Sad Story

Wolfgang Spraul wolfgang at openmoko.com
Fri Dec 12 21:21:40 CET 2008


Sargun,
thanks, agree with you.

> I want someone from FR (steve mosher? sean moss?) to post updates and
> a timeline. I want them to say when things will be fixed, what exact
> developments are going on at OM, etc... This has to be on a regular
> basis. They -need- a blog or a similar method to publish this. At
> least it would give us some small bit of confidence that our devices
> are being worked on. Right now the only development I see is:
> -mickey on FSO, he publishes a lot data, wwe can get ahold of him
> -some minor work on the kernel.

I used to publish weekly engineering news, but the last months saw so  
many changes that I got overwhelmed, didn't know how to put things in  
context appropriately.
I hope this settles down soon and I can resume the news. Rest assured  
that there is _TONS_ of activity in Taipei and worldwide.
I wrote about our software strategy briefly only a few days ago:
http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2008-December/037352.html

> -some minor work on the kernel.

Huh? That must be the under-statement of the year. kernel progress  
has been phantastic recently. Andy's team, Balaji, Nelson, Sean,  
Werner, all have been doing great work on the .28 kernel. Actually  
it's possible this might be one of the best Linux kernels on any  
mobile device in the world, in terms of 100% openness, and how close  
it is to mainline.
Hopefully this new kernel will soon make it's way into the FSO and  
other releases.

Wolfgang

On 2008-12-13, at 上午3:23, Sargun Dhillon wrote:

> Ah! legal recourse is certainly not the right path!
>
> I have long stayed out of this discussion as it's mostly been trolling
> about OpenMoko, but to be honest making a phone is hard...
> I've personally worked on projects involving building consumer
> electronics devices. We had far less success compared to the OM
> project, and there were signifcantly more people on the team.
>
> In my opinion what Openmoko needs to do is release a solid hardware
> platform, until this happens software development will be delayed. If
> that means concentrating on the v03, then do it. From what I see the
> v03 looks like the v02, with a different SoC and minus the smedia
> (glamo) controller.
>
> What I was hoping from the v03 was a new SoC, modem, and sound card.
> More time is being spent on miniaturization. This is not the community
> that cares about how the phone looks.
>
> Additionally, don't wait another 8 months before selling v03s, we want
> it soon, or fix the v02.
>
> Regarding what OM has done right:
> They released an awesome development platform for the gsm networks.
>
> What I want from FR now:
> I want someone from FR (steve mosher? sean moss?) to post updates and
> a timeline. I want them to say when things will be fixed, what exact
> developments are going on at OM, etc... This has to be on a regular
> basis. They -need- a blog or a similar method to publish this. At
> least it would give us some small bit of confidence that our devices
> are being worked on. Right now the only development I see is:
> -mickey on FSO, he publishes a lot data, wwe can get ahold of him
> -some minor work on the kernel.
>
> Get steve mosher (pr) somewhere available. we want transparency..
>
>
> On 12/12/08, Karthik Kumar <karthikkumar at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I clearly don't blame the developers here myself. I blame Openmoko's
>>  selfish management (probably it's board of directors or C*Os) for
>>  this. I am sure that a developer who talks back against this will  
>> just
>>  get fired/have to face bad consequences.
>>
>>  What would be the best way to 'convince' or 'force' the  
>> management to
>>  change their decisions? Does anyone know a lawyer?
>>
>>
>>  -Karthik
>>
>>
>>  On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:23 PM, Paul <paultsai at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> My experience, as I'm sure with many other people, with my  
>>> freerunner
>>> has been frustrating most of the time.  To say, its all on the  
>>> user is
>>> wrong.  Granted the community could be better, however, its hard to
>>> contribute when everything is so fragmented.
>>>
>>> For instance, about the echo problem, one of the developers for
>>> OpenMoko stated "Since there are different hw versions out there  
>>> (a5,
>>> a6, a7), it's impossible to provide one alsa state file that  
>>> suits all
>>> models."  Wait a sec.  If the developers know the issues, What's
>>> preventing the if statement that would prevent hundreds of hours of
>>> tweaking, testing, and frustration for the community?
>>>
>>> Let's be honest here FIC is making a pretty penny off of OpenMoko,
>>> using very old hardware selling at a premium price (2.5g not even
>>> EDGE).  Yet we are OK with that.  What the community DOES expect is
>>> basic support, for starters a phone that makes calls without  
>>> echoing,
>>> doesn't drop connection and sends and receives text messages  
>>> reliably
>>> as the Number 1 priority.  If I'm not mistaken, the majority of the
>>> working code in OpenMoko is from Trolltech.  In addition FSO has a
>>> very nice distro and the Freerunner isn't even its main device.  Yet
>>> more than 1 year AFTER the release of the 1974, we still have MAJOR
>>> issues from a basic install of Om.  Then we read stuff like this.
>>>
>>> "OM is moving more focus to gta03 now, so my current resource for
>>> qtopia is fairly limited."
>>>
>>> It becomes evident that FIC and Openmoko cares less about creating
>>> reliably working software then it does about moving products.  (not
>>> blaming the developers here, they get pressure) Follow the next link
>>> and I think I've made my case.
>>>
>>> http://www.cafepress.com/openmoko_inc
>>>
>>> Now with that said, I will be posting online my howtos including
>>> scripts to make a kinda stable variant of FDOM soon.  Been too busy
>>> reflashing my phone.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:28 AM, Karthik Kumar  
>>> <karthikkumar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> You should have fixed the GTA02 months back, when you released it.
>>>> Instead, you people are working on GTA03/Neo Whatever. It proves  
>>>> that
>>>> you don't care about the community, You just care about the  
>>>> bunch of
>>>> people who might want to buy your upcoming phones, who sponsor  
>>>> your own
>>>> selfish causes and suffer while you are working on GTA04.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Paul
>>> Email - paultsai at gmail.com
>>>
>>> There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through
>>> which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.
>>> Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> support mailing list
>>> support at lists.openmoko.org
>>> https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
>>>
>>
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