Real Neo1973 photo / Neo delayed...!?

[Attila Csipa]

On Friday 12 January 2007 10:14, Sven Neuhaus wrote:
> TomTom Go is Linux based, perhaps you can get them to offer their product
> for the OpenMoko?
> I would be very interested in a solution for the OpenMoko at that price
> range.

Some might find this too philosophical, but nonetheless, a rant. Not 
specifically talking about TomTom, but the problem with an OSS mapping 
solution tied to a vendor who provides the (costly) data is that the software 
is not really open, not in the libre sense. It turns to more of a gratis 
addon that is connected to proprietary data, which, in essence, turns the 
whole into a proprietary product. You could of course argue that you could 
change the client to adapt it to other (your/free) datasets, but then the 
vendor wouldn't be intereseted in supporting these changes (e.g. fork), since 
then it woudl threaten its real income source, the data. Don't know about 
TomTom, but the ones I have seen are so bad in terms of data independence and 
code quality, that it makes you wonder you should do all of it yourself and 
rely on some freely available data (such as openstreets). So sure, we could 
have TomTom, and any other (if not in license then in spirit) proprietary 
stuff in the Neo1973, but then I would feel the purpose of OpenMoko has been 
defeated (it would become just another motorola EZX phone - an OSS base for 
mass-adopted proprietary products). Congrats to readers that got this far in 
this email and sorry for any mental strain I might have caused :)