Re: Further details of theprocess as we ramp up production of Freerunner
Carlo E. Prelz wrote: I am just curious: what do you do with these hundreds of phones that come out of test runs? After all due tests are performed on them, could they be offered as a sort of lottery draw to list contributors? (without any warranty, at a reduced price, you name it...) Or do they just throw them in the garbage bin?!? For what it's worth, it used to be--this is back in the 90s--that when Apple produced prototypes, EVT units, PVT units, etc., Apple was able to take the cost of making them (and a prototype could cost upwards of $50,000) as a Federal tax deduction as long as the units were destroyed. That's changed now, but there may be other similar issues in other geographies. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: FreeRunner delayed a further 6 months?!?!??
Lally Singh wrote: When someone says this should get fixed the *last* response to give is fix it yourself. Clearly the words of someone who's never attempted to complain about the lack of a driver for their special hardware on the Linux kernel mailing list. Fix it yourself is actually a pretty common response in open source projects when the fix that's being demanded is a relatively low priority in the grand scheme of things. Fact is, there's never a shortage of things needing to be done, and the folks who are being paid to work on OpenMoko no doubt have a long, long list of things that they need to fix already. So your options amount to fix it yourself, do without or wait. That's the reality of open source projects, particularly those at an early stage, as OpenMoko is: if you're convinced that what you need is a high priority, then the expectation is that you'll put your money where your mouth is and start contributing. (Of course, if you'd prefer, you could go to a platform like the iPhone, so when you demand that you need to have, say, cut and paste capabilities, the response will effectively be, Tough or No, you don't.) I'd be interested in hearing about the open source projects you're familiar with, particularly those where the response is How high? when the demand is Jump! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: FreeRunner delayed a further 6 months?!?!??
Lally Singh wrote: Oh sheesh. Why are you trying so hard to poison this project? Oh, please. If you want to entertain me with rhetoric, put more effort into it. I'm not poisoning this project, I'm simply adding a note of actual reality here. If anything might have that effect, I'd imagine it'd be the persistent and unrealistic complaints about a project which has been more open and transparent than any hardware project I've ever seen. And, having worked at both Apple and Palm for a number of years, and having spent the past seven years in the cell phone industry, I've seen plenty of 'em. The fact is that the sort of response with which you're so unhappy is not unusual in open source projects at all. You're doing a lot of opining about what open source projects do without a lot of substantiation to back it up. All of this is not much different than the demands, many months ago, about Why can't you _just add WiFi_? to the GTA01, equally misinformed, equally unhelpful. Here's an idea: you want a wish list, and feel there's a pressing need for one, why don't you create it? It's, after all, the open source thing to do, right? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neo Freerunner manufacturing status
Matt Manjos wrote: I'm not too current on electronics manufacturing, but am I correct in assuming this PVT is more of a ramping-up, factory thing? Or is it more of an electronics sourcing/tooling sort of thing? PVT is typically the final test build before actual hardware production starts. It's done on the real factory line, and the devices produced are (in theory) identical to the ultimate product. If they go to an A6, I'd expect another PVT run to prove things out with that before they start making the devices in earnest. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: FreeRunner delayed a further 6 months?!?!??
Mark Haury wrote: Matt Manjos matt at manjos.com wrote on Sun Mar 16 16:23:09 CET 2008: I think the main concern with FIC at the moment is that if they release the Freerunner developer-only hardware now, produced in 10x the quantity of the 1973 (what was hinted to earlier), and some major hardware problem was found, it could destroy the credibility and the resources of the project. I hate waiting like this, and I was hoping to get the Freerunner developer model for my birthday in a few weeks, but I'd much rather wait and have the guarantee that I won't be SOL if there is a problem with the function or the longevity of the device. Which is worse: the fear of possible failure, or certain failure? Clearly the words of someone who's never, ever, worked on a complex hardware project. No, just ship it is not good advice. The fear of failure is usually self-fulfilling prophecy. Lack of proper planning and oversight, not to mention due diligence, pretty much always is. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Do you have any notion of what it costs to produce multiple thousands of smartphones, just in monetary terms? That's a lot to venture. If they're constantly going to give in to the fear of failure, then that is certainly what's going to happen. Like I say, I don't get the impression that you've got the experience to have an informed opinion on this, in all honesty. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: LiMo article in Washington Post (or Another Rant From Lefty)
Steven ** wrote: The article says Anyone hoping to create new applications for competing proprietary programs from Microsoft Corp., Palm Inc., Research in Motion Ltd. or Nokia Corp.'s Symbian must pay licensing fees. First off, this aspect of the story isn't even accurate. I'm not aware that third-party application developers need to pay anybody anything to write such applications for Windows Mobile- or for Symbian-based systems (whether the Series 60 ones from Nokia or the UIQ ones from Sony-Ericsson). They most certainly don't pay licensing fees to write applications for Garnet OS, which powers Palm devices (and which is a product of ACCESS), and they never have. I don't know about RIM devices. This writer is confused between, on the one hand, commercial license fees for applications developers, and, on the other, the license fees which device manufacturers (such as Palm, Nokia, HTC, etc.) pay to operating system vendors (like ACCESS, Symbian, and Microsoft, respectively) to make the units they sell which use those operating systems. (Palm actually bought a perpetual license to Garnet from us a while back, so they don't have to pay us licensing fees any more, as it happens.) This is substantially different than, for example, the situation with Qt and Trolltech, where application developers /do /have to get a commercial license (for about US$2,000) from Trolltech if they want to make applications which they will sell rather than give away (which they can do under GPL 3 terms at this point). This is possible because, while Qt is indeed open source, Trolltech holds the copyright and can dictate commercial terms regardless of its status as free (as in speech, not as in beer) software. So, I'd say it doesn't relate to OpenMoko. OpenMoko is truly an open platform that you can develop for without restrictions and without paying anything. LiMo seems to me to be some big companies grabbing on to what they believe to be this great new buzz-word: Linux. I'd say it /should /relate to OpenMoko. LiMo is about middleware, things like messaging frameworks, telephony frameworks, etc., which is an overlap area with OpenMoko, true. On the other hand, LiMo devices will evidently be using not only the Linux kernel, but also things like GTK and the like, components which OpenMoko uses as well. If the companies in LiMo make improvements to GTK, would you recommend that OpenMoko refuse to look at them on the basis that they came from some big companies grabbing on to what they believe to be this great new buzz-word: Linux...? Seems unreasonable (and unwise) to me. People keep wishing that they could run the OpenMoko stack (for whatever degree of runnable) on devices other than the Neo; they complain about how the carriers don't get it (without necessarily understanding the nature of the global wireless telecommunications business to any particular degree); the companies in LiMo represent some of the largest carriers and manufacturers of cell phones in the world I'd say ignoring them, rather than working to positively engage with them, will ensure that OpenMoko is relegated to a small number of hard-to-get devices for hobbyists, and that the capabilities of phones coming out of the big companies in LiMo will quickly surpass them; these folks make phones for a living, not for fun. Be as suspicious as you like, but I'd suggest that's unproductive; LiMo's published APIs for you to look at, and they seem to be putting out a lot more information (including some podcasts explaining their view of what they're doing and the market as they see it), so if you want to critique 'em, at least you can do it on an informed basis. As Harlan Ellison observed, Everyone's entitled to an /educated /opinion. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Possible to add OpenMoko to the email title
David Shanks wrote: I suppose this is directed to the list moderators/admins. I was wondering if there is a way to have openmoko or some list descriptor like community added in front of the subject of the emails sent out by the list. It would make sorting my emails much simpler, as right now i'm forced to sort my mailbox by hand daily. Why don't you use Thunderbird, and simply set up a message filter on the To: address? Manual sorting is for people who don't have computers. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Apple is going to beat all competitors
Anyone saw new Apple announcement? Now iPhone is priced at $399.. ...an act which has certainly pissed off all the folks who got suckered into standing in lines for days and paying through the nose to be the first kid on the block with one. This will not incent future potential buyers to get, for example, an iPod Touch right away, as opposed to waiting a few months to see what the price drop will be. Not a good strategic move. Beyond that, a price drop of 33% on a product scarcely two months old strongly suggests that iPhones are not exactly flying off the shelves now that the initial reaction has died down... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Convince me NOT to cancel my order.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] IMHO, Your response here to Joe was uncalled for and frankly, rude. I said much the same to this person, off-list, and got an equally churlish response. I see a spam filter coming with his email address on it... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Finger Graffiti
Jay Vaughan wrote: it just happens that Graffiti is what people know finger painting on your PDA to be .. its common enough to warrant usage as a word referring to the activity of finger-painting symbols for recognition on a devices surface. No, sorry, this is incorrect, and precisely _why_ I have to point out that Graffiti is a registered trademark: it is _not_ a generic term for finger painting on your PDA, Graffiti refers to a specific writing system and implementation of that system, and no other. The reason for mentioning trademark status is specifically to keep it from _becoming_ a generic term (like zipper, kleenex and, to an extent, xerox, have become generic terms), and is something which, as I've said, holding a trademark obligates the owner to do. Sean and team will be obliged to do precisely the same sort of thing if they become aware of someone (mis)using the OpenMoko trademark in some way that they didn't intend. This is basic trademark law, I'm afraid. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Finger Graffiti
Giles Jones wrote: Except that OpenMoko is a completely made up phrase which has no other use in the English language. That's completely irrelevant, I'm afraid. (By the way, there was a Cafe Moko right around the corner from my hotel in London; I've got a picture of the sign someplace...) Graffiti is a dictionary word. Trademarks against dictionary words are stupid. Microsoft should never have been able to trademark Windows either. Trademarks exist in specific contexts for particular usages, they're not a global thing. I'm obligated to deal with trademark law as I find it; if you wish it were something different, you'll need to write your Congressional representative... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: freetheiphone.org
Operator phone requirements are huge and ornate, and, essentially, conformance testing is done by invitation only, only for phones that the operator is planning on selling directly. The requirements for one major European carrier are about 1200 pages in length... The requirements are only available under an NDA. vivek khurana wrote: On 7/20/07, Shakthi Kannan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Adam Krikstone wrote: There's nothing stopping a GSM provider from blocking all unbranded IMEI's, including your neo. Different operators have different implementation of the GSM standard, which they call it their IP-crap-R. Now, if we want Operator Acceptance Testing with Neo, we have to sign NDA, SLA with the operators? In which case, we cannot implement the same on the Neo as the source code is open, and operators will not like that? Please correct me if I am wrong. I think acceptance test is required when a phone is locked with a plan. In situations where you can use unlocked phones without requiring permissions from GSM operators, no such test should be required. Probably, acceptance test is applicable to GSM chipset and not the phone as such. Btw any documents/pointers on so called operator acceptance test ? regards VK ___ 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
Re: Camera on GTA02
coomac wrote: On 7/23/07, *Giles Jones* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As mention previously, anything which requires the modification of the casing will be very expensive and so it's not planned. I'm sure however that people will have a go at hacking the unit and addition a module in somehow. Personally it's not a feature I care for, what with owning an SLR. I'm hoping to port some photo management software, maybe use ufRaw or similar. So you'd be able to hook up your SLR or compact. But obviously memory is tight on the device. --- G O Jones Thanks for clearing that up. I had been waiting for an announcement of the camera resolution like a kid on christmas eve. Was really hoping for a 3 MP to replace my current phone or at least a 2 MP with video to better trounce the iPhone. I still have high hopes for the phone, though I can't help wondering how much the lack of a basic camera will affect mass adoption. Possibly very ignorant on my part, but I was under the assumption modifying the case to add a camera hole would be a very minor change (read inexpensive). Ie drilling (cutting out?) a hole and covering it with some transparent material like glass or plastic. I know zilch about how this works on a large scale, so it is entirely possible I'm wrong here. Sigh. I'm having flashbacks to the can't you just add some WiFi? discussions of the GTA-01 unit. Okay, since I seem to frequently function as the injector of some reality into these discussions (aka wet blanket), yes, drilling a hole in the case is straightforward. Now, how do you propose to actually wire the camera module into the rest of the system, dare I ask...? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Access relationships
Phil Schaffner wrote: So, Lefty; What can you share about Access and ALP and the relationship to OpenMoko and/or other open source efforts (realizing that you probably can't spill all the beans :-)? Given your comments about former employer Apple, and activity on this list, seems open source software must be important to you personally. OpenMoko and the ACCESS Linux Platform are essentially independent efforts, although we have a lot of code--mostly GNOME-related stuff--in common. This gives us a lot of common interests, and representatives from both projects are involved, for instance, in the GNOME Mobile Initiative. One of the reasons for the differences in approach is that FIC sells hardware (and uses software to make those sales); ACCESS sells software to companies that _make_ hardware. Very different business models. In his presentation here at GUADEC today, Mickey Lauer expressed interest in getting components from the Hiker Project (www.hikerproject.org) into OpenMoko, something I'd certainly think worthwhile for all of us, and which I'm encouraging. Will the Garnet/PalmOS emulator be likely to be available on OpenMoko? Nope. The Garnet ROM is proprietary to ACCESS. I suppose if FIC/OpenMoko wanted to come to some sort of business arrangement with us to make it available, that's something we'd certainly be willing to discuss, but Garnet VM is something we sell... The license certainly seems limiting: Yup. A funny thing happened to me last Friday: I got paid. Access has lots of words about open source (e.g. http://www.access-company.com/about/opensource/index.html). Can we expect to see real cooperation? How open will Garnet OS be compared to OpenMoko? Define real cooperation. You seem to be operating off of some sort of unspoken assumptions, and I'd be interested in hearing what they are; I'm thinking they're well off the mark. Garnet, a proprietary legacy OS, isn't comparable to OpenMoko. The ACCESS Linux Platform is a mix of open source and proprietary components. We currently _are_ really cooperating, in GNOME Mobile, for starts. I've been strongly encouraging Sean to get OpenMoko involved in other relevant groups, such as the Linux Phone Standards Forum (www.lipsforum.org), and the Linux Foundation, but that, sadly, hasn't happened so far. ACCESS is extremely active in industry and community initiatives in order to ensure that mobile Linux platforms don't get fragmented. I'm the chair of the Linux Foundation's Mobile Working Group, and vice-chair of the LiPS Architectural Working Group. Don't see any community around Access of the vitality of OpenMoko. Hm. I don't know what you consider to be vitality. Crafting marketing messages for a phone that won't be ready to be sold to anyone but hackers--a point Mickey made quite clearly this morning--for six months to a year...? I'm not sure, myself. The Access forums seem rather limited. Some real two-way-street cooperation would seemingly be mutually beneficial to the two efforts, as well as to embedded/phone FOSS more generally. ACCESS has an active developer program which anyone is welcome to join and participate in. Our own main efforts, right now, are involved in working with various hardware manufacturers (and no, I can't name them: our customers don't like it much when I pre-announce their product plans for them). Our main community activity right at the moment is the Hiker Project (I'm presenting on this at GUADEC today, and I presented on it at Ottawa Linux Symposium late last month). Feel free to join in there if you like. For more information on the ACCESS Developers' Network, see www.*access*-company.com/*developer*s/ As I mentioned above, ACCESS is very much involved in community efforts on a number of levels: beyond our involvement in groups like GMAE, LiPS and the Linux Foundation, we're sponsors of this year's GUADEC, and we sponsored FOSTEL. There are lots of ways that companies can contribute to the open source community. We're doing our share, I'd say. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I feel as though I detect a tone in your message here suggesting that you'd like to somehow pit ACCESS' efforts against OpenMoko's. That surely doesn't seem like a way to encourage real cooperation, does it...? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Not the free phone
Giles Jones wrote: Maybe, but then I think all the marketing is academic without the software being there and working. Oh, finally. Thanks, Giles. I'd have to say that academic is an understatement: if you actually sold one to someone who wasn't capable of building and installing a Linux system on the device, and wasn't aware that the software was incomplete and unstable, you'd be doing them a serious disservice if you created the impression that this was a phone on which they'd be able to rely on a day-to-day basis. I have no idea who folks are hoping to market this phone to in this fashion. If you're going after the open source community, you can count on selling dozens; maybe even scores. But there's no way that this device can be marketed to _real_ end-users until the software is in a substantially more solid state. On average, folks who buy cell phones are not likely to buy one based on the notion that one provides more liberty--they'll have no idea what you're talking about, and if you attempt to explain it, they'll _still_ have no idea what you're talking about. In fact, you're going to have to work harder to sell an unlocked phone to folks (at least in the States, where such things are pretty rare) at all--it's actually _less_ convenient for them, in that they're going to have to go through a run-around with some carrier or other to get service. Even the Your phone, your way message is quite misleading. I haven't attempted to get a naked SIM card from, say, ATT, but I bet they're not especially well set-up to handle requests like that. It's even possible that they might refuse to do it at all: carriers have requirements for the devices which use their networks, and they might well insist that you obtain _some_ phone from them to surround your SIM card with. _Now_ your big marketing challenge becomes explaining to my grandma why she needs to get a _different_ phone in order to use _this_ phone. All of this freedom talk is both off the mark, as well as beside the point, in my opinion. The best thing people can do to make this all a reality is to help out with the software development, if they're able to. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Fwd: Not the free phone
Sven wrote: I'd call it the tuxphone. Why? Do you need to be wearing a tuxedo to use it...? (Yes, _I_ know, and _you_ know, but trust me, Sean will be spending the next year answering exactly that sort of question.) ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Reason for openmoko - bugsafe?
Okay, not to put too fine a point on it, but this is possibly the silliest reason ever for choosing one phone over another. Cell phone communications are transmitted via radio, and are trivial to eavesdrop on with the right equipment. If you're actually worried about this possibility (and I can't really imagine why anyone would be), then you need not to use cell phones. In fact, you probably need to use nothing but randomly-selected _pay_ phones. (And you're using _gmail_? Wow.) Edwin Lock wrote: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/92713 Hello Openmokoers! This is actually the reason that I got to read about the openmoko, I read an article about mobile phones being bug-able some time ago and googled for an open linux phone. And I found the openmoko ;) Just a quick question, what the police are doing, described in the article, is this only software or can that be done with only the gsm chip or so? My question is actually: Is the neo protected against this kind of bugging or not? It's not that I'm a terrorist or so but I just don't feel very safe otherwise ;) Greetings, Edwin Lock PS: Sorry, the article is in german.. ___ 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
Re: Reason for openmoko - bugsafe?
Lars Hallberg wrote: I think the issue is if the phone can bug *any* conversation You have when the phone is around, not only phone conversations. That is a valid concern. And I believe Neo can be safe if we make sure to use the mixer to turn of the mic/speaker connection to the gsm chip while there is no active phonecall... That is... unless ti have a mic on the gsm chip :-) I'm personally quite confident that if some government or other decides that they need to listen in on my conversations, my having a cellphone which won't cooperate with them isn't going to slow them down particularly. I'm also quite confident that I'm not interesting enough to any government for them to go to the trouble. On my list of things to worry about, this possibility ranks a good bit below things like being struck by lightning and being eaten by a Great White Shark. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Fake Steve Rags on OpenMoko!
I don't recall having seen a mention of this on the list previously, but Fake Steve Jobs has taken notice of the FIC1973... http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/06/freetards-are-trying-to-make-iphone.html Freetards, hm? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Fake Steve Rags on OpenMoko!
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote: If you were writing a tongue-in-cheek piece what pithy term would you use for open-source folks? Communists...? It is all good clean fun. Don't take it too seriously. I used to _work_ for Apple, and I know Real Steve... Believe me, I'm the _last_ person who'd take it too seriously... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
