Ubuntu / Firefox OS for Openmoko

robin spielraum at web.de
Fri Jan 11 19:04:29 CET 2013


Hi 

I guess parts of the answer to the question are already spread through this
thread:

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.openmoko.community/62745

Generally speaking I think having an option to what runs on a device is heaven,
but only if you are a developer or interested in linux and are willing to have
some rough edges or at least have someone who can help out; I say this as my
parents and parents in law both run linux and they don't miss anything, but I can
also solve most of their problems. The biggest problem I see with the GTA04 is
the very limited amount of active developers and the reliability of the distri-
butions. I don't think it can handle much more losses on the developer side 
or it would simply die (as Christoph stated currently there is only one 
preorder for a GTA05...). I think it is a good decision of the developers to 
keep supporting the GTA02s as much as they can, as these are the closest users
to go for a GTA04.

I though still think there could be a demand eg:
- as a high security level phone (I know from a big German pharamceutical 
  company   that they had banned the iphone for a long time due to security 
  reasons (they  took blackberries; I don't know if they are better)), but the  
  phone would have to be rock stable and I guess if you would need to be able   
  to a couple of standard android apps to make the buisinessmen's live better

- as a very specific extensible device: 
  we recently had some nice projects reported; one was for monitoring aircrafts,
  another for home automatisation. So I think if we had a nice looking web page
  with very curious projects like you find it for rasperry or arduino people 
  might start thinking about investing 555EUR.

- a phone for the elderly? why not. make the telephony part rock solid, have 
  nice big buttons and have some features which allows them to chat with their
  grandsons (maybe jitsi could replace facetime), and add some advance bring 
  me home feature. in the talk from openplanb[1] which is involved in freeing   
  public transport data, there was one statment when an elderly couple got 
  stuck late at night in the middle of Berlin and wanted to go home but no 
  public transport would get them there, so they asked the very appropriate 
  question, what would bring them closest and eg have a taxi waiting. but there 
  is no app for this currently on any operating system. so somegthing like 
  this might get them to spend 555EUR.


these are just my 2cents from someone who is really taken to be part of such
a great community and has learned a lot but has also some fear that there may
be an end to this.

br

robin


[1] http://openplanb.tumblr.com/





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