Reason for GPS problems found!

[Marek Lindner]

On Wednesday, 16. July 2008 15:37:15 Andrew Bennett wrote:
> Unfortunately, this seems like a case where OpenMoko's "openness" is really
> hurting it.  A closed company probably would have waited to publicly
> acknowledge the defect until it was fully researched, not just after it was
> casually confirmed by a couple developers.  Perhaps, the closed company
> would have even waited to acknowledge the defect until a fix was available,
> instead of sending out status updates as they investigated it and tried
> potential fixes.

At first glance it seems that this is hurting Openmoko but in fact it does 
not. Lets try to see the bigger picture:

Openmoko tries to be an "open" company with all its consequences. Sean 
described it with taking the red pill and leaving the fake world which keeps 
us imprisoned. Lets face it - we are walking through a mine field trying to 
find the path. Many people watch us, many people wish us to fail ! They don't 
understand what an open development process is and how it works. They are 
afraid of that.

Doesn't this make us vulnerable ? May be - but we don't think so. We believe 
the openness of information / source code / mistakes makes us stronger 
because we don't have to fear our customers. We all are here because we want 
to have the first phone that allows you to do whatever you wish to do with 
it. This process takes energy and sometimes it is painful but it is 
definitely worth it.

This incident helped us a LOT. Next to the important hint to solve this 
technical issue it motivated us because it shows that we are on the right 
track. Everyday we fight with hardware suppliers that don't want to open 
their specs, with limited hardware because we can't choose the hardware we 
would like to choose, with people who doubt that openness is the right way.

Yesterday, the atmosphere in the Taipeh office was incredible. You gave us the 
feeling of not being alone to fight this battle. Our hardware engineers 
worked all night to find a fix which offers a fast solution that can go in 
the coming production run. This solution is being tested right now and it 
looks promising !

On behalf of the entire hardware crew: THANK YOU !

Lets continue this path and prove the world that openness is a value and not a 
burden.


Marek