"It just recently became possible to run some very widely used phones with free software," Stallman said. "There's a version of Android called that can run on the HTC Dream phone without proprietary software, except in the U.S. In the U.S., as of a few weeks ago there was still a problem in some dialing library, although it worked in Europe. By now, maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know."

Although Android is distributed with free software licenses, Stallman notes that manufacturers can ship the devices with non-free executables, which users cannot replace "because there is a device in the phone that checks if the software is changed and won't let the modified executables run." Stallman calls it "tivoization," because TiVo uses free software but lays down hardware restrictions to prevent it from being altered. "If the manufacturer can replace the executable but you can't, then the product is a jail," he says.

Theoretically, Stallman says, phones that use only free software can protect themselves from the danger of electronic eavesdropping. "If it's all free software, you can probably protect yourself from that, because that's caused by the software in the phone," he says.

Ironically enough, Stallman was speaking to me on a cell phone. Not his own, of course, but one he borrowed from a friend in Spain while on a European speaking tour. Over the course of 38 minutes, our connection was lost five times, including just after Stallman's comments about electronic eavesdropping and free software for phones. We tried to connect again several hours later but were unable to complete the interview via phone. Stallman answered the rest of my questions over e-mail.

Sacrificing convenience is something Stallman is used to. He won't use or Mac, obviously, and even software such as , perhaps the most popular operating system based on GNU and the kernel, does not meet his free software requirements.