Om2008.8 comments and questions

[Peter Boos]

Hi Wolfgang,

I read the Software Testing Report from Wendy. I like this report because it synchronizes the customer with the engineers. Why not
add the test case:

Convert contacts from the old Address Book to the New Address Book.

So, next time Helmut is able to convert his address book from an old version to the current version.

Best Regards,
Peter

> -----Original Message-----
> From: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org 
> [mailto:community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org] On Behalf Of 
> Wolfgang Spraul
> Sent: Mittwoch, 13. August 2008 02:30
> To: List for Openmoko community discussion
> Subject: Re: Om2008.8 comments and questions
> 
> Dear Helmut,
> your priorities are our priorities _BUT_ it will still take 
> quite a while, yes.
>  From what you write, you seem to be indeed the perfect 
> customer we are focusing our efforts on.
> You have a Linux system on your desktop or notebook already, 
> you are looking for a phone that works well with it.
> At the beginning, you want to use the phone only for 'basic' 
> phone usage.
> 
> How to get there? Well, I see a lot of development momentum 
> building now, our ca. 20 internal software engineers don't 
> actually make that big of a difference.
> Great low-level patches are coming already, we are now trying 
> to straighten up the build system to something more like 
> Debian with stable/testing/unstable.
> We are not developing a proprietary system and have no 
> interest in doing so. Compatibility with Ubuntu and other 
> distributions is very important.
> 
> I understand your frustration about importing contacts and 
> alarms, thanks for the reminder, and rest assured that these 
> things are indeed very high on our priority list, right after 
> making phone calls and SMS.
> Keep us honest if things don't improve fast enough!
> Best Regards,
> Wolfgang
> 
> On Aug 13, 2008, at 1:55 AM, Helmut Tessarek wrote:
> 
> > Hi Openmoko cummunity (and developmen team),
> >
> > I'm a little bit concerned about how priorities are set and handled 
> > and would like to read your opinion.
> >
> > 2 weeks ago I got my Neo Freerunner with Om2007. I was able 
> to get it 
> > up and running, even importing my contacts from my old phone wasn't 
> > really an issue.
> > WiFi worked ok too.
> >
> > Then I flashed my phone with Om2008.8.
> >
> > Call me oldfashioned, but I'm one of the guys who wants to use his 
> > phone for the reason it was actually built in the first 
> place: making 
> > phone calls.
> > I expect only 3 things from a phone (which are the most 
> basic things a 
> > phone should be able to accomplish):
> >
> > 1) making and receiving calls
> > 2) managing contacts
> > 3) alarm function
> >
> > I will go in more detail regarding these 3 points in a 
> moment. I know 
> > that the phone has overwhelming features and I would like 
> to see them 
> > in action, but first I should be able to use it as a phone. I don't 
> > care about GPS, games or a graphical installer right now.
> >
> > ad 2) I was not able to migrate my phonebook from om2007 to 
> om2008.  
> > I had a
> > backup from my home dir and I had the .vcf files on my sd card.  
> > Well, entering
> > my 500 contacts is not an option. The keyboard is more or less 
> > useless, since it takes at least 'number of character' 
> times 2 seconds 
> > to enter a word, which cannot be guessed by the keyboard 'logic'.
> > What about sending contacts via Bluetooth? What about importing vcf 
> > files?
> >
> > ad 3) this does not work either. sometimes I can see an alarm icon, 
> > but no alarm tone. hmmm, not much of an alarm then.
> >
> > These are basic functions which do not work and people are talking 
> > about GTA03, cameras, GPS mapping functions.
> > I don't get it. First of all the phone should be able to do 
> at least 
> > things that a 50$ phone can do.
> >
> > I bought the openmoko phone, because I'm using Linux and I thought 
> > that it would be easier to sync contact and calendar data with my 
> > workstation.
> > I was definitely wrong. The data is not even compatible between Om 
> > releases.
> > Furthermore it seems to me that a propriatary system is developed 
> > which makes it even harder to communicate with standard 
> Linux distros.
> > In that case I could have bought the iPhone as well. At least that 
> > phone works.
> >
> > As long as the priorities are not focused on basic features as I 
> > described above, this phone will not be useable for quite a while.
> >
> > Regards,
> >   Helmut
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Openmoko community mailing list
> > community at lists.openmoko.org
> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> 
> 
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