When is the next and more powerful openmoko releasing

Gerald A geraldablists at gmail.com
Sun Aug 15 05:12:39 CEST 2010


Heya,

On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 10:40 AM, arne anka <openmoko at ginguppin.de> wrote:

> >> - gain a reputation as being "open" (which might appeal to goverments as
> >> well b/c of several reasons)
> >
> > Or not -- see the current spat over Blackberry in India/UAE/etc. "Open"
> isn't
> > good for governments looking for tight controls. And while it might be
> great
> > for their citizens, it's the gov'ts that control devices, unfortunately.
>

> the spat you mentioned is just about rim not being open with it's servers.
> were they open, gouverments could simply set up their own and force their
> citizens to use those.
> what i was refering to, wa sthe fact that with open sw/hw gouvernments
> would be able to check on their own the integrity and safety of
> implemantations, not being dependent on the vendors.
>

The issue I was referring to was if hardware and software is "open enough",
then said governments won't even consider allowing the devices in, since
end users could use them to circumvent whatever protections the regulators
put on.

>> - additional promotion by mouth-to-mouth through people being interested
> >> in open devices, probably cheaper than paid merchandising for the same
> >> group
> >
> > While this is true, this target audience is small.
>
> sure. but so is, after all, the target audience for apple products. and as
> said before, openess would have this increased promotion at no additional
> costs.
>

With 14% of the market and 4th place in the Smartphone market (source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_2009_full.png),
I would say that Apple's target audience is naturally slightly larger.
Would apple being open help them? In some ways, sure.
However, if we had Apple's war chest, we wouldn't be having discussions,
we'd
all have devices in our hands. :S

>> - somewhat broadened developer base
> >>
> >
> > Do you really think that the term "open" will attract more developers?
> Maybe
> > a handful or two, but developers flock to where the money is. See iPhone.
> :S
>
> see below. openess would mean, developers are not restricted by limited
> apis, but could access the complete bandwith of options available.
>

Lot's of platforms have crap apis. If api's defined success, Unix would have
triumphed over Windows long ago.
Nice APIs do help, don't get me wrong -- but don't get lost in the clouds.

>> - android inspired cost structure: make your hw specs public -> enable
> >> developers to make the best from it -> gain market share since your
> device
> >> offers the most b/c developers can use the hw and are not limited to
> >> app-like apis (cf iP[od|hone|ad])
> >>
> >> with the success of android, i think a more open approach might appeal
> to
> >> vendors.
> >
> > I'm not up on all the latest android stuff, but from what I've seen, you
> can make
> > a pretty closed system from those building blocks.
>
> sure you can. but otoh, android being (more or less) opene, it allows
> vendors to get their devices to market in rather limited time compared to
> closed, vendor-specific os which need a lot of inhouse investment to
> develop and get stable.
> and seeing how an open os, offered at no costs helps saving money, an open
> hw design easily extensible might appeal as well.
> assume vendor X creates a design freely available, there would probably be
> a lot of other vendors re-use that design to decrease their costs --
> google did not create android out of altruistic motives, they have their
> profit and interests at heart, and yet, android is attractive to the
> market.
>
>
> but after all, i have the sure feeling as if the very same discussion has
> been had already, years ago and all arguments have been on the table
> already.
>

True true. If Android is used as a stepping stone, I think that is fine. But
Android isnn't the end, it's only something along the path.

Gerald
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