The Lost Openmoko Community

vasco.nevoa at sapo.pt vasco.nevoa at sapo.pt
Sat Oct 4 17:42:02 CEST 2008


To all, but especially OM.
I felt a little cheated when I saw the FR I had bought was not ready  
to be used as a daily phone. This had in fact been the publicity by OM  
at the time - GTA01 was for tinkerers, and GTA02 was for the public.  
Then people said "no, it was clear that GTA02 was also for tinkerers  
only"... well, whatever; I decided to ignore that, be positive, and  
contribute with bug reports while waiting for a decent basic distro  
that would control the device as expected and serve as a development  
platform.
But just like the others, I don't know what OM (the company) is doing.  
I know it is keeping FSO on track, which was always the real objective  
of OM (the project) and this is a Good Thing. But I don't understand  
why there are so many distros, and none of them works as a solid basic  
system.
OM (the company) should have only sold the GTA02 when the hardware and  
kernel and drivers where tested and ready. Or, if that was not  
possible due to time-to-market constraints, then it should have called  
for the community's help for doing just that: getting the device to  
work. Instead, it went ahead telling us "the Neo is a blank slate, a  
canvas to paint on"... and the people who have painted, have lost many  
of their paintings, and even the will to paint. At least, they won't  
paint with OM brushes. It is too frustrating and time-consuming.
Enough ranting.
Personally, I need a working device. Kernel, drivers, daemons, system  
scripts, all of this must be in place to allow the device's hardware  
to be controlled at the flick of a software switch. GPRS+GSM muxing  
must be included by default. WIFI must work correctly by default.  
Bluetooth must work as well as in any other distro by default. And for  
god's sake, AUDIO must work as intended by default (it IS a phone  
after all). Only after OM guarantees these minimum requirements can it  
ask the community to go ahead and innovate...  Don't waste your time  
on GUIs or eye-candy apps; give us a device with a rock solid  
subsystem and a command shell, and we will fill in the blanks and  
build from there.

Vasco.

Citando Michele Renda <michele.renda at gmail.com>:

> Risto H. Kurppa wrote:
>>
>> Other community members:
>>
>>     * How do you feel about the current situation? How happy are you
>> with the community?
>>     * Do you feel well informed? Do you know what's the direction
>> we're heading to?
>>     * How would you like to contribute?
>
>
> Hello Risto
>
> Thank you for your post. I think you wrote something that a lot of
> person think.
>
> I can only add my personal point of view:
> I don't know what Openmoko is working for, for me their work is a dbus
> interface. It seem to be a very good work!
>
> For the rest I don't use 200*.* I am using Debian and I am happy with
> it. I use the programs from Debian and I am trying to supply what still
> not exist.
>
> According me we must to try to develop the missiong application for
> 200*.* to make it usable. I tryed and I saw that is not too much
> complicated, there are very usefull dbus interface.
>
> So... In the end, I don't considerate myself unrespected. There is only
> a lot of work to do, and who can must to try to help on the accessory
> part that trasform a normal phone, in a super phone.
>
> Best regards
> Michele Renda
>
> _______________________________________________
> Openmoko community mailing list
> community at lists.openmoko.org
> http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
>





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