OM future

Iain B. Findleton ifindleton at videotron.ca
Tue Feb 23 22:35:17 CET 2010


Mike Crash wrote:
> You talk something else than me. I didn't said anything about usage and
> development, only about the phone. Take a today phone and try to use it as
> GPS. In some hours you are out of battery, not very usable for a weekend in
> nature. You say, that Neo is like laptop in 2000? Nope, on laptop you can
> write documents, make programming etc. On neo you cannot. The small screen
> is very limited.
>
> Neo can be used as GPS, for access to internet (especially reading), book
> reading, as MP3 player etc. But not as mobile office. If you are "clicker",
> yes, but for real work no.
>
> Also consider the open source community - it has not the power to take the
> lead. And no power to make really open phone. Not without any involvement of
> some big manufacturer.
>   
Well, I make extensive use of the Neo via usb networking and X
forwarding. You can
program on it. I have a pretty good editor(s) on the Neo, and I mostly
write script
applications, so pretty well all development can be done right on the
phone. The
display and keyboard are non-issues with X forwarding. Cross compilation
is faster than
the Neo compilations, but even that works fine. I have a word processor
on the
Neo which I also use via X forwarding. There are lots of other apps
available as well.

Yes the power is a pain, but its a development box. Next generations
will not have the
power problems. I am thinking of the future, not the past.

As to the powerless open source community, I wonder what Linus or
Stallman would say to
that?

Actually, I don't care. You can always crack an HTC or a Nokia or a
iPhone or an Android phone
and install Linux. Perhaps Openmoko won't get anywhere, but someone will.




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