Hello Milan,<br><br>I know what you mean. And honestly, who really knows what the true intentions of OpenMoko are. But what I do know, is that regardless of what they do, I will end up with a phone that I can "hack" till my hearts content. And I am not limited to a particular carrier, and apart from the GPS module the entire platform is "open". Not even the iPhone can claim this.
<br><br>To be graphic: OpenMoko is like a slave-driver giving her slaves the keys to unlock their shackles and telling them they can leave whenever they want, then asking them to work overtime for the next two weeks.<br><br>
The good thing here is that we are not slaves, and we can fork whenever we want. But at this point, this is all I need to know about OpenMoko. Maybe one day, OpenMoko will turn evil. But guess what, we will still have "open" phones they will still be modifiable in whatever ways we see fit. Sure they might take a few community-sponsored ideas and might even claim them as their own (and sell new closed phones), but I never wanted to get monetary compensation for this. I just wanted a phone that I could hack on and (as corny as this sounds) to share these hacks with my peers and gain their respect.
<br><br>Personally, OpenMoko is not going to turn evil. And the community willing they will continue to produce open phones for many years to come. They benefit from having a community that will push their warez to the limit because so long as we are happy hacking, we are the most likely candidates to get new ones as they become available. We benefit because we get cool phones, that are actually cool.
<br><br>I hope this sort of answers your concerns.<br><br>PS. I do not work for OpenMoko, I just believe they got a good product on the way. And its about time, someone did this. hopefully I will never have to buy another carrier-bound mobile phone/pda/computer/anything. Say no to Vista.
<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/22/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Milan Votava</b> <<a href="mailto:votava@mageo.cz">votava@mageo.cz</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
At 05:35 22.1.2007, you wrote:<br>>On 1/22/07 4:58 AM, "Milan Votava" <<a href="mailto:votava@mageo.cz">votava@mageo.cz</a>> wrote:<br>><br>> > It would be nice to know if Sean's aim is<br>
> ><br>> > 1. to satisfy his and our need for open source toys like Neo<br>> ><br>> > or<br>> ><br>> > 2. to earn money like almost everybody on this planet while<br>> > exploiting geeks like us to achieve his goal :-)
<br>> ><br>> ><br>> > I bet the second will prove as true...<br>><br>>I wasn't going to respond to this email, but I find your response quite<br>>arrogant and feel I need correct you.<br>>
<br>>Never has this project been about exploiting people. If you ready _any_ of<br>>our documents you will find that we're trying to create an open ecosystem<br>>for the mobile industry. Sure I hope this will make us money. Otherwise I
<br>>would have neither A) the credit or B) the financial resources to go on<br>>pursuing my dreams.<br>><br>>-Sean<br><br>(sorry for my English)<br><br>Don't get me wrong. I like (and share) your idea and I will try to be
<br>among the first wave of people who will buy the device (if I will be<br>allowed after my post ;-) ) and start to develop for it.<br><br>The only problem I have as a developer with the project is it's real<br>identity. Today in the time of a 'new' internet economy is becoming
<br>very common to use communities as a part of a business plan and<br>camouflage this step as another open source geeky projects (like the<br>ones hosted on sourceforge etc). While I have no problem to invest my<br>energy and free time to work on these enthusiastic projects I will
<br>be(maybe as a only one in this group) more careful to do the same for<br>the project where my position will be reduced to become a member of<br>an external workforce (from the perspective of you or the company<br>behind it) who is not even on a payroll.
<br><br>I don't see anything arrogant on my post and I consider my question<br>as a legitimate one in the context of a really open community.<br><br><br>Milan<br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________
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