On 1/18/07, Renaissance Man <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Most of my phone calls are made at work and home, both of which already have WiFi,
Then for everbody's sake use the 350$ to buy two simple WiFi VOIP-phones, one for home, one for work and stop whining. Here for example: http://www.voipsupply.com/product_info.php?products_id=802 Even after getting two VOIP-phones, you'll still have 110$ left over to get a cheap gsm phone even. If you think openmoko is all about starting a hardware-revolution, you're in the wrong place, sorry. openmoko is the software-platform. FIC (and in the future hopefully others as I understand it) are building the phones. There will eventually be all kinds of different hardware configurations, I expect. From Everything and the kitchen sink, to economic models. Being the first to offer something also has very, very little to do with whether you're going to get big market share, especially if it is something that is so relatively "easily" (from an "innovation POV) copied as a wifi-chip. And as soon as the manufacturers with greater market penetration introduce a device with the exact same feature that you claimed would differentiate your own device, you've completely lost. As has been said before, the revolutionary aspects of the openmoko lie in providing an open software platform - while that is not a direct feature to regular users, it enables many, many positives. linux is not the number one server-os on the internet, because everybody using it needed the sources to hack on the kernel, sure, but having everything open enabled many of the benefits that did finally lead to success (stability, security, extensebility, compatibility, wide variety of software etc.). Renaissance Man, reducing the success or the "revolutionary aspect" of openmoko to the aspect of Wifi is missing the point completely and utterly. I made this comparison the other day on irc, it's like (let me be very loose here with the historical facts to make a point) the french revolution is starting with the goal to establish the first democracy in the contemporary western world, and then there's guys bitching that they are using pitchforks, when they could be using trebuchets or slingshots, and how therefor that whole revolution is a lost cause and not worth taking part in. You also seem to lack the capacity to understand the fundamental argument people are making. _Nobody_ is saying wifi is useless or unimportant. That is not the question, but it seems to be the only thing you're ever answering. (Just about) _Everybody_ (certainly including the openmoko and FIC people) would prefer to have Wifi _if_ everything else was equal. Now that last qualifier is the fundamental argument you seem to be missing: "if everthing else was equal". Here's a message from the reality-based world: Reality doesn't work that way. Everything has trade-offs, and that point has been repeatedly made above, and has been ignored by you. Adding wifi to the first generation device would come at a very very high cost, certainly now, that the decision has already been made for a while, but to a similar degree even at the point the decision was made. Do you understand the concept of cost? And it's not just monetary cost I am talking about. Let me illustrate it: Another absolutly revolutionary feature that would make everybody want to buy the phone would be to have a star trek like transporter and replicator. It would be endlessly cool, you would just beam over and talk face to face saving a whole bunch of money. Not to mention the savings on food. However on the "cost-side" it would mean that the time to market for the device would have just been lengthened by an indeterminate amount of time. Now, when it comes to make the decision you have to decide, you have to weigh the plus and minus side. While the plus side is alsmost "cool to infinity", the minus side makes any reasonable person think: "well, let's not worry about those features now, and get the revolution going first, we can always add replicators and transporters later." Now, if you insist on keeping this discussion about adding wifi to the 1st gen. device going, at least make an effort to answer to people's arguments about the trade-offs and cost involved. From your answers it seems as if adding wifi only comes at the cost of raising the end-price for a few bucks. Evidently that is patently "false" (or rather incomplete). It would also mean: - higher price (as mentioned) - higher energy usage, less standby time - all the time spent on getting wifi to work, is time that the developers cannot spend on any of the other cool features of the software - all the time getting a proper VOIP application working is time that the developers cannot spend on any of the other cool features of the software - no devices for many interested developers for an additional few months - no other people starting to write cool software for an additional few months - no testing from end-users for an additional few months - more negative press and FUD that this another case of much promised and nothing will be delivered (DukeNukem Forever syndrome) - loosing momentum and interested people that jump to alternative platforms/devices - ... Now you say you are willing to sell body parts to get that feature. In my book that proves that you've completely lost it and do not operate from a reality-based world-view. So, go ahead and start selling your body parts, I am sure that wifi appearing on an openmoko device is only a matter time. But I am glad, that the people responsible, i.e. those making the decisions have some concept, no, actually have a pretty good grip of reality from where I am sitting. That to me makes the success of the openmoko more likely in the long-term. And that makes me want to spend money and time on it. Now if anybody was in charge, that was selling body parts or making other equaly dubious trade-offs for meaningless "phyrric victories" with respect to indivual aspects of the software or hardware, I would be running at top speed in the other direction, because failure would be inevitable. greetings from the reality-based world Sencer _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community