[Gta04-owner] Status GTA04 GroupTour

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi Neal,

Am 29.12.2011 um 12:18 schrieb Neal H. Walfield:

> Hi,
> 
> It seems to me that there are two problems.
> 
> First, if someone orders a GTA04, that person doesn't get all the
> hardware--that person needs to have a GTA01 or GTA02 and do some
> non-trivial assembly.  I realize that you have some cases that you are
> selling, which is the route that I went, but I think these are limited
> and independent of the group tour.  If this option hadn't been
> available, I would not have signed up for a GTA04.

I understand.

> Second, I think you are lacking publicity.  I haven't seen an article
> about this on the news sites that I follow, such as lwn.net (did I
> miss it?).

Well, we are not enough people in the core team to write and submit
articles to all the important magazines. And, we are not good
at writing...

There have been attempts to do that, but it appears that the
magazines are simply ignoring the GTA04 project. In Germany,
neither Heise.de nor Golem.de did take the story although they
got some tips.

There has been some minor coverage, e.g. 

http://www.google.de/search?tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=openmoko

And, I tried to submit a hot tip to http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/s/News/
but their "contactus" link is severely broken.

This is IMHO an area where the community could easily help!

> Given these two problems, I'd try to solve the first one before the
> second one (one only gets so many chances with the media...).
> 
> I suspect that people who are buying a GTA04 at this stage are not
> looking to use it as a phone immediately--they probably want to hack
> on it.  These people don't need a phone case.  But, they do need an
> LCD to get the experience.  My proposal would be to create a hackers
> package: a GTA04 board, LCD and a big bulky case that could be placed
> next to a workstation.  Even better would be if there is a commitment

While a GTA04 can even work without LCD or case (just bend a staple
to hold the battery and power through USB), such a kit with case is of
course much better.

> to provide a case once it is ready (do you have a time frame for
> this?).

I have a new idea and have planned to do some first evaluation next week.

It may become a real community solution where everyone could become
able to order an existing case or even a modified one (source code will
be provided).

We need of course provide the "missing pieces" like UMTS/GPS antenna,
speakers, vibracall motor.

BR,
NIkolaus