Re: Phoenux, Phoneux, Phonux?

2012-06-11 Thread Jon "maddog" Hall

> 
> I concede that you're right about Linus and Linux. The fact remains
> for phoenux would still hold since it's pronounced with the same long
> e sound as in Linus' name. So fee-nəks (or fee-nux) and not phon-ugs.

I think the group should be more concerned about the "ugs" part, since
the word "ugh" in American slang:

Ugh Ugh ([oo^]), interj.
 An exclamation expressive of disgust, horror, or recoil. Its
 utterance is usually accompanied by a shudder.
 [1913 Webster]

md


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Re: Phoenux, Phoneux, Phonux?

2012-06-11 Thread Jon "maddog" Hall
On Mon, 2012-06-11 at 15:30 -0500, Harley Laue wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 1:15 AM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller
>  wrote:
> > Linux is pronounced in english as "Line-ugs" (/ˈlɪnəks/  [1]). I.e. it 
> > should be "phon-ugs".
> > [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
> 
> Just as an FYI from a native speaker, /ˈlɪnəks/ would be lin-əks With
> "lin" which sounds like bin or the proper name Lynn

Except that Linus' name is pronounced 'Lee-nus', not "Lin-us" or
"Lie-nus".  Therefore if the kernel was named after him, it would have
been pronounced "Lee-nux".

As the various groups went back and forth with the pronunciations of
"Linux", Linus created a .au file (Ogg had not been developed yet) and
put it in the kernel sources.  You can listen to that audio file,
converted to .ogg, at the Wikipedia site.

Seemingly one of the vast numbers of people could say "Lee-nux" even
with the audio file, so most either called it "Lin-nux" or "Lie-nux".

After a while Linus said "I do not care what you call it as long as you
use it." and things settled down for a while.

One day, after Linus had moved to California and was working for
Transmeta, I phoned him, and he answered the phone "Lye-nus".
I said "Lea-nus that is not even your name."  He said '"I know, but
nobody in California can say "Lea-nus", so I am "Lye-nus"'.

And so it goes.  While it is nice that everyone pronounce the name
correctly, the most important thing is that they use your project,
including being able to find it using a search engine.

Warmest regards,

maddog (all lower case, one word)


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Re: Article: What happened to real open source phones?

2011-04-21 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>Unfortunately, I feel the struggle for a Linux phone is pretty much 
>submerged by the Android phenomenon, which is in my opinion, too bad. 
>Phone hardware that ran linux out of the box would be wonderful.

It depends on what you mean by "Linux".

Personally I would like the GTA04 to run a Linux kernel with two
personalities, one of them being Debian and the other Android.

Just my preferences.

md



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Re: Article: What happened to real open source phones?

2011-04-21 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Balint,

>I think it is just a waste of time.

Actually, I disagree.

What the article's author is saying is what a lot of people outside the
project have said, and with the GTA04 on the threshold of moving
forward, I think it is time to start putting down the naysayers again.

>From my viewpoint there was never a clear agreement (or even a clear
statement) as to what the Openmoko Project's real goal was.  I think the
first person to comment on the article, Jason, echoed what I heard a lot
of people say on the mailing lists over the years:

o I bought a phone (in his case a Neo 1973)
o It was never even functional as a phone
o I am stuck with it (or perhaps they sold it)

The FreeRunner suffered a better fate overall, but still fell short of
various people's expectations.

Obviously Jason never bought into the concept of the phone as a
developer's tool...he actually wanted to make calls with it.

If the goal of the project was to create a platform for people to
investigate developing code for a mobile in a free and open way, then
you could make the argument that Openmoko was fairly successful.

If the goal was to create a complete Open Source software stack that
would successfully compete with the iPhone to the "iConsumer", I think
that the project was not successful.  Using Android, which was mostly
developed in a closed manner, does not really count.

If the goal was to create a commercially successful "Open Phone"
platform or to show that such a phone could be a success, I think it was
"less than successful"but not necessarily because of its "Openness".

I meant what I said in my response to the article.  I had a
manufacturing company all set to license the necessary designs from
Openmoko, to buy the spare inventory and to make the business
relationships to buy new components.  They had the facilities and
expertise to make the phone, but they needed to make a certain volume
just to make back their tooling costs.

We had many customers standing by to purchase the phones, and these
customers were not "price sensitive"only there were no new
components to buy, so the whole business plan fell apart.  We could not
make the volume necessary to break even from tooling.

I hope that the GTA04 will be positioned so that every purchaser will
know why they are buying it, and what they can expect from it.  Then
perhaps we will have fewer disappointed customers.  Perhaps this is too
much to ask, but it could be a goal.

md








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Re: Someone is trying to patent Quickwriting

2010-11-16 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>btw, in this page I read also:
>"Then several things happened. Microsoft got interested in it and
>licensed it from NYU (thereby helping to support our research!)"

>so, I think it's not free :P

Not necessarily.  There can be dual licensing, like in MySQP, which
would allow for a not-for-profit or open source licensing.

You really have to contact the copyright holder or their agent, who in
this case seems to be NYU.  And whether an implementation transcends
their patent is an issue for technologists and lawyers.

md



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Re: WikiReader sales and the future of Openmoko

2010-08-20 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Hi,

I have been watching the conversation about Android and its "openness",
and I think that Timo's answer is the closest.

You should also remember that while Android is associated with Google,
and certainly they had the greatest say of it, that other companies of
the "Open Handset Alliance" also had input to Android and how it
unfolded.

Finally, Android is a "sample implementation".  The ones who last touch
it before it goes on a device are the handset manufacturers.  They are
the ones who really determine what device drivers are used.  And they,
in turn, are affected by the component manufacturers and what they will
allow to be released in the way of sources or even information on the
devices.

Finally, the carriers also have a hand in this.  The carriers really do
not want to see an "open" phone, where people can change the OS.  They
fear it, and perhaps for some good reasons (or what they think are good
reasonsbut are really not so good reasons) such as "network
security".

This is why most of the phones not only are locked, but also use only
signed binaries.  I doubt that the manufacturers care about signed
binaries (although it might cut down a bit on warranty support costs)
and they definitely do not care about locked phones (other than unlocked
phones might piss off their favorite customers, the carriers).

Looking at the original OHA, you see the unholy alliance:

o component manufacturers (some infamous for how closed they are)
o handset manufacturers (HTC)
o codec manufacturers and licensors
o carriers

and finally Google ("one ring to bind them all") the drum-beater.  But
like a lot of drum-beaters, they could only beat the drumthey were
bound by contracts and agreements to do things.  Even the mighty Google
can not do everything they want to do.

Google's (and the OHA's) methodology in engaging the community was not
the best IMHO, but also can be explained by the way that the project
evolved.  I think that Chromium OS is going along much nicer, and I
still hope that Android will eventually evolve into a real Open Source
project.assuming that Oracle does not kill Android at the same time
that they try to kill JAVA.

Of course some people may still argue that Android is "not open".  I am
not going to waste my time with that argument, but I just wanted to put
a few more facts into the evaluation.

Warmest regards,

md

P.S. for those of you who might be interested, I am typing this from the
Amsterdam airport on my way to the FrOSCon 2010 conference in Bonn,
Germany this weekend.  Perhaps I will see some of you there.


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Re: No more FreeRunners in the USA? (was: community Digest, Vol 194, Issue 6)

2010-07-31 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Joshua,

My experience with the 900 Mhz phones is that they work most of the
places that people go.

The 850s seemed to be in places where you wanted large physical coverage
or in hard environments.  850s seemed to be used by companies at the
seashore, in mountains, etc.

900 phones worked fine for me.  Remember you also have the 1900
frequency which handled most of the work.

md


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Re: GNU/Linux Wrist Watch

2010-05-04 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Back in 1975 one of the watch companies made a "computer watch" that you
could play a weak form of asteroids on it, and program the watch in
BASIC.  It had a stand that contained a keyboard and printer, and the
watch communicated with the stand through inductance (you had to put the
watch on the stand to program it, input data or print).


> I don't know if someone is producing such a wristwatch, but there
> was  
> a research project by IBM:
> 
> http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/linuxwatch/linuxwatch.html
> 
> showing that it is (was) possible and how it could look like.
> 
> BR,
> Nikolaus
> 
Yes.  I have seen the prototype several times, the last time at IBM's
research labs in Austin, Texas (sitting in a display case) and it even
made it to the point where Citizen was a potential manufacturer
(mentioned on the web page)

BUT

the battery life was pathetic, and it was rather clunky looking, and it
still could not make a telephone call, so it was never produced.

BUT

technology moves forward, and someday.

md



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Re: Videos of OpenMoko in action

2010-04-23 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Cristian,

With Professor Regis Rossi I made a video of his application "Open
Audience":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dVch2nSuBA

which used the Openmoko to control the sound channels of recorded sound
to place the listener "inside" the music.

If you had a number of microphones positioned in the sound scene, you
would move the listener throughout the placement of the microphones by
using the FreeRunner.  It was a pretty cool application that would have
been difficult, if not impossible, to create as just a layered
application without changing the underlying OS.

Here is a "fun" video I made while running Debian on the FreeRunner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGjzm6hzXaA&feature=related

I pretended I was a Systems Administrator on vacation, and indicated
that from my FreeRunner running Debian I could have access to many, if
not all, of the tools that I would use on my notebook and workstation,
therefore fix a lot of problems.

You are welcome to point to the videos, or even copy them and distribute
them.

md


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Re: project customer

2010-04-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>sorry for this. I am just a typical German being always a bit on the  
>negative-criticising side of life ;-)

Some of my best friends are German.

>I am sure we can have a beer together, Maddog, I am really not the
>idiot as it may sound here.

I recognize that.

>Thanks for your status report about the Brazilian university etc.
>I agree with you, it's no good idea to invest any more time or even  
>money in the re-production of GTA02, I honor you give such a honest  
>advice.

I still support the GTA02-core project, but for the goals that Werner
has advocated, to get a tool-set that is completely FOSS so that people
around the world can design with itnot necessarily to produce a
phone for mass production.

If we can find a way to finance the design, and to make sure that it
would be finished and go to market, I think the University would be more
than willing to help with the project, including using their influence
with vendors to get parts.   Be aware that even "getting parts" takes a
lot of time and effort.  The university has an office with people in it
that makes contracts with vendors, submits grant proposals, signs NDAs,
etc.  Sometimes they even have to take money out of their budget to join
vendor's "programs".

But they have a lot of things the project could use, even more than the
SMT line (which is the same type of SMT line, by the way, that LG uses
to make their phones).  Ovens to do thermal testing, vibrators to do
vibration testing, machines to do certification testing, and expertise
in all of these fields.  The university also has the ability to make
integrated circuits, and has made wifi radio chips in the past.

md


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Re: project customer

2010-04-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>What I'd aim for are "mature" chips. They're not brand-new, their
>quirks and shortcomings are known, documentation may have leaked,
>someone may even have written drivers for them already, you can
>get them in small and large quantities, they still have many years
>of life in them, and you can already get a glimpse of the roadmap
>beyond that chip.

I might agree to "early maturity", but in this day electronics age fast,
and the chip has to be both "early mature" and popular to keep in
production.

md


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Re: project customer

2010-04-12 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Rasterman!

We do go back a long way, don't we?  And don't worry...even though I
know a bit about the X Window System, I bow to you for the real
bit-jamming.

>all the players are closed with no signs of going open - unless you
>(maddog) can convince them?

It won't be me who "convinces them"it will have to be their
customers who buy in large quantitiesand customers who say "I won't
buy your stinking 3D unless you tell me how to program it so I can
maintain it into the future."

>that's the biggest issue. financing.

And here is where I saw a lot of disagreement, and could never see the
path forward to a sustainable design business plan.

Everyone wanted everything in Openmoko to be completely gratis (other
than being willing to buy the phone itself).

>From my viewpoint the circuit diagrams should be "open" and "free" so
people can comment, improve, etc.  I also liked the fact that the case's
cad design was "open" so you could change the case.

However, printed circuit board layouts, gerbers, etc. are grunt work and
could be licensed out with a decent license that would allow
universities to make phones for free, hobbyists could make a phone or
two (or even ten) for free, but companies that wanted to manufacture or
sell it would have to pay 1-2 dollars a unit license fee.  Then by the
time a mega-unit of phones were made (and it could be small factories
each making 100K phones) you would have the money to design and test the
next phone.

>i'd call koolu misguided. to me they were just uninteresting. why a
>freerunner when i can get a android g1 dev phone that was signficantly
>better hardware (though by todays standards its totally shot and
>useless).

A "hobbyist"/developer might have been interested in getting an Android
G1 Dev phone.  Unlocked and Unsigned.  But each person could only buy
one.

Imagine developing a kick-ass SMB application that could not just be
delivered as an app on top of Android.  You have to change the OS.

Do you tell each of your SMB customers that they have to sign up to be
an Android developer just so they can get one of those phones?

Now the Nexus One...different story.  It sells unlocked and unsigned.

The factory in Brazil was all set to completely buy out Openmoko's
inventory (if Openmoko could have told them how much inventory they
had), but then they started looking beyond that andno one could tell
them how many GSM modules were out there, and how much they would cost
as the quantities available dropped close to zero.

>the suppliers will be happy to talk to you and provide you
>with those.

Sometimes.  Other times they have simply gone "End Of Life" with that
part and they don't want to tie up their engineers and lines with old,
obsolete partsbecause they are selling too much of the new stuff and
they are short on capacity to make both.

But if you are making your phone out of "beginning of life" components
that other people are also using and that have a bit of life to them,
you can sometimes get some components without having to buy 10 million
of themparticularly if you are a university...and particularly if
you have a business plan to license out the design to lots of small
companies for manufacture.

For example, it can cost one-half million dollars just to get TI to talk
to you as part of their partner program.  That half-million buys you
some TI's engineering consulting time, etc. but what it really does is
get rid of the "kids" and lets the "big boys" play.

>From what I saw, the FreeRunner was EOL, with EOL components.and its
software was still a bit "undercooked" in places more than a year after
its design was done.

Everything else you said I agree with, and we both agree that it takes
lots of up-front moneyor a smaller amount of money and a track
record of success.

By the way, I think that both the hardware team and the software teams
did a great job given the circumstances, and I have the greatest respect
for most of the community members.

So Rastermannext time we meet we can have a beer.

md


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Re: project customer

2010-04-12 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Hello Christoph,

>Good luck. Maddog made a lot words about the Brasilian universitary  
>which should continue the Openmoko project. Nothing happend.

As far as I know the University still stands ready and willing to help
with the GTA02-core project as soon as that is ready to move forward.
Professor Zuffo has not de-committed from that project as far as I can
see.

As to going further than that, the University is still interested in
working on an "Open Phone".  But as I have seen here over the past
several days, there does not seem to be much agreement as to how to move
that forward.

>From my viewpoint a bit of this comes from a tacit disagreement in the
project as to what is "open", and even less of a plan as to how to
finance a project that requires real money.  Openmoko's financing always
seemed to be on a shoestring, and never (for example) included the money
to fix problems.   Other companies might do a "recall" and fix the issue
at the factory. I think it was by good luck that the different issues
that happened with the phone were able to be fixed with "a capacitor
here" and "a resistor there"..and people stepped up to the "bug fix
parties"...but there are still a lot of people out there with unfixed
phones.

>Also he cooperate with silly companys like Koolu, who bargain Openmoko
>down to blood and damaged all the project.

Koolu had its faults, and I will not say it didn't, but after several
days of you writing and lambasting everyone about everything (other than
yourself, of course) I think blaming Koolu for "damaging all the
project" is a bit harsh.

I had a company in Brazil that was all set to license the designs from
Openmoko and manufacture the phone in large quantities.  They had a good
SMT line, channels to distribute the phone in Brazil, and from Brazil
throughout Latin America, and we had a good business plan to market to
the VARs that were mentioned in another email.  Even though the phone's
components were a little dated, we felt we had a good market in people
who had to change the OS to create the applications they wished to have
for small and medium business.  An example of that can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dVch2nSuBA

The licensing of the design would have generated money to create the
next design.

Then we tried to find out where to buy the parts, and how many parts
were still being manufactured, and for how long.  That was when we began
to realize that the marketplace for Openmoko parts was very limited.  As
several people on this list have mentioned, to create a market for cell
phones that is profitable takes hundreds of thousands, or even millions,
not tens of thousands.

By the time that the company in Brazil ramped up to produce the phone,
did the manufacturing and certifications and testing that were
necessary, and did the certifications, built the channel, did the
advertising, they would probably run out of parts.  It would have been
unprofitable for them.

In the end I recommended that the company not try to produce the
Openmoko V7, even though I had spent a lot of time and money helping
them evaluate the possibilities.

So from my viewpoint, if there was one thing that killed the Openmoko
project, it was lack of a thorough, over-all, realistic business plan
that showed how the project was going to be sustainable into the future.

And the lack of agreement among all of the people involved as to what
the marketplace was for the phone.

md



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Re: Wikipage with FOSDEM 2010 visitors

2010-01-19 Thread Jon Phillips
I'll be there :)

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 9:53 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller
 wrote:
> Just 4 Freerunners going to FOSDEM?
>
> Am 18.01.2010 um 08:21 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller:
>
>> Hi all,
>> I will attend FOSDEM 2010 and give a talk about experiments with
>> GNUstep running on the Freerunner. Here is the schedule:
>>
>>       http://fosdem.org/2010/schedule/events/gnustep_porting_quantumstep
>>
>> But since I am sure there are many more attendants and activities, I
>> have started a Wiki Page where you can register yourself:
>>
>>       http://wiki.openmoko.org/index.php?title=FOSDEM_2010
>>
>> This all should ease to keep the community from being thinned out
>> during such a large event. And I am sure that there are many new
>> things to learn and nice people to meet around the Freerunner.
>>
>> Nikolaus
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 
>> Mobile Office Solutions
>> by Golden Delicious Computers GmbH&Co. KG
>> Buchenstr. 3
>> D-82041 Oberhaching
>> +49-89-54290367
>> http://www.handheld-linux.com
>>
>> AG München, HRA 89571
>> VAT DE253626266
>> Komplementär:
>> Golden Delicious Computers Verwaltungs GmbH
>> Oberhaching, AG München, HRB 16602
>> Geschäftsführer: Dr. Nikolaus Schaller
>>
>> Digital Tools for Independent People
>> 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Jon Phillips
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http://fabricatorz.com/
internet: @rejon + skype: kidproto
+1.415.830.3884 (sf/global)
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Sent from Wellington, Wgn, New Zealand

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Re: Paroli Theme/UI proposals

2009-10-04 Thread Jon Kristian Nilsen
Ok, I feel I have to say this now:

Guys, you *cannot* take my proposal and expect it to look cute when you
re-size and fit them in a phone window, there's a reason this is a mock-up.
I think all areas in my proposal are more than readable, have you compared
to android or iphone for instance? I don't want to start a flamewar here,
but people are really jumping up over my mock-ups, expecting them to be more
than they are.

Also, I belive this is not exactly something that a theme should handle! For
instance font-sizes should imho be adjustable by the app, not locked to a
theme.

Now, when this is said, step 1 is finished and I am now moving on to the
second step, providing vectorised variants of elements that will be used.

I am really happy about all the awesome feedback this has gotten, and that
people have shown interest in moving it to the next level.

Look for new ML post when I got more stuff finished.
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Re: Paroli Theme/UI proposals

2009-10-02 Thread Jon Kristian Nilsen
>Also soon, a suspend button will appear on the launcher at the bottom
>right corner (in the current git, there is already a picture, but not
>a real button).

>The reasoning is simple, when you use your phone everyday (as I am),
>you want to suspend it *fast*. Without going to the illume icon view.

>So I think the design should include it.

Yes, I will take a look at this.

>Until now I requested the following things from Jon:
>1. put each topbar icon as a separate .png file online with an
>appropriate license.

There's one problem with this, not all of the icons are created by me, they
are royalty free icons which i've had laying around for quite a while, and I
really can't remember where I got them. This might be a problem, but it
should not be a huge deal for me to draw new ones if this is preffered? I
don't know if we can re-release under a licence, since they're free for all,
do you?

>2. show me one screen with unsmoothed text (whatever it means)

I will change this.

>I have been thinking about implementing a bit more. I will read
>one more time throughly the proposal, and write a summary letter,
>how I think we should proceed, and how others can dive
>into e gui development.

Nice.


>Jon: Can you redraw the home screen using inkscape? Just that one:
http://jonkristian.no/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/main.jpg

Yes I can.

>Here is a barebone .svg file, to get starting:
http://laszlo.krekacs.googlepages.com/concept_drawing.svg
Thanks.

>Dont concentrate on the small details, ie. the gradients between the rows.
>Use simple rectangles, also for the icons you can use your already
separated .png files.

I might have to draw a new iconset myself, because I'm not sure we can
re-release royalty-free stuff, in any case, it should be fairly simple.

>I will be offline for the weekend, so my detailed letter will come on
monday the latest. Until it's plenty of time for inkscape >learning;-)

>I can't promise any work this weekend, been to the dentist today and pulled
two teeth, don't feel quite well yet.

>ps: For gui development we will use inkscape. The reasoning is simple:
>it is the best (open source) program for the purpose. So if we would
>use photoshop for example, its a huge (financial) barrier for others to
enter.

>Also with inkscape, with a little training, you can exactly feel how
>the gui will be build. In edje, the gui is drawn on a canvas, just like
>in inkscape. Only limited thing is, we dont have that many tool (ie.
>we only have rectangles, images, texts, etc in our repertoire, and not
>the more advanced things like vector circle, spiral or bezier curve
>as in inkscape)

Inkscape and photoshop ain't comparable, ps is not for vectors. But I always
work with my mockup's in ps,
I'll draw these in illustrator, there's no problem exporting them as svg and
opening in inkscape, as far as i know.

- Jon Kristian
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Re: Paroli Theme/UI proposals

2009-10-01 Thread Jon Kristian Nilsen
 >In your proposal there is no place for bigger texts. It is that simple.
>It needs to rethink some part of the gui. No code will help here.

I will take a look at what could be improve on, in regards to what has been
mentioned here.

>Sorry I dont understand it. Plan for what exactly?

Well you seemed quite eager to work with my proposal, so i was wondering if
you had layed out a plan.
As you mentioned as well further down in your reply, breaking it down into
smaller steps.
I always plan how to work out stuff, I don't understand why you don't
understand;)

>Updating the gui in every sec, is a no-go on a battery equipped device.

Doesn't paroli do this, it's not important for me anyways.

>Could you show one screen with "turned off smoothing" ?
Yes, I will do this.

> See my first comment. Text size should be considered at a later stage,
also,
> this is easy to change in code.

>Cant. If there is no place for bigger texts, than there is no place.;)
I will think about this when re-working the theme. As far as I can see,
every container has more than enough space.
Doesn't the code control how big for example shapes should be?

>:)) Was it a serious answer? :)
Actually I misunderstood the question, and taking a second look, i still
don't understand it, please elaborate.

>If you *seriously* want to see this implemented you should wrap your
>mind around coding. I can help you get started. But you can't expect
developers
>implement all these proposals as soon as possible. Most importantly,
because
>paroli lacks some every-day feature, and has some serious bugs.

I would love to, seriously. Maybe I don't understand you 2nd answer here,
but I want to be real
clear on this: I don't expect anything at all, and this has been emphasized
quite clearly alot of times.

>I think the best proposal is what matches 99% of the final look.
I get your point and it is an important one, that was partly what I meant
with planning.

>Of course. If we broke down your proposal into smaller steps. Then
>you have one proposal, where you propose custom background image.
Each mock-up is a proposal.


>> Would you mind to put the topbar at the bottom in your
>>proposal?
>
> Yeah, in my posts I had an entry about that, I would mine, as it breaks
the
> normal flow.

>Care to elaborate?

Well I don't know if it's doable, but as stated in my post and shown in my
mock-ups,
the top-shelf could act as a placeholder for alot of stuff, like androids
one.
Putting this at the bottom will break it's usage, which my other ideas are
heavily based on.

>Nobody born as a programmer. The question is, are you ready to devote
>2hours/day until it is implemented?

To be honest, I have not thought about working with the code, but I am
interested.

>Not much to be planned. The most simple way, is break down your proposal
>into small steps. Like:
>- easily changable background image.
>- adapt your topbar icons
>- make the homescreen a list with icons
>- etc, etc

This is all just themeing, you would be better off if i created something
that works with paroli just the way it is,
which isn't exactly something I've thought about before. Actually the
initial idea was to improve the navigation, everything else is built from
that.

>Hmm, you are not online...
Not always, different timezones.


> Jon Kristian

Laszlo

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Re: Paroli Theme/UI proposals

2009-10-01 Thread Jon Kristian Nilsen
 >So could you please repost your proposal with much bigger texts?;)

I believe your approach to this is wrong, my mockups contains elements that
for sure needs to be taken care of in the code,
this includes, if im not mistaken, text styles, sizes, shapes of boxes
etc...
Have you layed out a plan for this, I am interested to see what you come up
with.

Btw, out of curiosity, are you with the dev team?

>3. No idea what is the 23 number of the upper left corner of clock.
>Should be 42, no?;)

Just "second" indicator. It could be 42 if it was 19 seconds later:)

>4. Although Im not a designer at any means, but I think the pixelized
>icons does not really
>much with the smoothed texts.

I disagree here. However, I see now that I should've turned off smoothing,
just for the sake of visualization.

>5. The displayed numbers of incoming and outgoing calls are almost
>unreadable. Should be way bigger.

See my first comment. Text size should be considered at a later stage, also,
this is easy to change in code.

>6. In the current paroli gui, there are quite a big role of sliding
>left and right. Its a nice screen size saver.
>I think its totally lacks your design.

:)

>7. If you are seriously thinking to implement this gui in paroli, I
>really suggest you, to try to draw some of the screen
>in inkscape. It helps the implementation a lot.

I used photoshop for the mockups. If paroli devs are interested in working
on this, i will provide vectorized variants of what is needed,
but as my first comment states, there are alot of things here that should be
taken care of by the code.

>8. There are many eyecandy in your image, which takes *time* to
>implement it, and also slows down the gui a little. Im thinking about
>all the gradient at the edge of each button, or the sms text view.

As stated in my post, I am not sure about the limitation of the toolkit, I
am unsure if gradients and shapes might be taken care of by it.

>Other than that, I really like your proposal, there are some aspects
>on which Im already working.
>For example the background image:
http://jonkristian.no/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/main_custom_background.jpg

Can you elaborate? The background image is just used to show how it looks
with custom bg.

>I also like some of your icons a lot, especially for the toolbars.

:)

>Im working (right now) of putting the paroli's topbar at the bottom to
>be a bottombar;)
>It is because the top is reserved for illume topbar, and two topbars
>does not make sense. Especially, when its hard to touch the edge of
>the screen. Would you mind to put the topbar at the bottom in your
>proposal?

Yeah, in my posts I had an entry about that, I would mine, as it breaks the
normal flow.

>Are you also interested in implementing your gui? I would be more than
>happy to mentoring you.

Sure, but I am not a programmer, I would love to work closely with someone
who wants to do this.
I want feedback from devs and maybe set up a meeting. This needs to be
planned out.

Someone on this list has already mentioned that they don't belive this could
be re-programmed into paroli.

I would love to get some feedback from the paroli developers if this would
be possible or not?
It's also possible to discuss this more up-close on my site's comments, or
you can find me on #paroli, #openmoko-cdevel, #openmoko

Jon Kristian
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Paroli Theme/UI proposals

2009-09-30 Thread Jon Kristian Nilsen
Long overdue, but here it comes:)

As mentioned a couple of times on irc, I've been working on a few ideas I've
had regarding paroli.
What got me interested in this was the post to the ML some time ago:
http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2009-May/048133.html

Now these are just mock-ups, but ihmo pretty god ones. I've spent quality
time thinking about user friendliness and what I'd like to see:) Ofcourse
I've probably missed
out a few bit's and pieces here and there, heck, I don't even know if it's
doable, but I will let others be the judge of that, since im not familiar
with the code.

It's all explained in my post and under each picture, so I hope you guys
understand my thoughts even though English is my 2nd language:D

Hope you guys like my work:
http://jonkristian.no/2009/08/paroli-ui-theme-proposals/


Best regards
Jon Kristian Nilsen
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Buzz-Fixed Freerunner for Sale

2009-09-20 Thread Jon Levell
Freerunner for sale.  I'm not doing any coding on/for it.

GSM 900/1800/1900 model
S/N 8A8702874
Date code: 20080722 (revision A6)
two batteries
buzz fix applied by Golden Delicious
charger + foreign adapters
pouch
original box
pen/stylus (no batteries)
(no headphones)
2 MicroSD cards:  8G and (the original) 512MB
Latest firmware installed
boots fine (currently SHR Unstable installed)


It's been in daily use but it's had a Zagg Invisible Shield
applied. The Shield is looking a little tatty in places but
if I remove it, the phone underneath should be in good
condition.


£130 + postage (recorded delivery)

Jon.



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Re: One second Openmoko boot?

2009-08-19 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>i've never understood the fascination of linux users with keeping
>systems up for days and months on end. sure, it's great for a server
>hosting web sites, or in a corporate environment, but for a home
>system? it comes across as nothing more than who's the most '1337',
>which is really lame. add to that the power wasted and it's verging on
>the pointless

I turn my systems off at home to save power, lifetime on fans and disks.
That is not the point.  The point is that *I* turn them off, versus some
instability that causes the system to crash.  The fact that a
multi-user, network-connected, resource-limited system *can* stay up
that long is (IMHO) desirable.

>as for phones, there are many reasons i turn mine off - not least
>because there's no way i want to be contactable at night, and when i'm
>doing other things where i don't want to be interrupted. it gets
>turned on and off at least once a day. my phone exists to serve me,
>not the other way around

Ahhh, the difference between a "phone" and a portable computing device
that can make telephone calls.  I want my "phone" to be an alarm clock,
a calendar, a music playerand I want it to have the *capability* of
running twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, efficiently, and
without me having to futz too much with it, or to worry if I have to
find its electric fix three times a day. Or to *have* to turn it off
because I am not near an outlet for a long enough period of time.

>do you realise the effects of the 'always-connected' lifestyle?
>they're not good at all

I do not typically give out my cell phone number.  I consider my cell
phone for my convenience and not others.  Again, that is not the point.
You are welcome to turn off your cell phone any time you want, or leave
it on and make it silent, ready to receive messages and let it save them
for you.  Turn it off, and it is a boat anchor.  Worse than a boat
anchor, because at least a boat anchor is heavy enough to hold a boat in
place.

As to the power wasted, the always on, connected cell phone uses less
power in a day than my laptop uses in an hour...and if it goes into deep
suspend, a lot less than that.  Power management in servers, desktops,
laptops and netbooks is also necessary, and can help cellphones too, in
the long run.

>anyway, the point i'm getting at is: a quick boot time, it doesn't
>have to be one second, is definitely an advantage

Granted.  But if there is a choice of where to put engineering talent?



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Re: One second Openmoko boot?

2009-08-19 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>Once per year? :) Up until recently was once per day (minimum), but
>since 8-8's SHR-U I haven't returned to that sad average!

/* gentle rant on

Which is *exactly* my point.

I have a friend of mine who's multi-user Linux system was recently up
for thirty days before a power failure caused it to go down.

I had a Digital Unix system on my desk up for an entire year without
rebooting.

We had cases of VAX/Ultrix systems up for over three years without a
reboot.

IMHO the only time you should have to cold reboot an operating system is
when there is a change to a critical section of the kernel, or perhaps a
hardware failure and with loadable kernel modules and loadable device
drivers (to say nothing of user-mode device drivers), those sections and
failures are relatively few.

Sooo, while booting in one second is a neat "stunt", and nice for
automotive needs, or deep space probes that have a master controlling
module that turns another module on and off; for a phone I would rather
have it function like a "real phone" for four (or even three or even two
or even one) days without rebooting or having to be recharged.

On the other hand, there is the source codego to it.

gentle rant off */


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Re: One second Openmoko boot?

2009-08-19 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>Maybe this might be possible in some future of Openmoko Linux?

Yes and no.  Of course and not. :-)

Depends on what your definition of "cold boot" is.

There are trade-offs here, as always.  As I understand it, the read-only
text of the kernel was in ROM (could have been Flash), so did not have
to be read in off a file system and "loaded".  On the other hand they
were loading and initializing device drivers, and on a fixed system like
the Openmoko you probably could cut down on that process quite a bit.

Issues like memory bandwidth to the processor, processor speed, etc.
etc.

But the real question is, what was the customer need that drove the
work?

Probably a lot of engineering work went into that "one second boot", but
what would a "one second boot" (versus a two second or three second
boot) really gain the FreeRunner unless you had a "boot on incoming
event", and a way to capture that event until the phone had booted and
could handle it?

IMHO what would be more useful is even more power management work to
make the battery last longer in normal running mode, suspend and deep
suspend, rather than shortening the (hopefully) once per year boot
cycle.

Warmest regards,

md


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Re: [CU] voting required - VOTING RESULTS

2009-08-06 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Patryk,

Speaking as one of the "unclear voters", I thank you for all your work
on this.

For myself, I saw very little difference between 8a and 8b, so applying
my vote to either was the correct thing to do.

And your plans for addressing these types of issues in the future look
"spot on".

Warmest regards,

maddog


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-08-05 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Rask,

>> Government will also want some return. I don't see clearly (yet) how
>>a project like ours can give them that (like OLPC and portuguese's
>>"Magalhães").

>   A phone that's more difficult to sneak spyware into than a closed
>one such as an IPhone or Blackberry. How do you know it isn't secretly
>being wiretapped? How do you *know*? With open hardware, there are no
>secret power supplies or audio inputs to the GSM/UMTS chip. With open
>hardware, you also decide what software to run on it, such as to
>deselect back doors, or implement encrypted conversation over GSM data
>calls, which AFAIK isn't available in any of the closed phones.

All of what you said is true.  On the other hand, perhaps the twelfth
largest economy (and the sixth largest user of cell phones)

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933605.html

[Note that the European Union is counted as a "country"]

would just like the chance to have its largest university (and their
students) participate in designing an open phone that could be freely
licensed and manufactured by any one of its high-tech companies.  A
basic phone design that could be changed to meet various needs in the
country.  Manufacturing jobs?

Werner is in contact with the professor, working on the logistics of
GTA02-core.  I am working (in my copious spare time...yeah, right) on a
plan for financing.

We are moving forward.

md


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Re: [CU] voting required

2009-07-29 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Either 8a or 8b.

md


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Re: [CU] voting required

2009-07-27 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Patryk,

>Now i get it :). Excuse me but my English speaking skills fails
>sometimes.

It was entirely my fault for not being clear enough.

>V8 made and ready for review.

>I Like it - particularly the one with two columns (not three) and the 
>1px orange border.

I agree with David.

md



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Re: Fwd: New Open Hardware company

2009-07-27 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Christoph,

Thank you for a very thoughtful email.  I appreciate your inputs on this
topic.

>This is my outing, that I never really understand the concept of  
>"open"(moko) :-)

>From my observations of this list, I do not think you are the only one.

>2. Considering this, you have to arrange with a compromis.

Life is full of compromises, but you can still have goals and (as you
have mentioned) a vision.  A vision and the goals (both short-term and
long-term) to meet that vision move you in a direction and help you to
reject side-paths that might distract you.

>IMO any device which you can put free SW on it, is a acceptable one.

But what is the definition of "Free Software"? And at what level?  Is it
"Free Software" to have a GSM module that has binary firmware, but a
firm programming interface for kernel engineers to write against?  Is it
"Free Software" to have a binary-only kernel module, but allow GNU
libraries and applications above that?  Is it "Free Software" to put
Open Office on top of Microsoft Windows?

I will argue that (working backwards) every piece of proprietary,
closed-source software you eliminate is getting closer to the goals and
vision of "Free Software".  So I personally advocate to people who want
their friends to try "Free Software" to start them out with Firefox and
Open Office on top of Microsoft first, and then work with them to
replace more and more of the rest of the proprietary software.

Is this as "good" as having them use an entire distribution of Free
Software?  Perhaps not, but it gets them going in the right direction.

>What we need is high-end-hardware with a lot of options. THIS is what  
>attracts an active community.

I tend to agree with you on this.  But since I am not infallible, I
think there may be room for a simpler piece of hardware that people can
do things with.

Even if the GTA03 was available today, assuming we could get enough
parts to keep producing the GTA02 I might advocate the continued
production of the GTA02.  The GTA02 would be a less expensive phone for
those that might not be able to afford the features of the GTA03.  And
as new software features get integrated into the pool of software for
the GTA03, they would be available for retrofitting to the GTA02.

Another issue is volume of units in circulation.  There has to be a
"sustainable volume" to support a community of developers, even for
backports.  And the effort to backport has to be easy enough.  I do not
think that the GTA01 (for example) had reached that volume, nor was the
ease of backporting and maintaining the kernel and distribution easily
justified.

> 3. The way to create a 100% open parallel-world (as it seems your
> vision Steve), is to establish a GSM-independent network.
> (eg. as Sean mentioned once a WLAN-peer-to-peer network)
> IMO it's too late for it.
> 

I am not sure that it is too late to create a WLAN-peer-to-peer network.
It might exist as an "alternative" network for those that wish to use
it.  But, that was your opinion, and you are welcome to have it.

> 4. The idea of community works fine with software, but not with
> hardware modifications. It has to do with missing knowledge,
> capacities and money.

I heard the same arguments about the ability of a community to create a
complex project like the kernel of an operating system, or a
distribution of an operating system back in 1994.  People were still
saying "it can't be done" although distributions like Slackware, Red Hat
and SuSE were gathering steam.  Most of those people who said "it can't
be done" to me now work for Red Hat.

Certainly hardware has different needs, and you are right about some of
them.  But I think these needs, once recognized, can be addressed.

> Once again, I honour everybody with a vision. And I am aware my
> comments are from a very banal money-earning point of view.

Actually there is nothing wrong with a "very banal money-earning point
of view".  In fact, I think that more attention to that point of view is
necessary for the Openmoko project to succeed.

When I first joined the Linux community I saw a project that was being
worked on as a "hobby" or "for technical people", and what I perceived
was a project that could have huge commercial impact to the computer
industry.  I thought to myself that the project would continue no matter
what, but if people were allowed to "make money on it" then it would
move forward much faster.  If the community resisted those commercial
efforts, then the people who had those commercial interests would fight
Free Software, slowing its spread.

I approached the Linux community with this idea, and there were some
people who said "I do not want people to make money off the software
that I write for free".  Those people (unfortunately some very good
people) soon left the Linux project.  Others, such as Linus, understood
what I was saying, and embraced this model.

I might argue that some of the issues of the first round of Openmoko was
that "banal money-e

Re: [CU] voting required

2009-07-27 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall

> > V1 with table underneath left-hand picture
> Sorry maddog, i do not understand. I assume you would like to modify
> V1,
> but could you explain how more precisely?

Sorry, I tried to take a "short cut" in my description.

I like the over-all look of V1, but I also like the "working hardware"
box.  By putting the "working hardware" box in a column by itself,
making a three-column layout, you reduce the amount of space for column
two, which makes the page longer showing the same amount of information.
I suggest that the "working hardware" box of V3 be moved to the first
column under the left-hand picture of the application/distribution. Then
the "home page", "Image", "Tested on Hardware", etc. which is now at the
bottom of the page could also be listed in the left hand column beneath
the "working hardware" box.  This would allow the right hand column (of
what is now a two-column page) to be just text on a white background.

md


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Re: [CU] voting required

2009-07-25 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
V1 with table underneath left-hand picture

md


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Re: New Open Hardware company

2009-07-21 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>#2 Not only do we 'announce' products that are not for sale, but in
>addition we have an open roadmap and design the products based on
>community feedback.

A comment on this:

Of course designing a product with as much input and feedback from your
community of customers is important.  But when I say "customers" here, I
speak in the broadest possible terms:

- developers
- end users
- Channels (VARs, Distributors, Resellers)

Wolfgang has announced several goals of Qi, a main goal being that of
"openness" and the support of Ogg formats.  This may be in conflict with
goals of his channels, to be able to support both Ogg and mp3, and
therefore reach a large enough marketplace to justify selling the
product.

This may mean that the product sells in the tens of thousands instead of
the millions.  That may be fine as long as it meets the other goals of
Qi and the people that invest time and money in Qi, including
manufacturers and distributors.

Fortunately the mp3 issue (as a continued example) can be met other
ways.  Since the designs are open, the addition of an mp3 codec by a VAR
(and payment of that royalty in jurisdictions where it is required) is
something that could be done even without any effort by the open
community or Qi. But the issue has to be communicated and understood,
the solution has to be planned.  IMHO the creation of an add-on package
by Qi for mp3 and other royalty-bearing codecs would be something useful
for their customers, and would call attention to the fact that these
codecs are not free either as in Freedom nor as in Beer.

I have seen lots of people communicate congratulations to the new
company and I too wish them success.  Part of that congratulations
should be the honest appraisal of their plans so they meet their goals.

Part of that is helping them get feedback from the community of their
true customers, whoever those true customers are.

Warmest regards,

maddog



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Re: Anti-Whining: Happy Moko Moments

2009-07-17 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>But I could sit in the train in peace.

And while on that train, did you see the light at the end of the tunnel?

md


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Re: Anti-Whining: Happy Moko Moments

2009-07-16 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>and we managed to fly clear of the ship just before it exploded, and
>thus we saved all of humanity with a Freerunner.

I had wondered what happened to that ship!

md


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-16 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
d by
physical limitations such as screen size, number of buttons, etc.

And, as I mentioned before, the project both suffers and glorifies in
the number of software stacks that are on it.

Koolu prefers the Android distribution.  I know that some of you do not
like that stack for various reasons.  Koolu believes that Android
running on FreeRunner will generate business and interest in the
FreeRunner that will help every distribution.

For those who were at DebConf 8 last year in Argentina, you know that I
actively marketed Debian on FreeRunner, and I have been quietly working
in the background encouraging David Reyes Samblas Martinez, of Tuxbrain,
to set up a program for selling FreeRunners to additional Debian
developers during Debconf 9 at a good price to help attract more Debian
developers to the platform.

I tried to make the same offer to the 6000 FOSS developers that attended
FISL 10 this year through our Brazilian distributor, but the import
duties made the cost of the phone too high.  I am still working to fix
that problem of import duty on the phones in Brazil.

Yes, I can reach into my "sleeves" and try to pull out another ace or
two.  Please tell me what you need.  I will be glad to give help and
guidance.

But I want this to remain the "Openmoko Community Project"not the
"maddog project".  I think that is what you should want also.

So organize your needs.  Reach out to your own universities and software
usability development groups.  Get them to join the project.

Don't give up.  If you look closely, you can see the light at the end of
the tunnel.  It may be faint, but I have seen similar tunnels before,
and I can see the light now.

Warmest regards,

Jon "maddog" Hall
CTO, Koolu
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Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director   Linux International(R)
email: mad...@li.org 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
Cell:  +1.603.943.   WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-14 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Michal,

>Could you clarify a bit what exactly is the goal of this effort?

Hmmm, I wrote a lot before I realized that you probably meant by "this
effort" the "effort" of having the university join the Openmoko project,
but originally I took it as the greater "effort" of bringing out an Open
Phone that people could use and extend and wrote a lot on that topic, so
please bear with me:

I can only give my impressions of the Openmoko project, where it is and
what I think the community desires from it.

I note that I have already answered one person who seemed to think that
putting the software stacks on a phone from Samsung was a better use of
time and energy than designing open hardware, so apparently there are
(as in any large community) many different ideas and goals.  Please bear
with me.  Some of these goals may be personal to me, and not shared by
others.

>Is it just designing a line of "open hardware" mobile devices (that's
>what it sounds like), and selling them to manufacturers?

I have always hated the word "just", particularly when it is applied to
a person  "I am 'just' a documentation person" or "I am just an end
user" has always irritated me, but in this case I equally hate the word
applied to this effort.  And while I know that you did not mean to
offend, "Just designing a line of 'open hardware' mobile devices" grates
on my nerves a bit.  I do not want people to understate or underestimate
what has been done by the Openmoko project so far.

As to "selling them to manufacturers", the concept of having a design
freely licensable to different manufacturers so they can compete to
produce the lowest cost hardware is something that is good, IHMO.

Having many manufacturers producing "Openmoko phones" means that the
quantities go up and the number of platforms that can run any of the
software stacks increasesalso good in my estimation.

Chip producers "respect" you and pay attention to you when your design
sells 50,000,000 phones a year instead of 12000.

The handset manufacturers I know are not interested in "one-offs".  The
investment they make in bringing out a line of hardware would not be
paid back until 100,000 or more units are sold.

>Or do they also want to help improve the software, like kernel, fso,
>x11 drivers, etc for the Neo?

I assume by "they" you mean the university?  I have invited them to join
the software effort, and I think they are interested, but they could
have done that at any time.  They could participate in the software
activities, just as the rest of the community has joined.

One slight issue, however, is the cost of the phones in Brazil.  Due to
Brazilian import duties, which can (with both federal and local duties)
range up to 94% of manufacturing cost and shipping) make the phone
*cost* a minimum of 550 USD FOB Taiwan.  This is without any of the
expenses or profit made by the importer.  By having the phones designed
in Brazil, with the import duty on the parts being 6% the finished
prototype phone prices might be reasonable for a Brazilian to purchase
even given the higher prototype costs.  Through a university resale
program we might get a considerable number of USP (and other Brazilian
university) students helping with the software.  Shipping phones out of
Brazil to other countries should not cost any more than shipping from
Taiwan (with, of course, the possible exception of shipping to China
itself).

I do think that if/when the university starts working with the community
full swing that there will be a lot more of the university students
getting involved, simply because of the university's involvement.  And
Professor Zuffo has indicated that they have various software skills
(codecs, security expertise) that they can add to the effort.

One of the issues here is that the project has not exactly been focused
on one stack of softwareergo the number of cycles that it is taking
to get any one stack ready has taken a long time.  IMHO this is both a
blessing and a curse.  A blessing because the hardware and kernel are
"tickled" in many ways, making the kernel more robust in the long run
and a person has choice in the software stack.  A curse because instead
of one intense effort we have several somewhat coordinated efforts.

>My feeling is that the GTA02 device itself is in pretty good shape
>compared to the software it runs. So how will the community benefit
>from a GTA03?

Yes, I agree the GTA02 is in "pretty good shape" compared to the
"software it runs".  However, it is in "good shape" for the middle of
2008.not necessarily for the year 2009 or even the end of 2008.

Eventually the tide will turn and the software will be "in good shape"
while the hardware is perceived as being "long in the tooth".

If you pay attention to the hardware lists you will know that the Glamo
chip is not the best in the world, so removing it and doing a bit of
redesign will both save manufacturing costs and may actually give better
performance and/or battery life.

The GSM u

Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-14 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Levy,

> and would
> like to know if is something that I could do to participate on this
> new effort opened by you.
> 
First I want to say that I do not consider this a "new effort", but a
continuation of the effort that the Openmoko community started.  If I
"opened" something, it is only a door to help the community move
forward.  This, by the way, is one of the things I "do", and I have done
it many, many times before.

I think we need to give the community time to absorb the proposal, to
comment on it, and to satisfy the concerns and issues that may be
brought up.  In the end I hope that people will see this change as being
a positive one, and the project will be more "open" than ever.

For right now, please continue to work with the Openmoko community on
moving forward.  There is a lot of work to do in getting the various
software stacks onto the phone and stable.  There is also a lot to do in
moving the hardware documentation forward, as well as adapting the
documentation of the software to the actual hardware itself.

Turning in well-documented bug reports on the software will also help,
as well as promoting the Openmoko project inside your own university,
getting them to understand the true value of the project.

This will move the Openmoko project forward, even if a match with the
University is not accomplished for some reason.

Warmest regards,

maddog




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Re: community Digest, Vol 140, Issue 8

2009-07-14 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Mr. Pulster,

As I promised, I have looked into your issue on your order with our
sales department.  Again, I know only what I am told by them.

The issue with the money from you was that you and Truebox made a deal
for the purchase of phones in either Euros or Pounds Sterling, Koolu is
not sure which currency was used. Koolu had insisted that the
transaction be in USD from beginning to end, but this was not followed.

You had placed the order and half way through the transaction requested
a delivery date that could not be met by Koolu due to a shipping delay
from OpenMoko.

Koolu believes the issue arose when Truebox refunded the money and the
exchange rate had dropped.  Koolu did not receive any of this money
either from Truebox or you as the purchase did not go through.

At that time Koolu was placing the order through Truebox as you
specified, so the order would be shipped through the UK to avoid
additional taxes.  Koolu did not claim that the shipment was already in
the UK.  As with the first order Truebox placed it as being shipped to
the UK from OpenMoko and then forwarded to you.

Pre-payment of the orders is something that was business practice of
Openmoko, requiring pre-payment of the orders by most resellers and
distributors.  Changes in International exchange rates also occur.

I am sorry that you apparently got caught in the exchange rate shift,
but from my viewpoint this was not Koolu's fault, and is a cost of doing
business.  Your viewpoint may be different.

On the other hand, as I said before, from my perspective this has
nothing to do with the University of Sao Paulo and the Openmoko project.

Regards,

Jon "maddog" Hall


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-14 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Dave,

> Hi Maddog,
> 
> [added cc to gta02-core list]
> 
> Thanks for looking into this - it certainly sounds like an amazing 
> opportunity, almost too good to be true - what's the catch!  :-)
> 
I hope that you will find there is no "catch".  If you do think there is
a "catch", please tell me.
> 
> Do you know how Dr Zuffo sees the universities involvement with, and 
> relationship to the rest of the community - i.e. do they seem
> themselves driving the projects, becoming 'sponsors', or as
> contributing members of the wider community?
> 
I will copy Dr. Zuffo on this, but I will also give here my perception
of where the University fits in.

Dr. Zuffo's LSI organization has been quite active in the past couple of
years in designing "set-top" boxes for over-the-air broadcast digital
TV, different types of solar-powered WiFi routers and other electronic
devices.  He showed me quite a few of these when I have visited him in
the past.

>From this he formulated the idea of having the LSI organization
formalized, and has been finishing up the creation of his
state-of-the-art facility, including an SMT line that mirrors the one
used by a large cellular telephone handset company who will go un-named
at this point.  Trust me, the cellular telephone company has nothing to
do with this project, and the only reason I mention them at all is to
allow you to know that the SMT line is eminently capable of doing this
type of work.

I might also add that Dr. Zuffo's set-top box used the ARM architecture,
so he and his students are very knowledgeable about it.  His group also
has knowledge about Intel's Atom processors and other chip sets.

Many months ago I met Dr. Zuffo, showed him the GTA02 and mentioned to
him the work the community has been doing.  I believe he bought two
phones from iSolve, Koolu's Brazilian distributor, to do additional
software work.

Recently, when Sean's company changed direction, I approached Dr. Zuffo
to see if the university would be willing to host the project.

I certainly see them joining as community members, and I think that Dr.
Zuffo might encourage some of his students and professors to join our
ranks even outside of this arrangement.

I certainly see the university as "sponsors" of the project, in the fact
that it does cost money to run such an SMT line, to do some of the legal
work, etc.  I would like to find a way to help compensate them for this
work, to make the project truly self-sustaining.  Dr. Zuffo and I have
discussed government grants and other funding ideas.  Please see below.

But in the end, I would like to see the community "drive" the project,
and from my conversations with him, I think that Dr. Zuffo is on this
page too.  However, I will warn you that he is serious about this, and
will expect capable leadership.  From my experience with FOSS groups, I
believe that that the community is capable of giving this leadership.
> 
>  From my point of view, it sounds like they've got a lot to offer the 
> projects (both in expertise and facilities), and I think our
> community 
> would be stronger with them as members.  I'm assuming from your
> messages 
> below that (initially at least) they are happy participating in the 
> kicad / CC-SA licensed community process gta02-core has adopted so
> far?
> 
> 
While I have not discussed these issues with him in depth, I think he
would embrace the use of kicad and other FOSS tools.  The University of
Sao Paulo has had a leadership position in Free Software use.

As to CC-SA, as I mentioned above, I would like to see the project
self-sustaining.  Under Openmoko there were a series of things that were
paid for by Sean's sponsoring company, and when they shifted direction
things started to get a bit dicey.

With regards to my other project with the professor, we have discussed a
model where the design will be fully open, designed openly, and
licensable by manufacturing companies.  However, as the project moves
from prototype and pilot to full production, the design has to move to
manufacturing companies who would pay a royalty of 1-2 dollars (probably
with a cap on total amount) for the design.  This would go back into the
design process at the University.  "Small" quantities (for hobbyist,
researcher and universities) would be licensed gratis.  By "small", I am
probably talking 1000-2000 units, with other licensing available for
special cases.

In order to fund the Openmoko project, I would like to suggest that
*all* the things that Openmoko made "open" *up to this time*:

o circuit design
o case design
o circuit board layout
o testing issues.
o plans for future, etc.

be completely open and published as before.

But (for example) the "gerbers" be licensed with a small royalty (1-2
dollars per phone, with a cap of 500,000 to 1,000,000 USD) only if the
party will make *over* 5,000-10,000 phones.

This way universities, small companies, etc. can get started, but if the
producers start to make and sell large numbers of phones, the univer

Re: community Digest, Vol 140, Issue 8

2009-07-14 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Christoph,

Thank you for taking the time to write.  My answers are in-lined below.

> >> I am curious how many Freerunner that Koolu will buy from Openmoko?
> > I have no idea what this has to do with the conversation
> 
> You are working with the company Koolu. This could be in conflict with
> the university project you mention
> 
Yes, I am the CTO of Koolu.  Yes, Koolu has a commercial interest in the
FreeRunner phone.  I have been very up-front about that.

I am also one of the very first people who understood that the Linux
kernel, with the addition of other Free and Open Source Software, would
have a commercial value.  My involvement with Linux allowed Linus
Torvalds to create a 64-bit kernel eleven years before Microsoft had a
64-bit offering.  Did Digital Equipment sell a lot of Alpha systems with
Linux on it?  Yes.  Did the Free Software community benefit from that?
In my humble opinion, yes.

Later I headed up a vendor organization called "Linux International".
We formed certification groups, standards groups (The Linux Standard
Base, also known as "LSB" was started and funded by LI in the
beginning), and protected the Linux trademark so everyone could use it
freely.

I am not intending on "running" the Openmoko project.  Quite the
opposite.  I am happy to use my contacts to facilitate it, and will be
happy to act as an advisor, but I want the community to step up and run
it.  This will take quite a bit more work from the community to do this.

> (I personnaly do not believe in the sucess of it, I sold a lot GTA02
> to a lot universities all over Europe, they never come back with any
> further big interest).
> 
Perhaps the lack of interest you saw was because the universities saw
this only as a platform for their own use, as opposed to helping with
the actual construction itself.

However, the University of Sao Paulo is an established university in
Brazil, and has started a program to do such projects as this.  They
have started a non-profit as I have mentioned that could help with legal
and technical issues.

As I said, Dr. Zuffo and I had been working on another project, and I
saw an opportunity for the University to supply some of the mechanisms
that Openmoko needs to continue as a community project.

> 
> Besides, last year Koolu offered me 270 units Freerunner to buy, which
> they did not really had in stock. I made prepayment to their partner  
> Truebox and never received full refund from them until today.
> 

I am the CTO of Koolu, and as such I do not deal in the day-to-day
ordering and sales of systems.  I have no idea about this order.  I have
just sent some email to our sales manager asking them to comment on
this.

Likewise while Truebox is a partner of ours, they are their own company.
I am not sure what the issues are behind their order with you.

In any case, the issues you have with Truebox, Koolu or even me still do
not have any bearing on this potential partnership of the University and
the Openmoko project.

> 
> I suggest you use your energy to solve MP3-patent licence issue, the  
> Openmoko sword of Damocles.
> 

Thank you for your suggestion.  I am aware of the "mp3-patent" issues,
and I have been speaking out against software patents for 20 years at
this point.  The only reason why I have not been speaking out longer is
that software patents were not perceived as an issue before that.  I
have written articles about them, and talked to governments about the
evils of software patents.

I just returned from a conference of 4000 (mostly) high school and
college students in Colombia where I ran a contest requiring them to put
the output of their submissions in Ogg Theora format, licensed under
Creative Commons.  Most of them had never heard of "Creative Commons",
nor knew about the multi-media tools available in Free Software, nor
knew about the issues of mp3 and mp4 codecs until they started to work
on the contest.  Now they do.

I buy only players that play Ogg format.  All of my music (all 400+
properly purchased CDs) have been stored on my players in Ogg Vorbis
format.

Unfortunately software patents are a fact of life in some jurisdictions.
As I am guilty of being a pragmatist, I pick the battles that I can win,
and compromise from time to time.

Koolu supports the use of open formats and open codecs.  But we also
recognize that there is inertia in the world, and in order to have a
useful phone we will need to support patent-bearing codecs.  As a
company we would hope to make this as painless as possible for all of
the software stacks, in every jurisdiction.

However, none of this has any real bearing on the university offer.

If you have some real issues, please let me know.

> Christoph
> 
Warmest regards,

maddog


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RE: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Brenda,

>I am sorry to make you guys uncomfortable.

While Paul was right about the convention, and following convention may
make it easier to read your email in the future, I (for one) was able to
determine what you meant.

>I am really sorry for that.

If that is the worst thing you ever do, you will certainly have a
wonderful life.

Thank you for the email.

Warmest regards,

maddog



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Re: why openmoko is so slow? Is it a joke?

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Hello mobiphil,

>They found a very cheap solution, they sold the devices for lot of
>money, practically they fooled lot of people. I can imagine the company
>manager behind smiling about all the complain emails and
>naive users still hoping their freerunner will display nicely one day.

Having worked in corporate management for a system vendor for sixteen
years and being familiar with the costs of bringing a hardware and
software platform to market, I doubt that the "company manager" of
Openmoko was smiling about this project.  While I have not seen the
books of Openmoko.com, I doubt that the company made any real money in
working with the Openmoko community, and may have lost money.

This project was, and is, about an Open Phone, one designed by a
community of people.  The community made a decision about the Glamo
chip.  In retrospect it does not seem to have been a good one.

>and use those phones as reference...Again, M800 has
>keyboard, very usefull for a linux phone. Only drawback, it has only
>64megs memory, but better have less applications running smoother, than
>several slower... So ... whatsoever would be the device...

Stating this you show that you completely misunderstood the goals of the
Openmoko project.  Porting the Linux kernel and having the upper levels
of software interface available on a phone designed and manufactured by
Samsung is completely different than having software running on hardware
platform that is completely community driven, open in design and
manufacturing specification, changeable and freely licensable to many
manufacturers.

As to the final performance of the FreeRunner, I am not sure that any of
us have seen the "final" performance.  My experience in the past has
been that tweaks to the kernel code and libraries often get 3-10%
performance boost in the final days of profiling and tuning.  But this
is typically done after basic functionality is obtained.

I am sorry that you paid your $400. to join the project.  Perhaps you
can sell your phone to someone who understands and believes in the
Openmoko project and recover some of your money.

As for myself, I will continue to push for the vision of the Openmoko
project.

Sincerely,

maddog


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Brenda,

Thank you for the contact information.  I will be happy to contact him
in a day or two, but I wish to see the other comments from the community
first.

>> Professor King is the contact of OPENLAB at Tsing Hua university. You
can
>> visit his homepage. And contact him.
>> http://www.cs.nthu.edu.tw/~king/
>> I believe that he will happy to receive your mail.

md


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
John,

> I made some contact with Openmoko regarding joining their Openlab
> programme a while back now and need to follow that up. We have created
> an MSc in Network and Mobile Computing which has a module designed to
> specifically use "Openmoko". The MSc starts this September so I am
> very interested to share ideas and help spread the love.

Sounds goodand the university's program to use "Openmoko" in the MSc
sounds great.

Are you then the contact for Openlab?  Can you speak for them?

One of the issues of lining up USP was to get to the right people (Dr.
Zuffo) who went to the right people (the administration of USP), who
influenced the right people (the Minister of Communications) who then
let it all trickle back down again, making Dr. Zuffo's job a lot easier.

I admit to talking this over with a few community members ahead of time
to get their initial reactions, but I did not want to raise people's
hopes before I had confirmation from the university.

There were many reasons why I considered the University of São Paulo:

The university is the largest in Brazil (86,000 students, 12,000 PhD
candidates).  It is where I saw my first Linux Beowulf supercomputer, in
1996.  They consistently win awards at the supercomputing event held
every year.

http://www.usp.br/internacional/home.php?idioma=en

I can not stress enough that the building that Dr. Zuffo talks about is
rather large and brand new, and that even way before the switch in
strategy of Sean's company (just about a year ago) I had discussed the
Openmoko phone with various members of the faculty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dVch2nSuBA

I do not want to be perceived as "shoving this down your throats".  This
is the community's project.  I am only trying to help.

Warmest regards,

md


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Harry,

> Nice to hear good news from maddog, but I am curious how many
> Freerunner that Koolu will buy from Openmoko?

I have no idea what this has to do with the conversation, other than
Koolu (of course) having a business interest in seeing that the Openmoko
is successful as a project.  I do not think that Koolu being a
for-profit company is any secret, and I was careful to acknowledge my
Koolu contacts.

How many phones that Koolu buys to distribute is based on Koolu's
business plan, distribution models, software Koolu chooses to support
and other business considerations of Koolu.  Do we want the Openmoko
project to be successful?  Stellar?  Something that people talk about in
the news and on the street?  Absolutely, and without hesitation.

>From my conversations with Dr. Zuffo I can promise you that the designs
coming this liaison will continue to follow the philosophy of the
Openmoko community and will be equally available to all manufacturing
agents that wish to participate.  The factor that the university can
only produce 10,000 units, and *has* to license out the design to have
more produced was a *BIG* factor in this path.  It forces the university
(and the project) to treat manufacturers equally.

My other two "plans" did not guarantee this equality, and therefore were
less desirable.

Warmest regards,

md




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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Brenda,

> Brenda Wang wrote:
>> 
>> +1
>> It's really great to hear this.
>> In Taiwan, Tsing Hua university also has a OPENlab. 
>> 

I would like to work with the community to engage various universities,
but as I have mentioned before, with limited resources and a press to
get the Openmoko program stable and moving forward again, I think we
need to do this systematically and directly.

In the meantime, do you have a contact name for the OPENlab at Tsing Hua
University?

Warmest regards,

maddog


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>If it works out - the free phone will live on - and grow!

I will say that I have been saddened and angered lately (and people who
have seen my anger in the past know what that is) about the questions of
"is the FreeRunner dead".  I do not blame the people who asked the
question, just the fact that the question was even considered.

Let me tell you that even if (for some mysterious reason) that the
University of São Paulo (USP) does not work out, I have at least two
other plans that could be invoked.

Warmest regards,

md


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Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
David,

I would appreciate the translation.  Perhaps you can put those on your
web site.

As to the other universities, let's see what model we can create with
USP, keeping the other universities in mind, then we can extend that.

I do believe that growing the community through university involvement
is important.

md


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The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

2009-07-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Dear Openmoko Community,

In light of the refocusing of Sean's company on consumer items, there
has been a perceived vacuum created in the Openmoko community's efforts
to create next-generation open cellular smart phones.

I happened to be working with Dr. Marcelo Zuffo, a full professor and
the head of the Laboratory for Integrated Systems at the University of
São Paulo, Brazil, on an unrelated project.  I asked Dr. Zuffo if the
university would be willing to join the Openmoko community and to
provide critical resources to the task at hand.

I subsequently have met with Dr. Zuffo several times on this matter,
have seen his facilities (which include a very modern and
state-of-the-art SMT line) and have discussed the goals of the community
to design and prototype a completely open design for a cellular phone.
Dr. Zuffo and the university understand your issues, understand free and
open source software and hardware and are willing to assist the
community with this project.

I might add that the university can bring several new capabilities to
the community:

First of all, Dr. Zuffo has discussed the Openmoko project with the
Minister of Telecommunications of Brazil, and the Minister is very
enthusiastic about the concept.  Having the support of the government of
the twelfth largest economy behind the project might really help us with
various negotiations with vendors.

Secondly the University has been working on several aspects of
telecommunications for a long time, and therefore has expertise in
telephonic security and codecs (among other things) that could be of use
to the Openmoko community.

Third, the university has the ability and expertise to design new
integrated circuits.  Recently they designed a a range of analog-digital
chips.  Therefore the possibility of developing, manufacturing and
freely licensing new chips to help reduce the cost of the phone is
possible.

Forth, while the facilities I mentioned are capable of producing up to
10,000 units at the rate of one circuit board every 30 seconds,  the 
purpose of the facilities is research, developing and support projects
that can lead innovation, the lab's charter does not allow them to
manufacture more units then the 10,000 because that would be "commercial
production".  Therefore the university has a goal of freely licensing
the design to companies for manufacture.

Fifth, the university would be happy to host the mailing lists and
forums of the Openmoko project.  If some of the software projects need
hosting and can not find hosting services other places, the university
will consider acting as a primary hosting facility for these projects.

Sixth, personally I would like to see this concept extended, of inviting
more universities and their facilities to help with this project
world-wide.  I hope that the leadership of the University of Sao Paulo
will help create the structure and inspiration for this to happen.

Finally, the university has a non-profit legal entity, LSITEC, which can
easily do the type of paperwork that Sean's company did (NDAs,
certification) so the community can leverage off that.

I know that there will be a lot of questions and considerations to take
before the community is comfortable with this relationship.  Dr. Zuffo
has asked that I help coordinate the joining together of the university
with the community, and in the interest of seeing Openmoko continue to
do the fine work started by Sean and all of you, I will be glad to help
in this capacity.  I am monitoring the community mailing list, and
people are also welcome to email me directly (mad...@li.org) with
questions that you do not (for any reason) wish to post to the list.

A copy of Dr. Zuffo's letter of intent is below.  I have the original
PDF if anyone would like to see it, but it was too big to make it
through the community's standards on mailing lists unmoderated, and I
thought you might like to see this as soon as possible.

Warmest regards,

Jon "maddog" Hall
President, Linux International
CTO of Koolu, Inc.

======

São Paulo, 8th July 2009,

Mr. Jon Maddog Hall
The Executive Director Linux International.

Dear Mr. Hall, according our conversation LSI-USP the Laboratory for
Integrated Systems at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, is interested
in hosting the OpenMoko Community to design innovative cell phone
designs.

We would like to offer the community the following facilities:
‐  State-of-art facilities for SMT (Surface Mounting Technology)
prototyping of complex electronics boards;
‐  State-of-art facilities and expertise for design HW and SW in
telephony and communications;
‐  Expertise in testing and certification;
‐  A new building located at a Center position at USP São Paulo, to host
community meetings, as well as computational infrastructure for email ,
WEB servers and project databases.

-

Re: SHR annoyances (+ a few workarounds)

2009-06-25 Thread Jon Levell
On 06/25/2009 10:03 AM, Klaus 'mrmoku' Kurzmann wrote:

>>>
>>> Dictator
>>> 
>>> The version in the repositories seems to just record crackling
>>> if I try and record my voice - this used to work.
> I think that comes from SHR keeping the alsa state files in
> /usr/share/shr/scenarii now - and IIRC dictator needs to change them.

Sounds likely... it's a shame - I found Dictator a useful app.

Jon.

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Re: SHR annoyances (+ a few workarounds)

2009-06-25 Thread Jon Levell
On 06/25/2009 12:05 AM, Adam Jimerson wrote:

> Sorry for the OT here but I haven't figured out how to get the phone to work
> in landscape, is there a program that needs installed or something that needs
> enabled?

I'm using OMNewRotate for the SHR-repos (but I frequently disable it).

Jon.

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Re: SHR annoyances (+ a few workarounds)

2009-06-25 Thread Jon Levell
On 06/24/2009 10:14 PM, The Digital Pioneer wrote:

> What software are you using for WiFi connections? I use SHR-U and I'm
> looking for a good program to manage this.

I'm just using Mofi. It's basic but it works (for me).

Jon.

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Re: SHR annoyances (+ a few workarounds)

2009-06-25 Thread Jon Levell
On 06/24/2009 10:09 PM, Michal Brzozowski wrote:
>> Midori

> To avoid the superuser-warning banner... run it as normal user :-)
>
> - Use useradd
> - in the desktop file write: (su username; midori)

Cool. Thanks - now if I could just configure the keyboard shortcuts
midori would be a lot more friendly.

Jon.

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Re: SHR annoyances (+ a few workarounds)

2009-06-25 Thread Jon Levell
On 06/24/2009 09:33 PM, jeremy jozwik wrote:
> i think the landscape hum is on all releases. i know for a fact its in
> shr-testing

This didn't used to be the case in older SHR-Unstable versions.

Jon.

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SHR annoyances (+ a few workarounds)

2009-06-24 Thread Jon Levell
Hi,

I'm using SHR-Unstable as my daily phone, it works but there are
some things that bug me, mostly  I can live with or work around them.
It occurs to me other people might have better work arounds so I
thought I'd post my current list and see what happens:

Wifi
=
It seems reliable with the WPA2 networks I use it with but I can't
seem to turn it off in SHR-settings and once I've connected to a network 
I  can't reconnect to any network without rebooting. (I
know there's work going on in the kernel relating to this).
Workaround: After I've finished using wifi, I always reboot the
phone so that next time I want to connect, it works


Midori
===
Aside from the superuser-warning banner (which will be gone in
the next release), the keyboard shortcuts (e.g. F11 for
full screen) aren't available in Literki. There's a config
file for accelerator keys (~/.config/midori/accels) but it seems
to get overwritten every time it loads
Workaround: Live without those keys (Hmm... I ought to try write
protecting the file)

Dictator

The version in the repositories seems to just record crackling
if I try and record my voice - this used to work.

Watching videos
===
I'd like to watch videos on my FR. I've encoded it using the command
listed in the video playback section of:
http://trac.shr-project.org/trac/wiki/Customize
But with mplayer-video the sound and pictures become out of sync.
I've not tested it with intone-video from opkg.org as there's a clash
with the updated versions of the elementary libraries


Ringtones
=
I've altered my default ringtones to 8bit mono so they are quicker to 
load and to stop.


Vagalume in the repo/image
==
It crashes
Workaround: Use the one from opkg.org


Hum in landscape

When the phone is in landscape mode (really useful when typing with
Literki) there's a quiet but persistent hum.


Notifier

It pops up to tell me I have an unread message but the messages app
has already popped up to tell me that. (There was a request for
comments on the shr-devel mailing list but I wasn't comfortable
commenting there as I'm not currently developing anything).


Navit
==
In the repos it takes a lot of configuring to:
   * show an icon in Illume
   * Stop its dependencies blocking sound on resume
   * finding the libraries it needs
   * configuring the UI
   * making the speech happen far enough in advance for car use
Workaround: I've foolishly lost my highly tweaked config, when
I've finished reworking it, I'll post it somewhere

Scummvm
===
The keyboard doesn't show up so you can't type a filename to
save your game unless I'm missing something. (You need to turn
off sound in Scummvm or it crashes before you can start to play).
I guess you need a bluetooth keyboard

Messaging/Contacts app

Sometimes I can't seem to enter text into the textarea that
has focus if I've recently changed focus. It sometimes stops
me typing a number into a new contact
Workaround: I add a contact by typing a number into the dialer
and then saving it.


I think that's all the ones I can think off for now.

Jon.

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OM on LWN

2009-06-19 Thread Jon Levell
Hi,

An article about OpenMoko and the FreeRunner was published in
last weeks LWN and is now freely available to non-subscribers:
http://lwn.net/Articles/336787/

Reading that article makes me think the author must be an
incredibly intelligent and likeable chap ;)

Jon.


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Re: Debuzzing in the UK?

2009-06-11 Thread Jon Levell
Hi,

Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
[debuzzing in the UK]
> http://www.handheld-linux.com/wiki.php?page=Buzz-Rework
> Just as far as your nearest Royal Mail...

I'd just like to say that I sent my phone to Dr. N. for
debuzzing (I live in the UK) and he was friendly and
helpful.

If everyone in business answered e-mails so quickly even when
a sail doesn't directly depend on it, the world would be a
better place.

Jon.

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Re: Help requested: SHR Screenshots

2009-06-11 Thread Jon Levell
Hi guys,

Jon Levell wrote:

> I'm writing an article for LWN (http://www.lwn.net) saying
> that I think SHR is now suitable for your typical LWN.net
> reader). 

The article is now online for LWN subscribers. It's subscribers
only for 7 days. When it's free I'll add a link in this thread.

Thanks for your help everyone.

Jon.

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Re: Help requested: SHR Screenshots

2009-06-08 Thread Jon Levell
Michael Zanetti wrote:

> How did you get the category bar on the bottom for example on screenshot 
> #2753?

I think that is a screenshot of Launcher:
http://www.opkg.org/package_220.html

Jon.


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Re: Freerunner's Future

2009-06-08 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Jeremy (et. al.),

>After thinking about it for a bit, I don't know if we really need to
>find an umbrella organization right away.

All good points, and some of them were ones I was going to point out
this morning, but you beat me to it.

Other points:

Any formal organization that I know of, even one under an "umbrella",
has to have some definition of "membership", "charter", "structure" and
"bylaws".

"Charter" could be "defining an open phone"

The definition of "membership" can be something as simple as "people on
this particular mailing list"

Bylaws state what people can and can not do, how many officers you have
(President, Secretary and Treasurer are the traditional ones), how they
are chosen (I almost said "elected", but that presumes things), and who
can chose them.

Do you have a board of directors?  Some foundations have a couple, with
one having fiscal and legal responsibilities, and the other may have
technical responsibilities.

I am modeling the new LI after a very old and successful organization
called "DECUS" (Digital Equipment Corporation User Society) as well as a
couple of other long-term successful organizations such as the
Automobile Association of America and the Association for the
Advancement of Retired People (yes, I know the last two are weird for
this group, but they have interesting models for "end users").

DECUS had country groups as well as many, many "Special Interest
Groups" (VMS, UNIX, Networking, Security, Hardware, etc.)  It was a
cross-matrix, so the Special Interest Groups could have members in many
countries.

But before you could form a "Special Interest Group" you had to have at
least:

o Four members
o Three officers (President, Secretary, Treasurer)
o "Charter" - what you were going to do

The bylaws were supplied (for the most part) by DECUS, the central
organization, which had its own President, Secretary and Treasurer

Digital "sponsored" DECUS, but did not run it.  It truly was an
organization of Digital's users.

So, I suggest that your group follow the path of trying to solve some
issues like "who belongs", "who speaks for the group" and "what do we
want to do".  You will need to solve these before either forming your
own organization or approaching another.

In the meantime, as you said, I see no *real* hurry to do either.  You
have some time.

Warmest regards,

maddog
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director   Linux International(R)
email: mad...@li.org 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
Cell:  +1.603.943.   WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several
countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used
pursuant to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of
Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
countries.


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Re: how dangerous Freerunner could be?

2009-06-08 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Nikita,

>This was caused by mistake by pregrad.net service we used, not by our
>side. But due to quite hard import process (it lasted for months), it
>was next to impossible to recover :(.

I am sorry for your issue, but unless the mistake was caused by Koolu
itself, I do not know that Koolu can address it.

However, you might consider "trading" your FreeRunner with someone else
on the list.  People move, and someone who bought a FreeRunner in Europe
may have moved to the United States and would be willing to trade you to
get one that is 850.  If you are going to DebConf, this might be a good
place to do a "swap".

900s work fine in the USA (for the most part), but we have the same
issues as you do"rural" areas tend to use 850.

md



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Re: how dangerous Freerunner could be?

2009-06-07 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Hello,

>koolu.com wrongly sent North American variant of devices to our
>European country in a pack.

I contacted Elaine Turner in our sales department about this, and she
told me that the only issue she had ever known about was a person who
ordered the units to be delivered to the United States as 850/1800/1900
phones, and then had the units shipped to Europe.

When they contacted us to complain that they were not 900/1800/1900, she
showed them the order form where they had specified 850/1800/1900.

If this is not the case with your order, and if Koolu made a mistake
with the order, please send email to sa...@koolu.com and I am sure that
Elaine will straighten it out.

Otherwise you should have said "I wrongly ordered the North American
variant..."

Warmest regards,

maddog


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Re: Freerunner's Future

2009-06-07 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
One comment about both the limo foundation and the mozilla foundation is
that they seem to be pushing the design of one stack of software.  From
my observations of Openmoko to date, the concept is more of open
hardware and multiple operating system stacks, even to the point of
having BSD on the phone (or perhaps other stacks that do not use a Linux
kernel).

One of the issues I have with Linux International as an end user's group
for all of Free Software is the name "Linux", which would turn off
certain groups of people.  I have struggled with this, but in the end I
am going to keep the name, because it is already set up (the easiest
path), the name recognition and to honor my friend Linus Torvalds.
However all Free Software users would be welcome.

Make sure that whatever group you join gives you the freedom you desire.

Warmest regards,

maddog


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Re: Help requested: SHR Screenshots

2009-06-07 Thread Jon Levell
Hi,

Petr Vanek wrote:
> Jon Levell  (JL) wrote:
[..]
>> LWN would like some screenshots of a recent SHR
>> (testing or unstable) that they could publish with the
>> article.

> i am uploading it on http://scap.linuxtogo.org/ as we speak, please
> select what you like :)

Thank you very much for the fast response Petr.

Jon.

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Help requested: SHR Screenshots

2009-06-07 Thread Jon Levell
Hi,

I'm writing an article for LWN (http://www.lwn.net) saying
that I think SHR is now suitable for your typical LWN.net
reader). LWN would like some screenshots of a recent SHR
(testing or unstable) that they could publish with the
article.

Unfortunately my FR is still in transit (buzz fixed
by Dr. N et al) so could someone send some recent
screenshots to:
openm...@coralbark.net

I'd especially like the dialler and the main illume
launcher screen but I'd appreciate any that you
thought were interesting and suitable for publication.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Jon.

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Linux International and Openmoko

2009-06-06 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Hello,

I understand that there has been a discussion on this list about having
a foundation that would represent the community of Openmoko.

Fifteen years ago Linux International was created to provide services
for the Linux community.  It was started as a vendor organization, at a
time when there were not many vendors interested in Linux.  We handled a
lot of legal and business issues for Linux:

o Protected the Linux Trademark from people that would "kidnap" it for
various reasons
o Helped to start two certification organizations (we funded some of the
original testing work for LPI certification)
o Helped to start the Linux Standard Base project, which became the Free
Standards Group
o Helped to form what became Linuxworld
o Helped many local user groups start local events, most notably the
Atlanta LinuxFest and the Ohio LinuxFest

We tended to split off the groups we formed, afraid that one vendor
organization would provide too much power in a centralized organization.

For various reasons as larger companies started to show interest in
Linux, our membership went to form OSDL, which now is the Linux
Foundation.  Linux International as an organization has been dormant for
about five years.  I have still been spreading the word about Free
Software at conferences, through magazine articles and media interviews.

Recently I came up with the idea of reforming Linux International into
an "end user" organization, with the concept that no company could join
as a member, nor sit on the board of directors as a member.  Only
individual end users could hold membership, vote, etc.  Of course almost
everybody is an end user of some type of software, so the membership
would be quite "open".  I have been working to change the charter of LI
to reflect this.

Recently I started another project, not a phone, but otherwise similar
in its needs to Openmoko.  This other project will have a community, be
completely "open", and needs an umbrella organization to help with legal
work, etc.  I intend on forming a sub-group of LI for this project.

I could offer the same to Openmoko, to be a sub-group of LI.

Linux International is already a legal entity.  We are a
"not-for-profit" in the state of New Hampshire, U.S.A.  There are
reasons why LI is a "not-for-profit" instead of a non-profit (501c3 or
501c6) which have to do with ease of applying revenues, etc.  Nothing
stops LI from becoming a 501c6 (501c3 is very restrictive), and nothing
would stop the sub-group of Openmoko from becoming a non-profit, if that
is desired.

Likewise the plans for LI are to have country chapters, with separate
boards for each country chapter.  This was planned way before the
current issue with Openmoko, but you could take advantage of the planned
structure if you wish.

LI would solicit sponsorships to help fund its work which could come
from companies, but again the voting membership would be from
individuals only.  The things that LI does would be "Open" to all.  We
do plan on having some things we charge for, to cover costs.

If the Openmoko community is interested in pursuing this, I would be
happy to discuss LI's plans further with you, and how Openmoko could fit
into this.

Warmest regards,

Jon "maddog" Hall
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director   Linux International(R)
email: mad...@li.org 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
Cell:  +1.603.943.   WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several
countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used
pursuant to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of
Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
countries.


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Re: Debuzzing

2009-05-09 Thread Jon Levell
Hi,

Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
[blank screen when ordering a debuzzing]
> Not generally. Several people have reported a blank screen that is  
> only shown on the first attempt. But we can't debug that easily,  
> because it appears only for real payments and not in debug mode.

I'll e-mail you off-list.

Jon.

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Finger friendly keyboards

2009-05-08 Thread Jon Levell
Hi,

So far on my FR, I've mostly been typing non-dictionary words so the
predictive keyboard has been getting in my way. I knew a few people
had created finger friendly keyboards so I had a bit of a play.

Firstly I tried EasyTouch_SHR:
http://www.opkg.org/package_174.html
But like many of the commenters on that page, it didn't work for me,
first it altered my theme but also (as I didn't remove my other
keyboards I suspect), all the keys on the keyboards overlapped each
other.

Then I tried Michal Brzozowski's keyboard:
http://markmail.org/message/ufdue7qhlfjwabkn
but I didn't like the design decision to design it around flexing
the case.

I started to create my own (which I may still do) but found if I
just used the keyboard files from the EasyTouch_SHR it worked
basically as I wanted.

I just put the keyboard files (.kbd) from and the package into 
/usr/lib/enlightenment/modules/illume/keyboards (and moved the Default 
and Numbers keyboards to a backup directory).

It's work very nicely on a recent SHR-Testing - maybe the keyboard
files could be hosted separately or even better a minimal package
could be made that just automated that.

Has anyone else tried this?

Jon.

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Re: Debuzzing

2009-05-08 Thread Jon Levell
Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:

> expenses. The rework itself is essentially for free and Openmoko  
> provides an additional free battery to make good your efforts and the  
> time you don't have the Freerunner to use.

I've tried to order this but when I try and pay via a credit card, I
get a blank screen. I see that it warns about pop-up blockers on the
page but I've even tried using IE6 (under Wine) and I still get the
blank screen.

Is the payment processing broken at the moment?

Jon.


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Re: Why enlightenment?

2009-04-15 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:57:57 +0200
Bram Neijt  wrote:

> I know this question must have come up once before, but I couldn't
> find any real answer online, so I'm posting it here. Why
> enlightenment?
> 
> I haven't seen enlightenment being used for over 4 years, and with the
> wealth of programs out there which are portable and can run on top op
> Linux, this choice really astounds me. I'm only writing this now,
> because I see that the next Om release (2009) is going to keep
> focusing on using it.
> 

For awhile Openmoko had hired Enlightenment's lead developer
(Rasterman), so that probably explains their predisposition to using
it. E17 also has the advantage of being both slick (in terms of
resources) and looking damn good. This has nothing to do with the GUI
used by the apps, any more then using fluxbox on a desktop would affect
my ability to run gnome or kde applications.

> As I see it, all embedded devices running some kind of interface use
> either QT or GTK (QT Phone, Nokia Internet tablet, Sharp Zaurus..) and
> there are various applications and standards available.
> 
> Why then go for enlightenment?
> 
> Hoping this is not to inflammatory,
>   Bram

What do you mean by standards in "there are various applications and
standards available" ? As a full-blown window manager, enlightenment
will do everything any other full-featured window manager can do (well,
except have releases that aren't just snapshots).

Also, remember that Qt Phone and the Nokia tablets use their own gui
libraries too (Qtextended and hildon respectively), that applications
have to be ported to in order to look native. I'm not familiar with
Sharp Zaurus-based distros, but don't they normally use gpe software,
which is in most openmoko distro's repos?

-- 
Joseph Booker


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Re: Sean's speech at ESC about making a 3G device

2009-04-02 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
ASU was like this while people were testing and expecting new 2007
releases. Diversity was like this. It seems like FSO started like this
(I could be wrong).

Can the internal company communication be more open? It's annoying if
every 6 months another somewhat secret project is going to come to
light. It's honestly getting tiresome

-- 
Joseph Booker


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Re: microsoft patent with idea's from this list

2009-02-03 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
>"one or more" means that even if prior art exists, it can still be 
>patented. This is different from intellectual property where
>anteriority prevent copyright. (at least in france)

I think the issue here is in your word "it".

If "it" is the concept of a "docking station", then there is prior art
and that concept can not be patented.

If "it" is the concept of automatic detection and configuration, there
is plenty of prior art for that, and unless they have come up with
something completely novel, then that would be thrown out also.

At a cursory glance, I could not see anything that I considered
"novel". 

The problem with a patent like this one is that the patent itself is so
broad MS would try to apply it to everything if it were granted.  A
daughter card for a motherboard could conceivably fit under this patent.

md
-- 
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email: mad...@li.org 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
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Re: microsoft patent with idea's from this list

2009-02-03 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
Incredible.

If I was the person that submitted this patent application, I would have
done it under a false name, simply because I would have been ashamed.

A great example of Patent System abuse.

md
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director   Linux International(R)
email: mad...@li.org 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several
countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used
pursuant
   to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
   Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.



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Re: SHR Unstable

2009-01-23 Thread jon
i haven't any obvious problems with shr, its working great. There are however 
some things still needed to be done in the way of power management...
i.e. allow suspend when powered only by battery is yet to be implemented, 
although the framework for doing such a thing seems to be in place.


On Friday 23 January 2009 17:06:09 Matthew Lane wrote:
> How is suspend on SHR?  Is it working well?  If telephony, SMS, etc. are
> working great, then I might consider switching to SHR as a daily phone!
>
> Paul wrote:
> > Wow. The
> > phone works nicely. I did not hear a buzz, echo or other annoying sounds.
> > Also SMS/text messaging incoming and outgoing works!
> >
> > Have not taken the time to try GPS yet, as that is not important for
> > me, but I may, soon. ;-)
> >
> > Paul
>
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Re: My solution (was: Car Charger?)

2009-01-13 Thread Jon 'maddog' Hall
The problem I had was that the FR has it's buttons and USB port
at the bottom and the holder comes designed to hold the mobile
at the bottom ;)

It has two pieces: One that attaches to the car, and the other
which
holds the mobile. 

I just flipped the whole thing over, so it holds the FR at the
top. But then with the vibrations it would come off so I just
glued the two pieces together.

It would be nice to ask X11 to rotate everything 180 degrees.  Then the
"top" of the Openmoko would become the bottom.

Sounds like a good application of the accelerometer to me.

md
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director   Linux International(R)
email: mad...@li.org 80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557   Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several
countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used
pursuant
   to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
   Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.



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Re: Problem upgrading ncurses

2008-07-23 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:43:54 -0500
"Dale Schumacher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Going through my daily ritual of update and upgrade, I've been having
> trouble with ncurses.
> 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~# cat /proc/version
> Linux version 2.6.24 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc version 4.1.2)
> #1 PREEMPT Tue Jul 22 02:21:01 CEST 2008
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~# opkg upgrade
> Upgrading ncurses on root from 5.4-r14 to 5.4-r15...
> Downloading
> http://buildhost.openmoko.org/daily-feed/armv4t/ncurses_5.4-r15_armv4t.ipk
> Collected errors:
>  * Package ncurses wants to install file /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5
> But that file is already provided by package  * libncurses5
> 
> This has persisted for at least the last 24 hours.  Is anyone else
> seeing this problem?

I'm not sure, since I reflashed since experiencing this problem, but I
was getting that on the same setup as I have now but with
http://rabenfrost.net/celtune/celtune-rabenfrost.conf in /etc/opkg.

Perhaps the ncurses from that repo is broken?

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Re: Camera

2008-07-18 Thread Jon Webb
Sorry, should have looked at the FAQ first... -- Jon Webb
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Camera support on OpenMoko?

2008-07-18 Thread Jon Webb
I can't find anything on the OpenMoko site about camera support. Am I
missing something? Is camera support deliberately excluded for some reason?
Is it possible to get it included?
-- Jon Webb
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Re: Highest order number shipped? (Was Number of GTA02s ordered)

2008-07-10 Thread Jon Pomeroy
On Thu, 2008-07-10 at 17:02 +, Daniel Dadap wrote:
> Steven Kurylo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> >I think you're pretty low.  In another thread someone said their OM
> >store tracking number was 1087.  Mine is in the 1600s.  While there
> >are some assumptions there, it strongly indecates they've shipped 600
> >from their store alone.
> 
> Has yours shipped yet? Our 10-pack is order #2267. I wonder how many they 
> ship a day.
> 
> I wonder what the highest order number shipped yet is... Anyone get a ship 
> confirmation last night? If you think you have a high number, what was it?
> 
> 
> 
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My order is in the 1500's. No tracking number yet. :( 

Maybe today?

-Jon


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Re: anyone know when the phones are actually shipping within the US?

2008-07-07 Thread Jon Pomeroy
Vinc and Ian,

When did you get email for OM? I ordered Thursday and only received a
confirmation of my order. Nothing about when shipping would start or UPS
notification. Did you have to do any prompting to get this info?

Thanks,

-Jon

On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 09:46 -0700, ian douglas wrote:
> They gave me no estimation on my order (1843) but said I'd get an Email
> from UPS when our package is in transit.
> 
> -id
> 
> 
> Vinc Duran wrote:
> > I got a nice mail from openmoko:
> > 
> > Our warehouse in Fremont, CA will be back to work on Monday (7/7) and
> > start shipping process.  Your order number should be ready to ship by
> > Tuesday.  Thanks.
> > 
> > My order number is 1562. If I read a lot into the email I might conclude
> > order counts. I asked about tracking numbers too but no word on that.
> > V
> > 
> > On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 11:44 PM, ian douglas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> > 
> > Hey all,
> > 
> > Does anyone know when the phones are shipping in the US? One source I've
> > read say they'll ship tomorrow, Monday July 7th, but I'm curious if
> > they're shipping in the order they were bought?
> > 
> > Will we get a follow-up Email with a shipping/tracking number?
> > 
> > I'm trying to schedule a meet-and-geek for the Los Angeles group that
> > coordinated for a bulk purchase, but without any firm expectation of
> > when the phones will be in, it's hard to tell everyone when to show up
> > to get their phones.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Ian Douglas
> > 
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> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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Re: discount on invisibleshield protectors

2008-07-05 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 02:23:37 +0300
Flyin_bbb8 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Hey everyone and well done OM team for making this great open phone
> almost in our hands :p i just ordered a full body protection from
> invisibleshield and got 2 discount codes, anyone who wants just
> contact me, come first , get first :p

Same with my discount codes (same discount was given to pc world
readers).

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Is there any truth to the rumor

2008-07-02 Thread Jon Pomeroy
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/02/openmoko-neo-freerunner-available-for-order-july-4-shipping-jul/

Inquiring geek minds want to know... :)


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Re: Will GTK be used in Openmoko?

2008-05-16 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Fri, 16 May 2008 17:11:46 +0100
Stroller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> noted:
> FIC is a new company
> and hasn't sold anything yet - in a business situation like this one  
> watches one's costs and tries to get the best results one can
> without spending too much money.
> ...
> FIC will have  
> _income_ - that's REALLY significant!! FIC doesn't have income at
> the moment, 

Wait, what? Don't you mean Openmoko Inc?

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Re: Software Status

2008-05-13 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Tue, 13 May 2008 20:58:10 -0500
Joseph Jon Booker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Btw, how deeply is enlightenment going to be involved in the OM
> software? Are applications going to need to be programmed with EFL to
> have a native look-and-feel on the Freerunner?

And one more question: where does diversity get its images? It seems
they are .eet files, which could be anything. Are they openstreetmap
tiles, or does OM have some kind of deal with a mapping company?

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Software Status

2008-05-13 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Sun, 4 May 2008 18:39:10 -0700
"steve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Also, I need to update everybody on software. 

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sebastian
> Reichel Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 6:08 PM
> To: List for Openmoko community discussion
> Subject: When will you update the Production Status, steve?

> the weekend is almost gone (actually it is already here in Germany,
> where it's 3:00 now), so where are the updates? :D


Since the last time someone made some prodding was successful, may
I ask for some official news on the software side?

I'm guessing it's everything at
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/OpenmokoFramework (which that page says
will be in alpha version next month) and
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/NeoSoftwareStack (which really does raise
the question of how Android is expected to fit into this, and what some
of the new applications like illume, assassin, pidjin, etc really are).

Or maybe it's the test cases and test reports being publicly posted?

Btw, how deeply is enlightenment going to be involved in the OM
software? Are applications going to need to be programmed with EFL to
have a native look-and-feel on the Freerunner?


Thanks,
Joseph Booker


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Re: A few questions about the games

2008-05-09 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Sat, 10 May 2008 00:20:28 +0100
Mo Abrahams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> How does one insert numbers in the sudoku game? (I am assuming it is
> sudoku, since it is named solo on openmoko) Maybe this will be more
> evident with the actual hardware, but at the moment I am stumped.

See
http://bugzilla.openmoko.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla//show_bug.cgi?id=1215 ,
its a known issue with the keyboard being used. I remember somewhere
(probably in one of the mailing lists?) that rasterman was working on a
new keyboard, so the game may be workable soon

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Re: Shipping questions, customer organized distribution in Europe

2008-04-28 Thread Jon Pomeroy

On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 12:30 -0700, Steven Kurylo wrote:

> I would really like the option to use the USPS instead of UPS.  UPS
> charges much higher brokerage fees to bring a package into Canada
> compared to the USPS.
> 
> Thank you.

Steven,

Where are you in Canada?

-Jon


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Re: Kentucky / Indiana Group Order

2008-04-25 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:16:09 -0400
"Geoff Ruscoe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Anyone from around here interested in getting a group order together?

Where in IN/KY are you guys? Is Chicago too far away for this group?

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Washington State group order

2008-04-25 Thread Jon Pomeroy
Hello all,

I am starting a group for the Washington State area. I'm willing to
organize it. If you're interested, you can contact me at jon.pomeroy at
gmail. 

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GroupSales#Washington

-Jon


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Re: Welcome to Openmoko GSoC

2008-04-21 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:51:17 -0700
ian douglas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Daniel Willmann wrote:
> > IM/VoIP using telepathy
> 
> 
> I'm hoping you meant telephony? Or is Google seriously funding some
> sort of telekenesis projects? ;o)
> 
> -id
> 
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http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/

It seems flexible enough to support telekinesis, is there a standard RFC
for VoEP (Voice over ESP)?

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Re: FreeRunner Pricing and PVT update

2008-04-13 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:13:16 -0700
"steve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Stylus is of course on the goodie list. Things I will give away to
> the first few thousand buyers. 
>  
> If you like the stylus approach, the one we have is great. I know its
> great because at every trade show
> when I leave it on the table somebody snatches it! 


Steve,

First of all, thanks tons for the information. I'm looking forward to
being one of the early adopters, and I'm sure a lot of us are very
grateful for how open this process is.

I think the issue is that the neo1973 came with some items,
* Headset
* Neo pouch
* Kickass 4-in-1 Stylus
* Lanyard
* MicroSD
* USB Cable
* Neo Tools (in Advance kit)

Just to be clear, besides the goodies for the first orders, is none of
that going to be included? I understand not including a usb cable,
tools, and MicroSD card (since these are standard) and the neo pouch
and lanyard (since those are just extra branding).

But is the software going to depend on a stylus? If so, it should be
made very clear when purchasing that the customer will need to get one.
Even better would be to include a simple cheap one, it would be better
then nothing.

I also don't remember ever getting a phone without some kind of cheap
headset. Providing a list of compatible headsets would be very nice (it
is illegal around here to use a cellphone while driving without a
hands-free).

Once again, thanks a lot for all the information. Good luck with the
rest of the PVT testing,
Joseph Jon Booker


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Re: A few questions on the GSOC

2008-04-03 Thread Joseph Jon Booker
On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 18:48:56 -0400
Steven Hicks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The questions I have for this project are: 
> 1. Must the final result work on the phone? In other words can I
> build the software on the PC and have it working on the PC with say
> Mono/Java? 2. Is there a programming language restriction?
 
It is merely the mentor organization's choice, some of the projects have
taken on things completely unrelated to them just since they were so
impressed.

> 3. What is required to deem the project complete?
http://code.google.com/opensource/gsoc/2008/faqs.html#0.1_evaluations <
the evaluations determine if you get paid is the closest to what you're
thinking of, after all, good projects never complete ;)

> 5. If a working copy on the phone is required will I be given an
> OpenMoko phone to make sure this works (if so will this be for borrow
> or to keep)? 5.5 Will I be provided with a prepaid SIM? (I'm American
> so that would be either AT&T or TMobile)

It's been said before on the list you will be provided with a
freerunner, even if it's a prototype. I don't recall any discussion
about providing you with cellphone service, and you really don't need
to do that for the noise detection project

> Little bit about me: I am currently an undergraduate Uni student at
> Elon. I will be graduating in May and be attending UNC-Charlotte for
> Computer Vision in Intelligence (ms/PhD). 

Cool, a friend of mine is one of the business fellows at elon, I just
found your guys' secondlife island the other day too, good luck with SoC

> -Steven 


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Re: VoIP+IAX Program Theory for OM

2008-02-21 Thread Jon
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:37 PM, Kyle Bassett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> Thanks for all the input!
>
> To clarify:
> I have already set this this system up using linux/win/mac IAX clients and
> it works great.  Reliability is very high (no failures within the 4 months
> I've had it up) with my dedicated asterisk server running off my DSL
> connection (QoS on with a linux router).  If the asterisk server cannot
> reach me via a VoIP connection, it fallsback to calling my cell phone
> number.  If the asterisk box fails for whatever reason, my VoIP provider has
> a fallback number to dial as well.  The asterisk server just has a VoIP
> account for inbound and outbound calls, no analog lines are connected.
>
> The cost benefit here would be the ability to accept a lower plan from
> your cell provider (possibly data-only when 3G is available?), or even use a
> prepaid service with the smartphone.  I am currently using a per-minute
> VoIP/POTS termination plan with no monthly fee, which works out to be much
> cheaper with the lower cellular plan.
>
> I have not wrote the application as of yet, I wanted to gauge interest for
> a project like this.  If I do write this application, I would like to
> implement encryption along the way.  In addition, I would set up an asterisk
> box at our business location for testing within a larger userbase.  The
> reason I prefer to use a full asterisk system is the ability to integrate it
> within our business.
>
> I prefer IAX over SIP because it is NAT routeable, whereas SIP has many
> issues with firewall traversal.  In reality, the client should support both.
>
> Keep it coming! :-)
>
> -Kyle
>
>
>
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>
I think an IAX client for the OM is a really good idea.  My office is run
off of an Asterisk server, and I'd love to be able to make my cell phone
part of that system (that way no one knows if I'm at my desk or not...
mwahahaha)

As an additional note, the other reason IAX is better to SIP is that it
(generally) has lower bandwidth utilization. For those who are interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAX

-Jon
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Re: OPENMOKO WIKI Official Index Page

2008-02-20 Thread Jon
On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 2:59 AM, Brenda Wang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> Dear all:
> OpenMoko Wiki Official Index Page 's Link:
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/OPENMOKO_WIKI_Official_Index_Page
>
> Brenda Wang
>
>
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Just my 2 cents... But I don't think its necessary to include "OPENMOKO WIKI
Official" in the page title.  It is, after all, on the openmoko wiki.  As
for "official" unless you do a sysadmin level protection on the page -
anyone can edit it.

-Jon
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Re: Wiki - organising by end user type - Wiki Personas

2008-02-16 Thread Jon
On Feb 16, 2008 1:46 PM, Jon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Feb 16, 2008 1:43 PM, Jon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Feb 16, 2008 3:39 AM, JW <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi All
> > >
> > > Do you have comments about the Wiki Personas now described here?
> > >
> > > http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Personas
> > >
> > > JW
> > >
> > >
> > > ___
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> > > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> > >
> >
> >
> > Howdy,
> > I do have a couple of comments.  I agree with the other comments that
> > the casual user doesn't hate the command line, they simply don't know it
> > exists and also they are expecting the phone to be intuitive enough to
> > understand without reading the manual.  Digressing from that - I don't think
> > they would be a "Wiki" user.  In addition I think two software dev roles are
> > more or less a dupe of each other.  Yes there are going to be intro level
> > software developers and more experienced software developers - but you it
> > seems to me that you are differentiating based on skill.  Who's to say a
> > newbie isn't interested in kernel
> >
>
>
>  I really wish my damn email client wouldn't send emails when I'm not
> done.  Sorry for the second email.
>
> Anyways, who  is to say that a newbie isn't interested in kernel hacking?
> Maybe thats what they want to get into.
>
> Also.  I think mixing these "wiki personas" with the other personas is a
> bit confusing - but thats just me.  The personas image was based on the (now
> languishing) work of the Usability Team (
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Usability_Team ) specifically the User
> Categories ( http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Usability_Team/User_Categories).  
> That User Categories is where the text for alot of the personas image
> came from.
>
> Just as an FYI.
>
> -Jon
>


As much as I hate sending 3 messages in a row.  I'm going to.  My Apologies
to everyone.

I was just going over the page - and now I think I understand what you are
doing.  The main issue I have is that these  "wiki personas" are already
well defined on the main page under "What's your interest?".  Also I saw the
note "In Feb 2008 an attempt was made to simplify this (six sample
smartphone users) to four Wiki Personas."   That seems a bit strange to me.
Those who use the wiki and those who use the phone in the end will be two
different groups.   The original personas image (and User Categories) were
aimed at _end users_ of the phone.

-Jon
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Re: Wiki - organising by end user type - Wiki Personas

2008-02-16 Thread Jon
On Feb 16, 2008 1:43 PM, Jon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
> On Feb 16, 2008 3:39 AM, JW <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Hi All
> >
> > Do you have comments about the Wiki Personas now described here?
> >
> > http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Personas
> >
> > JW
> >
> >
> > ___
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> > community@lists.openmoko.org
> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> >
>
>
> Howdy,
> I do have a couple of comments.  I agree with the other comments that the
> casual user doesn't hate the command line, they simply don't know it exists
> and also they are expecting the phone to be intuitive enough to understand
> without reading the manual.  Digressing from that - I don't think they would
> be a "Wiki" user.  In addition I think two software dev roles are more or
> less a dupe of each other.  Yes there are going to be intro level software
> developers and more experienced software developers - but you it seems to me
> that you are differentiating based on skill.  Who's to say a newbie isn't
> interested in kernel
>


 I really wish my damn email client wouldn't send emails when I'm not
done.  Sorry for the second email.

Anyways, who  is to say that a newbie isn't interested in kernel hacking?
Maybe thats what they want to get into.

Also.  I think mixing these "wiki personas" with the other personas is a bit
confusing - but thats just me.  The personas image was based on the (now
languishing) work of the Usability Team (
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Usability_Team ) specifically the User
Categories ( http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Usability_Team/User_Categories).
 That User Categories is where the text for alot of the personas image
came from.

Just as an FYI.

-Jon
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Re: Wiki - organising by end user type - Wiki Personas

2008-02-16 Thread Jon
On Feb 16, 2008 3:39 AM, JW <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Hi All
>
> Do you have comments about the Wiki Personas now described here?
>
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Personas
>
> JW
>
>
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>


Howdy,
I do have a couple of comments.  I agree with the other comments that the
casual user doesn't hate the command line, they simply don't know it exists
and also they are expecting the phone to be intuitive enough to understand
without reading the manual.  Digressing from that - I don't think they would
be a "Wiki" user.  In addition I think two software dev roles are more or
less a dupe of each other.  Yes there are going to be intro level software
developers and more experienced software developers - but you it seems to me
that you are differentiating based on skill.  Who's to say a newbie isn't
interested in kernel
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Re: Re: Patents and OpenMoko

2008-02-12 Thread Jon Radel
Vasco Névoa wrote:
> Hi. Sorry to barge in like this, but I don't quite understand the problem to 
> begin with...
> Isn't open source code by definition protected against subsequent patents?
> It is part of the patenting process to search for conflicting publications; 
> if they find any, then the candidate idea is not a novelty and cannot be 
> patented. Publishing is the best weapon against (subsequent) patents: cheap 
> and effective.
> I think we should just add some way to automatically timestamp every code 
> check-in in a legally binding way, like using some outside certification 
> entity's digital signature (that carries a legally recognizable timestamp).
> An open-source public repository is a valid publication of ideas, which are 
> therefore not patentable.
> What do you think?

Bogdan Bivolaru already pointed out some practical issues with your
theoretical outline.  However, there are some additional issues:

The biggest in my view is that you seem to assume that open source
developers somehow (magic?) manage to write only code which does not
infringe (in somebody's eyes) on existing patents, or won't infringe on
already filed patents that haven't been published yet.  There are even
legal reasons to avoid doing a patent search before you start developing
something, as you then avoid knowingly infringing, which makes a
difference, at least in the US.

Then there's the practical matter that if you have a collection of
patents you can frequently come to some cross-licensing agreement if
someone else in your industry starts hassling you with their patents.
If you have nothing, it's much easier for them to grind you into the
dirt, if only with legal fees, if they so desire.

--Jon Radel



smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
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Re: solar power

2008-02-09 Thread Jon
On Feb 9, 2008 7:01 PM, Wolfgang Spraul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Andy (or anyone else),
> if the whole back of the Neo would be a solar panel, and you would put
> it back side up into direct sunlight, say for 5 hours, how much could
> that charge the battery?
> Could you operate the phone without a battery (and without USB) power
> if you were standing in sunlight?
> Just curious, thanks for any answers,
> Wolfgang
>
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Howdy,
While I think it would be awesome - I don't think there are any solar panels
efficient enough to charge near USB specs, that are that small.  If you take
a look at:
http://yosemiteoutside.com/m/Blogs/02EA4A6B-8893-4F3E-87A8-C1E4B24C3AAB.html,
he uses something called "PowerFilm" (
http://store.sundancesolar.com/po6v10flsopa.html ) for an iPod charger.
Regardless of that, the solar panel is 6v @ 100mAh (which could be
"adjusted" to meet get similar to USB specs).  The problem is that the film
is 4.5" X 5.9" for that "little" power.  I really don't think the back of
the Neo is enough room for a useful sized solar panel.

Of course, that being said - a small solar panel could be used to trickle
charge the battery.  It won't give you 100% charge in the 5 hours you want -
but at least it'll keep you running a little longer.

-Jon

PS.  I'm no expert on solar panels, there may be better/more efficient
panels to use.
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Re: 2007.11 snapshot available

2007-12-04 Thread Jon Phillips
Priorities for mass usage:

1. phone working
2. acceptable battery life (1 full day without charge)

Am I wrong?

Jon

On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 22:29 +0100, Peter Rasmussen wrote:
> Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote:
> > Peter Rasmussen wrote:
> >   
> >> I checked out bug #1028, and yes, even with the limited info there, it
> >> seems to be the same.
> >> 
> >
> > Thanks for confirming!
> >
> >   
> That was the least I could do!
> >>> A couple of seconds later you should see a popup with your mobile
> >>> service provider appearing.
> >>>   
> >> I could then make phone calls, but it seemed that when the other end 
> >> drops the connection, my Neo doesn't detect it and stays up until I 
> >> explicitly drop the call myself. Is this a known problem?
> >> 
> >
> > Unfortunately yes, sorry. gsmd team and dialer team are working to fix
> > this asap.
> >
> >   
> Actually, now being able to both dial and receive phone calls, this 
> issue moves down the 'issue ladder' for me. It doesn't work in a sexy 
> way, but it works!
> 
> What I would rather like to see now is working text messaging (SMS) and 
> better battery life, because then I could switch my regular mobile phone 
> to the Neo for every day usage, and that would put many more testing 
> hours into it. Right now, it is only after I come home and have time 
> sitting down with it that I can fiddle and test it, and that makes a 
> huge difference.
> 
> If emphasis could also be put into providing more characters in the text 
> messaging, eg. European, Japanese and Chinese characters, that would be 
> helpful, too. You know, text messaging in Europe and Asia is sometimes 
> more important than voice.
> 
> Then, having a USB mode = Mass Storage, so that when powered up, or in 
> the boot loader mode, being able to directly access the SD or SDHC flash 
> card would make access to it easier and less demanding with moving the 
> flash card back and forth between the Neo and a reader, when populating 
> it with a new kernel and rootfs image. How and when do you suppose that 
> is coming along?
> 
> In general, how do I put such functionality road map priority wishes 
> through? Bugzilla? Or is that only for actual defects?
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter
> 
> 
-- 
Jon Phillips

San Francisco, CA
USA PH 510.499.0894
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.rejon.org

MSN, AIM, Yahoo Chat: kidproto
Jabber Chat: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IRC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Please note: the contents of this email are not intended to be
legal advice nor should they be relied upon as or represented to be
legal advice. Jon Phillips does not represent any organization through
this email address.


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Re: Community update: The 850 MHz issue

2007-11-05 Thread Jon
On Nov 5, 2007 6:23 PM, Michael Shiloh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> That's a good point, Tupshin. You (and the community) can guide us as we
> try to figure out how to proceed.
>
> How many of you must have 850 MHz support, and would be satisfied with
> an 850/1800/1900MHz variant, and how many of you  must have full
> quad-band?
>
> Please put your answers on
>
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Talk:November_6%2C_2007_Community_Update
>
> Michael
>
>
I've already put myself down on the list for the 850 tri-mode.  That'll work
"good nuff" for me.  But I also did some digging around on GSM  World to
hopefully answer my questions and others.  If you take a quick look at
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_us.shtml which is the US list
for GSM based operators, you will see it is universally 850 or 1900 (or
both).  In the case of AT&T you can take a quick look at the two coverage
maps:  850:  http://www.gsmworld.com/cgi-bin/ni_map.pl?cc=us&net=b2  and
1900:  http://www.gsmworld.com/cgi-bin/ni_map.pl?cc=us&net=be

>From what I can see in the maps for AT&T is that 850mhz isn't as well rolled
out, but where it is, has better coverage.  1900mhz is better deployed, but
seems to be spotty when it comes to the fringes.  But the short version is
that without 850 access on the moko, I personally would be unable to use
half the towers around here.  I'm going to go as far as saying that 850 is
critical for U.S. GSM.

I'd suggest everyone find their country on GSM World:
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/index.shtml and check their
providers.  Unfortunately some of the maps don't differentiate between 850
and 1900 (for example Rogers Wireless in Canada).  The other two Canadian
carriers listed, and the Mexican seem to be 1900 only.  So it looks like the
US just wants to be different, as usual.

-Jon
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