On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 8:50 PM, Justin Treon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dear OpenEZX, > > I think that it is important to have more than just the FIC FreeRunner as a > development platform. Phones like the Rokr E2 seem very important to me > since it is > a candy bar phone with no touch screen. Which of the EZX phones should > OpenEZX > focus on in the future? I would like to hear the option of anyone > interested. > > Justin
I am not a developer, just an interested party/lurker, but I thought I'd add my comments to give another POV. It seems to me many projects porting Linux to mobile devices remain incomplete and this is shame for people that don't have skill/time/interest to hack but do want to use a freed phone. I understand that for many people in this project the fun is in the development not in the end result - but I'd like to throw in the idea that there are lots of people around for whom a finished solution, even for an old phone, is really awesome - more so than three incomplete solutions. >From my fairly short time lurking around these projects it seems that the large number of 'close but no cigar' solutions occurs because the time it takes to develop a working OSS stack > time for new product to be replaced by manufacturers. If the people who are doing the work on OpenEZX shift focus now, will they ever finish support for the platform they shift to? (I am aware this is an end user centred view! - I would be interested to know if for the developers that doesn't really matter?) Further, it seems working towards support for phones that can be cheaply purchased on eBay, etc, also increases the number of people able to buy the hardware and improve support for it, as well as the number of people who can benefit from the good work when it is done, I guess making the work potentially more satisfying too! Just for evenness in argument: I also think (hope?) I see a trend towards openness in phone hardware, and good portable OSS stacks - perhaps this will reduce the time required to make a totally open linux distro like OpenEZX usefully functional on newer devices and so means shifting focus to newer devices is a good idea... People with more dev experience can comment on how true this is, I'm sure. I should finish by 'disclosing' that I have an A780, and came to OEZX in the hope that I'd be able to use it with only free software (I wrote http://wiki.openezx.org/Getting_Started_A780 to help other beginners like me) . I hope my view is not greatly biased by this particular phone though (I bought the A780 at the time as it was best supported phone, I can sell it and buy an A1200 if that becomes best supported - the price difference is not great..). My main thrust is not "finish the A780" but more - "finish something" and it seems (to me as an end user, not a developer, please politely correct me if I'm wrong) that the best chance of that is to stick with something where lots of time has already been invested and progress made. I have spent a while trying to find a project close to fully supporting an affordable phone with FLOSS software. I chose OpenEZX as it seemed to be closest to that goal (going OpenMoko meant no useful phone in interim time) - I think achieving it would bring many more interested/ing people. As this is (I think) my first post - I'll finish by thanking the people that hack on the project for the fun I've had playing so far! Thanks! Who
