Dale, > The Freerunner had (has?) great potential, but we > couldn't realize that potential without basic reliable functionality. > If the concerted efforts of many talented (in some cases even paid) > engineers couldn't achieve that basic milestone, it seems unlikely > that it will be achieved by a loosely-organized group of unpaid (and > demoralized) volunteers.
Thanks for your concern and (slight) impatience. Several efforts are underway to form really solid groups, both community and commercial, to continue with the open phone. I haven't noticed any demoralization, quite to the contrary. But I do believe the size of our community is stagnant or slowly shrinking. Which only makes sense given that there is not much visible progress right now. BTW here are some interesting statistics about our community: http://downloads.openmoko.org/stats/05/ And number of subscribers to our mailing lists: https://monitor.openmoko.org/munin/chandra/sita.openmoko.org-mailman_detail.html (openmoko-kernel is missing for some reason, we will fix this, I believe it has around 600 subscribers) As for the 'big picture' of open devices - on the technical level there are a number of categories that are merging over the next few years: phones, portable media players, electronic dictionaries, navigation devices. Other non-mobile categories are also not far behind (picture frames, set-top boxes, wifi routers, NAS). For these types of devices, there are a few 'open' options here and there, but by Openmoko's standards for the largest part it's all closed. Going forward we need to find more semiconductor partners that understand 'open' and know how they can create value with it. In today's consumer electronics industry, semiconductor companies are the ones writing the drivers, they do reference designs for manufacturers. Trying to do open devices without the help of semiconductor companies will just not work. The good news is that pretty much all semiconductors have a relaxed, and often friendly, attitude towards 'Linux' nowadays. They see the potential, and real size of the market today. Things like Android help tremendously! Bottom line - the path to a fully open phone as envisioned by Openmoko and our phantastic community is still long. Maybe even 5+ years. I'm not discouraged by that at all. gta02-core is on track, and Werner has as clear a long-term plan of why and where this will all go as everybody else. Realistically I am hoping that actual physical hardware will come out of it within 12 months or so. In other parts of the Openmoko landscape, work is going on on non-phone projects, whether they are called Project B or C or D. Even if those devices are not a phone initially, trust me they will all become phones :-) Thanks for staying with us, I hope you enjoy the ride with your 'pioneering' Neo (I'm a daily user myself). Best Regards, and keep your feedback coming! Wolfgang Dale Schumacher wrote: > On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:00 PM, Boris Wong<lists.bo...@bshed.com> wrote: > >> Steve Mosher wrote: >> >>> 1. Its a mobile Phone First, and a multi purpose platform secondarily >>> >>> >> I actually like the perspective of #1 very much and you should keep it >> as such. >> > ...snip... > >> Free the phone; we already have multi-purpose platform devices that run >> linux. >> > > I'm totally on-board with this message, vision and mission. The > problem is--after all this time, that vision remains unfulfilled. My > biggest disappointment has been the fact that my Openmoko Freerunner > (which I've had since helping form the Austin buying group) is still > not _nearly_ as reliable as any cheap simple handset I can get for 10% > of the cost. The Freerunner had (has?) great potential, but we > couldn't realize that potential without basic reliable functionality. > If the concerted efforts of many talented (in some cases even paid) > engineers couldn't achieve that basic milestone, it seems unlikely > that it will be achieved by a loosely-organized group of unpaid (and > demoralized) volunteers. > > I truly hope I'm wrong--and I applaud the efforts of those who > continue to strive for this goal. I also want to express my thanks > for the efforts of all those who have worked so long and hard trying > to achieve this vision. > > _______________________________________________ > Openmoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community > _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community