Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 & Beyond]

[Craig Woodward]

I disagree for one simple reason: There has yet to be a stable kernel and interface for any GTA* phone from which to build.  There are releases that are labeled "stable", but most of them crash after a short time, or have major bugs that prevent the hardware from working like a normal phone for any length of time.

Saying you're better off than a commercial product going end of life is simply not true. A commercial product, even at end of life, is in a stable working condition.  You slide a SIM in, turn it on, and it just works.  It makes calls, it does SMS, probably GPRS, and maybe bluetooth and wifi.  So if a commercial product goes end of life, you can still use it as a phone until you hit hardware failure or a major hardware level protocol change.

Can you point me to a kernel and image set that I can load on my phone that can send and receive calls reliably.  One that can also handle SMS incoming and out going reliably?  And one that (even with a lot of manual tweaking) can get GPRS stable and running while doing the other two reliably?  None that I've seen yet can do those 3 basic things for more than a few calls or a couple hours without crapping out at some level.   Despite weeks of tweaking I still can't use my GTA02 as a stable everyday phone.  My Nokia 6230i, which went end of life years ago, is still my primary phone and does all 3 things constantly for days on end without a crash or need to reboot.

I agree with you that if a stable base were there to work from that this would be less of an issue.  This is why I wanted a Neo in the first place, to have the freedom to hack my phone and add my own  programs.  But it worries me that OM is leaving GTA01 customers holding the bag without a stable base established to work from.  It's great that the source is all out there, but if a team of people working on the code with full hardware specs and direct access to the manufacturer can't get the system stable in 2 years, what hope does anyone else have of getting it working, even with full source to everything?

Is this what GTA02 customers have to look forward to if one of the many image sets (OM, FSO, SHM, Andrioid, Qt, Debian) doesn't become a stable development base before the GTA03 is released?  Will I be left holding the bag in a year or two?  And if so, what inspires me to buy a GTA03, knowing a year or so down the road the 04 will be out and I'll be left with another very expensive paper weight?

It just seems like a crappy way to thank those that invested their time and money in the early hardware, software, and the idea of an open source phone when few were willing to do so.