Wifi again

[Marcel de Jong]

On 2/17/07, Mike Hodson <mystica at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/17/07, t3st3r <t3st3r at mail.ru> wrote:
> > Sounds like a joke. Can you imagine someone using this solution? Except
> > very few (most hardcore) geeks on the planet. Let's remember: mobile
> > phone is a PORTABLE device. Bunch of wires from USB hub + hub + usb
> > adapter will at least make this thingie hardly usable as, er... phone.
> >
> > P.S. As for me, I'm still do not understand, why there is no WI-FI built
> > in. This is a BIG hardware design mistake IMHO. Linux without network is
> > something like North Pole without snow. And the only somehow popular
> > networking in public places is WI-FI.
> > [rest is deleted]
>
> This is not a joke, this is a limitation in the production environment
> and time needed to come out with a working product.  Please, PLEASE
> remember, that the first Neo1973 that comes out IS FOR DEVELOPERS.
> You can help write the applications to work with wifi, if you wanted
> to. Then, when a production model for CONSUMERS comes out, I can
> almost guarantee wifi will be part of the equation, due to mass
> acceptance. Also, as I have pointed out, among others, there will be
> another -5- more devices coming out based on the OpenMoko platform,
> which will expand into devices not strictly phones, but possibly other
> wonderful and interesting things.  Only time will tell what these 5
> more devices will be :)

Well, only if there are decent low-powered open-sourced Wifi devices
at that time.
It's part of the "Free your phone" message.
In v1 of the Neo1973 the only thing that is closed-source is the GPS
module, and that thing only runs in user-space, not in kernel-space,
so you can easily shut it off. The Wifi drivers will have to run in
kernel-space, so in order to be completely open, it'd need to be open
source drivers.

--
Marcel de Jong