Re: The University of São Paulo's intent to join Openmoko development

[steven mosher]

 Thanks maddog for staying on this over the past month or so. I really
appreciatethe effort and I know the rest of the community does as well. As
you know I'm unwilling
to give up on the dream of the Freerunner and the dream of community driven
hardware
in general. I know Werner and his group, the GTA02 core team, is dedicated
as well
to this dream. Let me know how I can help.

Steve

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 9:03 PM, Jon 'maddog' Hall <maddog at li.org> wrote:

> Dear Openmoko Community,
>
> In light of the refocusing of Sean's company on consumer items, there
> has been a perceived vacuum created in the Openmoko community's efforts
> to create next-generation open cellular smart phones.
>
> I happened to be working with Dr. Marcelo Zuffo, a full professor and
> the head of the Laboratory for Integrated Systems at the University of
> São Paulo, Brazil, on an unrelated project.  I asked Dr. Zuffo if the
> university would be willing to join the Openmoko community and to
> provide critical resources to the task at hand.
>
> I subsequently have met with Dr. Zuffo several times on this matter,
> have seen his facilities (which include a very modern and
> state-of-the-art SMT line) and have discussed the goals of the community
> to design and prototype a completely open design for a cellular phone.
> Dr. Zuffo and the university understand your issues, understand free and
> open source software and hardware and are willing to assist the
> community with this project.
>
> I might add that the university can bring several new capabilities to
> the community:
>
> First of all, Dr. Zuffo has discussed the Openmoko project with the
> Minister of Telecommunications of Brazil, and the Minister is very
> enthusiastic about the concept.  Having the support of the government of
> the twelfth largest economy behind the project might really help us with
> various negotiations with vendors.
>
> Secondly the University has been working on several aspects of
> telecommunications for a long time, and therefore has expertise in
> telephonic security and codecs (among other things) that could be of use
> to the Openmoko community.
>
> Third, the university has the ability and expertise to design new
> integrated circuits.  Recently they designed a a range of analog-digital
> chips.  Therefore the possibility of developing, manufacturing and
> freely licensing new chips to help reduce the cost of the phone is
> possible.
>
> Forth, while the facilities I mentioned are capable of producing up to
> 10,000 units at the rate of one circuit board every 30 seconds,  the
> purpose of the facilities is research, developing and support projects
> that can lead innovation, the lab's charter does not allow them to
> manufacture more units then the 10,000 because that would be "commercial
> production".  Therefore the university has a goal of freely licensing
> the design to companies for manufacture.
>
> Fifth, the university would be happy to host the mailing lists and
> forums of the Openmoko project.  If some of the software projects need
> hosting and can not find hosting services other places, the university
> will consider acting as a primary hosting facility for these projects.
>
> Sixth, personally I would like to see this concept extended, of inviting
> more universities and their facilities to help with this project
> world-wide.  I hope that the leadership of the University of Sao Paulo
> will help create the structure and inspiration for this to happen.
>
> Finally, the university has a non-profit legal entity, LSITEC, which can
> easily do the type of paperwork that Sean's company did (NDAs,
> certification) so the community can leverage off that.
>
> I know that there will be a lot of questions and considerations to take
> before the community is comfortable with this relationship.  Dr. Zuffo
> has asked that I help coordinate the joining together of the university
> with the community, and in the interest of seeing Openmoko continue to
> do the fine work started by Sean and all of you, I will be glad to help
> in this capacity.  I am monitoring the community mailing list, and
> people are also welcome to email me directly (maddog at li.org) with
> questions that you do not (for any reason) wish to post to the list.
>
> Dr. Zuffo's letter of intent is below.
>
> Warmest regards,
>
> Jon "maddog" Hall
> President, Linux International
> CTO of Koolu, Inc.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/attachments/20090713/dc06f894/attachment.htm