David Heidelberg
David is a “preacher of free software,” focused on digital rights, privacy, and user sovereignty. He works on making mobile Linux viable on smartphones, primarily targeting Snapdragon 845 devices. His work spans kernel bring-up, mainlining, power management, and reducing reliance on proprietary stacks—aiming to make Linux phones practical, sustainable, and freedom-respecting.
Session
We build the kernel so systems behave predictably. For most servers, desktops, and laptops, the default architecture defconfig is “good enough.” Embedded boards and mobile devices are different: they often rely on device-specific configuration fragments maintained out-of-tree, and even a “close-to-mainline” kernel can require a bespoke fragment just to boot reliably. Meanwhile, selecting a mainline kernel with “similar” support frequently yields only partially working hardware.