FreeRunner delayed a further 6 months?!?!??

[Timo Jyrinki]

2008/3/15, Mark Haury <wolfmane at gmail.com>:
>  ...and the Neo *is* fully open? What about the graphics module, the
> gps module, and the gsm module?

They are as open as it is possible to get gsm/gps technology under
international regulatory laws, which is pretty much the best you can
hope for until eg. laws change, in case you do not want to drop
gsm/gps support altogether. There's no competitors offering similar
("best") level of openness in both areas. Graphics is having hurdles
that are not unsolvable, so I'm believing they will be solved. Main 2D
stuff is currently open, waiting for 3D in the future.

>  I have yet to come across any media file that I can't play on my N800;
> it plays ogg, wav, mp3, wma, wmv, xvid, etc.

It does not play eg. ogg, I was discussing out-of-the-box
functionality, ie. what the vendor supports which is the only thing
that matters in the big picture. I also mentioned that the vendor
actively rejects open media formats, which is also true as seen in the
HTML5 preparation discussions in addition to refusing to support those
formats in devices.

> It even plays some Web media that my desktop kubuntu machine won't.

Yes, it plays many closed, proprietary formats out-of-the-box, but
none of the open formats like ogg vorbis, ogg theora, flac, speex,
dirac. So it does not play any of my music out-of-the-box, and I'd
prefer to support vendors that support those formats.

> It sounds to me like you're going on hearsay rather than personal experience.

I've a N800, I know what parts of it are closed (many) and that it
does not play open media formats out-of-the-box. It's a nice device
with some open parts making it superior to a few others in openness,
but it's quite far being really open and rejecting open media formats
tells a story of its own about not being truly honest / courageous
enough about supporting openness.

It was a great start when 770 came out, but not much progress has
happened since then.

-Timo