At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Giles Jones]

On 27 Aug 2007, at 16:05, Attila Csipa wrote:


>
> Again, if you're a business and developing commercial software, the  
> cost of a
> SDK means nothing to you - quite the contrary of the case if you are a
> tinkerer-open phone enthusiast. If you look closely at the  
> licenses, you'll
> see that you only really need to pay for licenses and SDKs if you  
> plan on
> developing proprietary, NON-GPL phone applications or you need  
> professional
> support - nothing wrong with that either, IMO.

It means a heck of a lot if you can't earn back the outlay. Mobile  
software isn't always that lucrative and there's pretty much no  
installed userbase for the greenphone at present and probably won't  
ever be a huge market. It's a take it or leave it colour, not a brand  
people know and if the consumer pricing is like the developer version  
it will cost too much.

GPS software is probably the killer application and the engines plus  
map data cost even more.

Plus what if you get the SDK and then find the platform unworkable  
simply because you don't get the available APIs you need?

>
> That's a precisely 100 Euros of difference, which is hardly twice  
> the cost...


You're not comparing like with like, since Openmoko gives you all the  
source and freedom. You would need full commercial licence of the  
greenphone to get similar freedom.

Not to mention the OpenMoko has some better components, plus GPS. The  
cost of the greenphone isn't justified, its hardware is like average  
HTC (but with touch screen).