Discussion: what are your dreams for the Openmoko Community

[Lally Singh]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 5:52 AM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns at goldelico.com
> wrote:

> It has become a little quiet here in the last weeks so that I
> really fear about the spirit and status of this community.
>
> So what are your dreams with respect to open mobile handhelds?
> What would you like as future hardware? What to see in software
> distros? Anything else? What missing piece are you waiting for?
>
> If we exchange these ideas it may be possible that we all
> work together (with smaller and bigger contributions - everyone
> as he/she likes) to fulfill them...
>
> Otherwise I guess we have just to consume what Apple, Samsung,
> MS-Nokia and others are confronting us with in the next years.
> May it be open or closed as they like.
>
> Or is this where we see our future? Or am I completely wrong in my
> impression?
>
> Phew - a lot of questions and so early in the morning :)
>
> Nikolaus
>
>
Preface: I haven't touched the OM list in probably 2-3 years; I just looked
over at a gmail tag for it and noticed "holy crap, there are over 9,000
unread messages!"  So many of these issues may have been addressed in some
way.

Well, I think a prior issue has really been about expectations and risk.
 When I got my GTA02, I was really looking forward to a phone.  A phone for
me is a reliable device that I can use as my primary contact point with the
outside world for voice communication.

The GTA stack wasn't nearly good enough for that.  And that's perfectly ok
-- but I was saddened because I expected more.

The risk comes in from both the problems in it being a phone (some software
stack issues, some battery life problems, some usability issues) and in
being as expensive as it was.  The combination of its ability to negatively
impact my daily life (as a poor phone) and the cost of the device together
really hurt.

I'd rather it be said upfront (in big block lettering) that it's only good
as a secondary device, with the plan to eventually be a good phone.  I know
some said that on the list, but I also heard that some people were able to
make it work for their daily-use phone, and I was too hopeful.  Honestly
it's just too sweet a dream to expect people (like myself) to make a
terribly rational decision about, without really pressing in the facts.
 The drop to reality I think hurt many of us early enthusiasts and really
took away a lot of possible enthusiasm.

For the future -- and I'm saying this as someone who'd be interested in
coming back into the fold, learning what I have -- I'd like to see more of
a hardware-hacker tilt to it.  Closer to what we're seeing on the embedded
controller & accessories side (e.g. arduino et al.), perhaps in being able
to directly connect to other projects' expansion boards (arduino shields?
 I donno much about them, just been watching from the sideline), and/or
some analog/digital I/O pins.   This way, the device can already be useful
and fun, and it'll get a happy community while it's also ramping up its
capabilities as a phone.

My GTA02 may eventually come out of storage and become a small add-on to my
car, with some maps, GPS, and an interface to the on-board diagnostics port
to show some engine stats, etc.  And that's a  perfectly good place for it
to end up.
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