OpenMoko future.

[Jim McDonald]

Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:
>
> I don't see our statements as conflicting. Harald is our lead system
> level architect. His job is to focus on his task at hand and deliver a
> stable, high performance system. He's trying to "give the geeks what
> they want first."
>   

Which is great, the concern was around the forward-looking statements
that there was no interest in a market beyond the niche of people who
want an open-source 'phone.  Why it was a concern is below...

[...]

> We want to build _the_ best open mobile device in the world. 100% open.
>
> Only when we reach this point will our strengths be appreciated by the
> mainstream user.
>   

I understand the thinking here, but the mainstream user will neither
know nor care about open source.  If a 'phone is available that fixes a
lot of the existing hideousness within UIs, if a 'phone is available
that allows people to do what they want with it, if a 'phone is
available that allows them to make calls at the best prices without
suffering the whims of the network operators, *that* is when it will be
appreciated by the mainstream user.  Of course that I understand that
open source is the way that openmoko is going to use to enable these
things, and also that without a solid foundation it won't be possible to
do so, but there needs to be some focus on getting there rather than
just having a cool 'phone.  And although we wouldn't expect to sit back
for someone else to make this a reality we would hope for support where
required.

> Mark my words, we will make an end user mobile device of which this
> world has never seen before.
>   

Now that is something that I think we can all agree on.  And many thanks
for the response, it has renewed my enthusiasm in the project (along
with finally getting the *&"!* build system to build and include my
binaries in the image :)).

> -Sean
>   

Cheers,
Jim.