Help to grow The Independent Mobile Tool Community!

urodelo urodelomutante at yahoo.com
Fri May 10 17:06:27 CEST 2013


An active membership on mainstream social networks could help, as well as  
"second choices" (brrrr...) like identi.ca, plurk and diaspora... This can  
maybe look naif, but this adds more visibility, especially if the accounts  
are supported by an attractive website, imho. Just owning a microblogging  
account where to share the content of the webpages allows a better rank in  
the search engines and therefore more visitors, but you all know this  
already. We should use all the ways we can to spread the voice of the  
community.
Another thing is that in my opinion we should have a better management of  
the resources (especially human resources). Actually we all know that  
there are just few of the community who are involved in the development,  
for many different reasons. If we could better coordinate, manage the  
(sub)project, like qtmoko, shr, firmware dev, news publishing, social  
networking, etc, we could probably be more efficient and also involved.  
Probably many of us doesn't have the technical skill to contribute to sw  
development or build an electronic schema, but maybe are able to run an  
OFFICIAL account on diaspora or an OFFICIAL blog. I say official because  
in my opinion we (community) need more referring points, for us and for  
the new potential users, even at coast of being repetitive; we know that  
some on internet just use one kind of social network, others hate them and  
just want to read news on blogs and web portals, and so on.
Honestly, I've always seen the lack of a "press office" here... it's not  
fault of anybody and surely this task can't be assigned always to the same  
people... but imho we really need a better publishing system for the  
community and its news

regards
urodelo

On Wed, 08 May 2013 16:07:26 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller  
<hns at goldelico.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> today I would like to ask you to help to grow the OpenPhoenux Independent
> Mobile Tool Community.
>
>
> Why do we need to grow the community?
>
> We need many more active members contributing in all aspects of such a
> project. We need developers, maintainers, testers, people discussing new
> ideas, writing blogs, writing comments, going to fairs, making  
> presentations,
> running servers, teaching and convincing others that we are doing  
> something
> useful.
>
> And we need more people interested in our software and hardware or we
> will remain a side note of history.
>
> Finally we can't get new members by waiting for them to come by chance.
>
>
> What is this community about?
>
> There has been a long discussion recently about next generation  
> OpenPhoenux
> devices and I got a lot of valuable inputs indicating that we even need  
> a broader
> view, so that I now feel that I am able to write down what this  
> community is about.
>
> And very important: what makes it different from other human activities!
>
> This is important because any new prospective community member will ask
> you and I hope that my proposals are the right answers to their questions
> and make them join our community.
>
> Most of us have origins in the OpenMoko community. OpenMoko did appear
> in Nov 2006 as the attempt to provide the first really open Linux  
> portable
> computer with telephony functions. At that time this idea was very new -  
> it was
> announced 2 months before the iPhone 1 - and did catch a lot of  
> attention.
>
> In the meantime the world has changed a lot. iPhone comes with an  
> Appstore
> which has revolutionized the way independent software developers work.
>
> Google has established Android and the whole smartphone industry has got
> to speed to provide cheap (and some crap) devices with Android. Facebook
> has appeared and also tries to get their-selves onto the Home screen of
> smartphones. Smartphones have developed into tablets and phablets.
>
> Combined with the millions of Apps, that are "mini-browsers" for specific
> tasks, this is more or less the opposite what the "personal computer"  
> idea
> combined with a "world wide web" of connected computers was. In that
> model everyone did have control over the data that was published.
>
> This means that neither the device hardware nor the software and the
> services provided by the network are the most important. I.e. we must see
> all three (HW, SW, Services) as parts of a complete OpenPhoenux system.
>
> If we look at what the big players are doing, it can be summarised as:
> they fight to capture the user. They want to bring back the mainframe
> concept (logically centralised services + dumb terminals) and use that
> to provide walled (zoological?) gardens where the user does no longer
> have any ownership of the data. They can even find out things about us
> we don't know ourselves (at least we are not aware of).
>
> So everything is about incapacitating the users like the "Borg" does.  
> Apparently
> half of the world population is happily accepting this, because the  
> devices
> are cheap, the software is glamourously polished. And the services are
> apparently useful. And because the neighbour also has it. Like a mouse in
> an experiment.
>
> And we should not forget why devices are so cheap for us. On one hand  
> they
> are made in biggest numbers. But their production is not always based on  
> fair
> labour conditions. Sometimes they are subsidized to get more users into  
> the
> trap. Like free cheese for the mouse...
>
> Fortunately, not everyone is accepting to be controlled by a handful of  
> big
> players, that are pumped up with stock exchange money to a level more
> valuable than some smaller states. They want to remain individuals and  
> don't
> want to become part of a big machinery with the sole purpose of making  
> the
> shareholders happy.
>
> And are willing to accept that a community developed device or software
> can be as ultimatively polished and devices may be more expensive to
> produce.
>
> This is IMHO the dream of the OpenPhoenux community and everyone
> sharing this view is welcome!
>
> Fortunately we have almost all components in our hands to be really
> independent of such big players:
>
> * Software/GUI: SHR and QtMoko and Replicant
> * Electronics: GTA01, GT02, GTA04, GTA0x (if enough demand)
> * Mechanics: 3D printing, wood, aluminium
> * Services: www.openphoenux.org could host many additional services
>   (e.g. Diaspora, friendica) or support ideas like limesco
>
>
> What OpenPhoenux stands for:
> * participation by everyone
> * extensible hard- and software - DIY
> * allows to inspect what the system is doing (as far as achievable)
> * can be repaired using standard parts (as good as possible)
> * long-term support (e.g. software upgrades for an 2007 Neo 1973)
> * no planned obsolescence through open hard- and software
> * no central, intransparent, stock exchange listed instance that gives  
> directions
> * hardware development and production near to users (Europe) under fair  
> labour conditions
> * independent from the "modern mainframe" and back to the networked,  
> decentralized web
> * everybody plays client and server roles and keeps control over his/her  
> participation
> * makes the technical system transparent, not the user
>
>
> Please discuss and share and distribute. And recommend our community
> whereever you see/read someone complaining about big players trying
> to capture the users. The OpenPhoenux Community is the independent
> alternative.
>
>
> Subscription link for the mailing list:
>
> http://lists.openphoenux.org/mailman/listinfo/community
>
> BR,
> Nikolaus


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