A marketing angle

[Ben F-W]

Stefan Schmidt wrote:
> Another point are companies ore even govermentswhich like to have a
> customizable phones for their employees. It's another market as the
> newest and hypest nokia ringtone+mp3+game cellphone, but it is a
> market.
Some interesting comments, Stefan, although I'm not sure I follow all of 
them. I fully agree that I have only considered the consumer market so 
far. I'm sure this will be good for some corporate applications, in the 
same way as the XDA in the UK was initially popular for specialised 
applications for businesses, and only more recently became accepted in 
the consumer market.
>> Secondly, what's to stop another manufacturer from taking a GPL'd
>> product and adapting it to work with their (closed) Linux-based
>> phone? 
>>     
> Nothing. It's exactly what FIC want.
>   
Could you explain this? How would it benefit FIC for a rival 
manufacturer to take a program developed for the OpenMoko platform and 
adjust it to work on their own, closed, Linux implementation on their 
phones?
>> They'd already have the operator channel and the consumer brand,
>> but wouldn't need to open up their mobiles in the same way FIC
>> is doing.
>>     
> Of course other comnpanies can handle this different to make it
> harder for us, but they have to give us the modifications of the
> GPL code. Ask the vendors which were in contact with
> http://gpl-violations.org/
>   
Yes, they'd have to give us the modifications - but they wouldn't have 
to use the OpenMoko platform, if I understand correctly. As I see it, 
that wouldn't benefit FIC at all.

But you're quite right that Harald would be the person to ask here!
> Another point you forgot here is that FIC have with OpenMoko a
> platform for new devices with low engineering cost. Some new
> hardware driver, a little bit GUI polish and that's it. No need to
> complete redesign a phone every 6 months.
Not sure I follow this. How does the OpenMoko give FIC any greater 
advantages than other manufacturers get with their own Linux-based phones?

Cheers,

Ben