At the risk of being flamed : State of software

Marcin Juszkiewicz openembedded at hrw.one.pl
Sun Aug 26 01:22:21 CEST 2007


Dnia niedziela, 26 sierpnia 2007, Lorn Potter napisał:
> On Sun, 26 Aug 2007, Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:

> > The problem with QTopia is that you will get GPL version (so no
> > commercial applications for it) or will force OpenMoko into license
> > payments.
>
> OpenMoko Neo is a 'free' phone, why would you want to put commercial
> proprietary software on it? I thought the point of it was to get away
> from closed source/commercial/proprietary apps. 

OpenMoko Neo gives me possibility to use Free Software which I can hack. 
But I live in a world where some functionality does not exists in Free 
Software yet. An example of it is good navigation software - I can accept 
paying for working commercial one. If I will prefer I will run it in 
chroot and limited privileges but will get something which will use GPS 
to something more advanced then just switching profiles based on 
location.

> If I minded that, I would just use a Symbian or Windows Mobile phone as
> apps for those abound.

I like to have control over system which I use - thats why I switched from 
PalmOS into Linux on PDA.

> > To get phone functionality of Qtopia

> well, who knows.. if enough people email Trolltech... that could
> change.

if.. if.. if..

> > OpenMoko company would have to pay for commercial Qtopia Phone or
> > wrote whole phone subsystem from scratch as there is no phone
> > functionality in Qtopia4/GPL. 
>
> Better than writing the whole shebang from scratch. Why not start with
> something that is 95% finished, mature, stable and tested.
>
> /me shrugs

Ask OpenMoko core team why they decided to go into GTK instead of Qt or 
Qtopia.

> > And if you go into Qtopia world you will get small amount of
> > applications. There was "lot" of stuff for old Qtopia versions
> > (1.5->2.2) but none of them can be "just built" for Qtopia4 version
> > (and you do not really want to play with Qtopia <4.x - trust me - I
> > spent over two years with OPIE hacking).
>
> Nothing wrong with qtopia 2 and Opie...

Except that qt2 is fscking old now. I know that qt/e 2.3.13 (or even 
newer) was released in 2006/2007 but it does not change that it has 7 
years now. It is like writing for GTK 1.x - no one normal wants to start 
with it.

> > For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write
> > free applications which will use any license (all those hackers which
> > you listed) AND it allows to write commercial stuff.
>
> OpenMoko is touted as a FREE phone with FREE software, not closed
> source commercial software. Which do you want more of??

As I wrote - Free Software but with possibilities to use closed software 
too.

> > We have GPS on device - how many Linux applications you know which can
> > show you maps and route you from one place to another? I know few:

> well, the neo is currently a developer only phone, so someone could
> easily write such a best, for whatever gui library.

And one day pigs will fly...

-- 
JID: hrw-jabber.org
OpenEmbedded developer/consultant

           Q:      What's a light-year?
           A:      One-third less calories than a regular year.






More information about the community mailing list