GTK vs QTopia vs Android - (was: Re: Android needs applications) (will be: new vision for openmoko)

Michael Schmidt schmidtm524 at googlemail.com
Fri Nov 16 14:30:24 CET 2007


Hi

If I understand it right, the neo phone has now three options for an
operating system
- the current openmoko GTK operating system
- Qtopia from Trolltech
- Android linux from google.

It is right that a the community is devided between Qt and GTK, and
that additionally the community is splitted between android linux and
openmoko linux
Third the lead developers are exhausted.

How can we bind that all together, is google replacing openmoko? no.
we just need a vision.
Openmokos idea was to make an open source operating system against to
microsoft mobile phone windows.

Now we have three...

You can say, Openmoko is now only a discussion list, a plattform to
discuss things (Bulletinboards??).

And we have neo, which needs some hardware actualization due to the
market standard, e.g. bigger screen, touchpad if not in,
DVB-T-Television/mediaplayer, good applications based on wifi, meshing
networks (B.A.T.M.A.N.) and others.

And we need a launch !! Quick done, as the OLPC laptop has forced it
in the last months..

Maybe some developers do not care about the money, google has offered
for the best 10 applications, but care about the philosophy.. to build
an open source phone with the latest ideas and applications.

First of all appreciate that there are now 3 actors against closed
source microsoft.
And: yes.. google graps the open source philosophy into money. Some
might be caught, others not.. though you need not see it equal = open
source = without coders getting paid.

Yes.. maybe android apllications run as well on openmoko, we can work on that.
So this can contribute to the challenge, to build an alternative to
the G-Phone based on Android.

We need to summarize up the ideas and people - with which philosophy
ever - (and I guess a lot of application developers for android will
of course consider, that they can run on the openmoko OS and phone!!)
to get a LAUNCH!!

The idea of an mobil phone laptop might be the best vision to work on.
Google might be convenient and adresse the mass market, but people,
which do not want deliver all the data to google, who has when phoned
from which location to which participant (see the data retention law
in the EU and the massive demonstrations against this!!!)
might be interested into an alternative to google phone.

While the openmoko phone will adress linux geeks and users, who are
more technically advanced and know, that google is doing evil things
with your privacy. DO NOT PHONE WITH GOOGLE, will be their slogan..
and this is was the day, openmoko phone was born.

This means, not microsoft gets an alternative open source mobile phone
operating system, but google.

You get many users, which will make an application running on both
systems, the openmoko phone and the google-android phone.

The last thing now to discuss, is, which Operating System (gui) for
the Openmoko Phone is   better, if android applications should run as
well on it?

Do we need then the GTK-OS or the Qtopia?

If then the choice is Qtopia, then there is a project team needed, to
announce this result of this question. So perform a technical lead,
which is integrating all working with GTK !

So the question is, WHO is joining/interesting the GTK-Community to
work on Qtopia?

Last comment to the events to the last days might be this:

Open Source is not the key factor for an alternative to Android or Microsoft.
And Do we need an alternative to Android? This is open...
But yes of course, the new focus is, that we need an alternative to
DATA CAPTURING by google.

So let us develop a phone, which is a mobile laptop, with a lot of
feature, which protects the privacy of users.

One example based on the core functionality of a phone: you need a
phone to phone,
you have analog calls and VOIP.
if it is a laptop, then maybe some other data transfers are done, so
e.g. especially for data retention you can hide VOIP data
amoung/inbetween other data transfers.

Imagine now an echelon computer fetching all words you say and
bringing spoken advertising into the phonecall .. the same principle
like google mail analysing the text of mails and presenting the
FITTING ads in the sidemenue.
Or Imagine the local geo-data of the phone cell gives us an spoken
advertisement of the restaurant next door, from the point you do the
call.
and so on and so on... many ideas for google to fetch the data of the
user, phoneing, calling , saving, contacting, storing reading etc..

Google means to be a synonym for all informational and communicational
processes a human beeing is doing, google is a filter, which you
should adopt to the synapses of your head.

I do not want that, and therefor we need the Openmoko Different from
google phone.
Back to the core competencies on phoning,
If you implement VOIP, then you have the chance to encrypt voip calls,
you even can handle them without any ISP, if you choose WIFI or MESH
networks (B.A.T.M.A.N., https://www.open-mesh.net/batman ) etc.

If you want to encrypt VOIP, then there is just end to end encryption
( which is breakable) and there is the idea of www.zfone.com from mr.
Zimmermann.
One third idea is to build a serverless VOIP on a Friend to friend
system, where the encryption is done by the exchange of PGP keys. (
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=618174 )

Each PGP key is then your adress to initiate an VOIP Phone Call.

http://sourceforge.net/search/?forum_id=618174&type_of_search=forums&group_id=178712&words=VOIP

As this is Qt based, maybe the Qtopia system is as well a plus here.
Voiping on top of IP using encrypted PGP channels.

Other good linux initiatives are the all in one (serverless)
adressbook, like telepathy and so on...

These ideas should only give an example, what all is possible to
implement, which is protecting from google´s data collecting
activities.

So maybe you can put out a clear plan,
- if GTK OS or Qtopia is on the NEO,
- Who is doning the launch
- When the lauch is dated for a purchasing in an online shop
- which VOIP security could be build in
- How the GTK community can support that operating system


Or do we should make both systems on the neo? as gnome and KDE is on linux?
Personally I think KDE as won and bundling the energy right from begin
is the better way.

Another option is to make GTK for the current Neo and Neo II is
prepared for Qtopia, but I think launching Neo I is hard enough.

Can anyone make a poll, which of both is now the way to go?

Thanks and kind regards
Mike



2007/11/16, Schmidt András <asch at freemail.hu>:
> That's exactly what I was thinking about, just I could not express
> myself so clear :-).
> It would be nice to have a compatibility layer on top of OpenMoko to run
> Android applications. There are going to be many Android applications
> created after Google's announcement, so it would be nice to make them
> available on OpenMoko.
>
> Andrew
>
> Tupshin Harper írta:
> > I'm wondering more about the viability of porting the top 1/2 of
> > android (the JVM, the JVM's hooks to the lower level functionality,
> > and above) to work on the openmoko base. Should be quite feasible and
> > would be a good "embrace and extend" maneuver.
> >
> > -Tupshin
> >
> > On Nov 15, 2007 2:45 PM, Collin R. Mulliner <collin at betaversion.net> wrote:
> >
> >> In my opinion Android should work quite well on a GTA02 device. I guess
> >> sooner or later somebody will try to port it to the Neo then we will
> >> see.
> >>
> >> Collin
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 19:51 +0100, Andreas Jellinghaus wrote:
> >>
> >>> Schmidt András wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Is the Android platform going to be available on OpenMoko? Does anyone
> >>>> know about that?
> >>>>
> >>> openmoko is a software plattform, I guess you are asking about neo1973 hw?
> >>>
> >>> they seem to require some minimum CPU and neo 1973 has a too small one.
> >>> but I'm no expert at this, IIRC neo 1973 is arm 4 or 5 core, and android
> >>> wants a arm r9 core or so. maybe I got it all wrong?
> >>>
> >>> Regards, Andreas
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> --
> >> Collin R. Mulliner <collin at betaversion.net>
> >> BETAVERSiON Systems [www.betaversion.net]
> >> info/pgp: finger collin at betaversion.net
> >> Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>




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