Christoph Pulster wrote: > As you already said, companiess who built a solution based on the > Openmoko need a reliable product AND a reliable company behind.
Hmm, I think you're right that there has to be a company that buffers the customer from the increasingly chaotic (*) "inner layers". However, I'm not sure this company has to be the manufacturer or "owner" of the product, nor that there would have to be just one company in this buffer role. E.g., I could easily imagine a consortium grouped around an open design. That's one of the possible directions I see for the work we've started with gta02-core. Such a consortium could be much more reliable than a single company. If someone drops out, others can fill the gap. If the consortium as a whole falls apart or veers off course, anyone can pick up the design and continue producing it. You can even have mobility at the level of individual engineers. So the product would live as long as there's enough interest in seeing it live, much as it is with Open Source software. Also, if we consider project customers, many of them have needs the current market offerings cannot satisfy, they usually do have technical competence, and they have some money. What they don't have is the size and pull to just create the product they need from scratch. Now, there are many roles they could play. They could be "just customers". They could take a more proactive role and be part of such a consortium. Or maybe they're even underestimating their potential and would actually be able to take the lead in creating such a product from scratch. They just don't think they could. (*) Chaotic, not necessarily because of a lack of structure, but simply because of the amount of information going around and because there will invariably be a lot of horrifying news that don't have much of an impact in the long run. - Werner _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community