Sean's speech at ESC about making a 3G device

Rui Miguel Silva Seabra rms at 1407.org
Fri Apr 3 12:52:40 CEST 2009


On Thu, Apr 02, 2009 at 07:10:00PM +0100, Justyn Butler wrote:
> 2009/4/2 Rui Miguel Silva Seabra <rms at 1407.org>:
> > I bought the OpenMoko to get a more Free Software phone, not one that
> > gets less and less Free as new devices come up :)
> 
> Well due to the expense it is clear that no 3G device is going to be
> Openmoko's main phone for a long time. No one is going to stop anyone
> buying a non-3G Openmoko phone.
> 
> What this is suggesting, I suppose, is a 3G derivative if there was
> serious demand (or should I say, concrete demand in the form of a
> large order. I personally demand it quite seriously!).
> While it is a shame that the 3G part would be closed, it would clearly
> be a legal necessity. It would be that or no 3G version at all.

There won't be. I doubt there would be even if all of us here wanted
such, it wouldn't be enough for it to be considered "serious demand" :)

> > I seriously hope GTA3 fixes some of the most serious problems GTA2 had
> > regarding that.
> 
> I guess you mean the Glamo and that kind of thing.
> The GSM firmware cannot become open source, can it?

Yes, glamo is a big pile of crap (too few bandwidtth, no card
documentation for all practical purposes, hence no acceleration nor 3D).

Rasterman's explanation that it could be done just as the GSM chip makes
me more relaxed though, what I was understanding was that you'de need
something more. Fortunately, it looks like it's still prohibitively far
away. A curse on software patents (it's a huge minefield in 3G, thus
making it a lot more expensive).

Rui

-- 
Fnord.
Today is Pungenday, the 20th day of Discord in the YOLD 3175
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?




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