No Camera???

[Jay Vaughan]

> I do tech support for phones and I assure that there are many
> people who don't care about cameras. I knpw because they
> say exactly that "I don't need a camera".

Wait until someone actually writes some good applications that use  
the camera as more than just a holiday-fun activity capture device.   
For example, I'd love to use the GTA03 as a mouse.  This is entirely  
feasible if it has a camera onboard.

;)

j.


> I can't say that Neo is for non techies. An open source linux
> based phone where you can compile your own kernel and
> can get a JTAG adapter for flashing ... for non techies?


This is the developer stage, obviously.  There's no point for me to  
be spending so much effort being involved with the developer stage of  
this phone project, if there isn't at least some promise that on the  
horizon, OpenMoko will be available to consumers as a platform.  I  
envision that all the effort I'm putting into writing apps for  
OpenMoko will prove worthwhile, once there are people who can buy  
OpenMoko-based phones freely on the open market, plug in my feed  
address, and subscribe to my applications.  This would be an awesome  
relationship, in my opinion, between me (the developer) and  
(hopefully) thousands of users.  If there isn't at least a promise of  
this on the horizon, there is no point hacking around with OpenMoko -  
I can get my Linux hacker fix on with plenty of other more viable  
platforms, in the meantime.  Such as for example, the GP2X gaming  
platform, which shares a lot of similarities with the OpenMoko ethos,  
even though the users:developers ratio is a lot higher in that realm.

I would encourage anyone on this list right now to remember that this  
is supposed to be the developer-stage ramp-up towards a possible more  
consumer-oriented future.  Please, OpenMoko people, plan to bring  
products to the market that are *not* so developer focused in the  
very near future.

I would love to have a few thousand normal users plugged into my  
application feeds, and not just for the fun of it.


> A fully open source phone is a provider's nightmare. That
> does not mean they won't sell to users, but it does mean
> that providers won't buy them to sell to you, not unless they
> can erase the flash image, provide their own, prevent the
> JTAG access, and many other things ...

All of these tasks can quite easily be wrapped up in a consumer- 
friendly package, without intruding on any network-provider  
realities.  The fact is that the OpenMoko-based phones are quite  
functional devices - once people see that there are applications  
beyond-the-box for the handy they are enslaved by, things will  
change.  I can think of tons of applications for OpenMoko, also, that  
are not just limited to network-provider metrics; I, for one, would  
love to see these applications become more broadly acceptable, and  
thats not going to happen without a little developer investment and  
faith, no matter what the status quo currently provides, that there  
will be users one day able to buy hardware to run the cool pocket  
apps of the future.  Such as we are seeing right now with the  
developer-stages of OpenMoko..

j.



;
--
Jay Vaughan