary, locked-down hardware, because of cell phones, even in systems that don&#x27;t use them. I&#x27;d love something like the Ubuntu phone, at least in principle, but it&#x27;s swimming upstream against some very strong currents.