[openmoko-announce] Openmoko on Design

Nkoli coomac at gmail.com
Tue Jul 29 02:13:29 CEST 2008


On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 5:22 PM, Jay Vaughan <jayv at synth.net> wrote:

>
> Having worked in Open-Hardware for over 15 years now, I was, in fact,
> expecting a much more coherent strategy for the software platform on
> Freerunner than just "let the community decide".  Certainly, the
> community aspect of this project is huge; I am not saying that it is
> not valuable to have such great public influence on the design; just
> that: there *has* to be a rigid design approach to guide development,
> or else we end up with a torn map navigating fork-city.
>
>
Jay, your negative posts on this ML do nothing but foster an unpleasant
atmosphere. Last I checked, no one put a gun to your head and forced you to
buy or design for the FR. If you're tired of waiting for the device to
become stable, sell the phone and check back again in about a year.

You're complaining that a phone 2 years in the making is still imperfect.
How long did it take the newcomer Apple to complete the iphone? Iirc, they
spent 4 years on iphone v1.0 and the device still needs a lot of work.

It's easy to say 'come up with a plan and follow it through come rain or
shine' when you're a bystander. The OM team had a solid plan when the
project started. Maybe they had loftier goals than what they could
accomplish being amateurs, maybe they should have hired someone with
experience in embedded devices from the beginning, maybe they should have
licensed qtopia, maybe they should have done a lot of other things, but you
have to make mistakes in order to learn.

I think it's more to their credit that the plan has gone through several
changes because they learn what is possible and what isn't as they go. I'm
sure if they knew then what they know now, they would have made different
decisions, but then, hindsight is 20/20. I'd like to think they are a more
coordinated unit than they were 2 years ago.

So once again, if you believe your time and money has been wasted on the
project, cut your losses now and go. Develop for another device until the
neo becomes more palatable to your tastes.
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