No subject

statement) as to what the Openmoko Project's real goal was.  I think the
first person to comment on the article, Jason, echoed what I heard a lot
of people say on the mailing lists over the years:

o I bought a phone (in his case a Neo 1973)
o It was never even functional as a phone
o I am stuck with it (or perhaps they sold it)

The FreeRunner suffered a better fate overall, but still fell short of
various people's expectations.

Obviously Jason never bought into the concept of the phone as a
developer's tool...he actually wanted to make calls with it.

If the goal of the project was to create a platform for people to
investigate developing code for a mobile in a free and open way, then
you could make the argument that Openmoko was fairly successful.

If the goal was to create a complete Open Source software stack that
would successfully compete with the iPhone to the "iConsumer", I think
that the project was not successful.  Using Android, which was mostly
developed in a closed manner, does not really count.

If the goal was to create a commercially successful "Open Phone"
platform or to show that such a phone could be a success, I think it was
"less than successful"....but not necessarily because of its "Openness".

I meant what I said in my response to the article.  I had a
manufacturing company all set to license the necessary designs from
Openmoko, to buy the spare inventory and to make the business
relationships to buy new components.  They had the facilities and
expertise to make the phone, but they needed to make a certain volume
just to make back their tooling costs.

We had many customers standing by to purchase the phones, and these
customers were not "price sensitive"....only there were no new
components to buy, so the whole business plan fell apart.  We could not
make the volume necessary to break even from tooling.

I hope that the GTA04 will be positioned so that every purchaser will
know why they are buying it, and what they can expect from it.  Then
perhaps we will have fewer disappointed customers.  Perhaps this is too
much to ask, but it could be a goal.

md