Happy Birthday, Openmoko NEO FreeRunner!
Paw Prints: Writings of the maddog
The Openmoko project, which was designed to have a completely open phone (both software and hardware), has been going on for some time. They released a preliminary version of the hardware phone in limited quantities about a year ago (called the "Neo 1973"), and it seemed like the final hardware product was taking "forever".
Many people did not know, however, how difficult it was for the designers of this phone. In their desire to have a completely open and documented phone, they had to visit (and sometimes revisit) various hardware manufacturers who made the various chip sets in order to get the documentation and "openness" they wanted.
While at Campus Party, Columbia last week I had a chance to talk with Sean Moss-Pultz, one of the leaders of the project, and hear his presentation about the trials and tribulations of working with embedded component hardware vendors.
It was especially interesting to hear the story about one chip supplier that refused to make their documentation and specifications "Open". Sean finally had to fly to the company's headquarters and talk with their CEO. It turns out that the company was simply embarrassed that their documentation was so poor, and they did not want to expose this poor documentation and have it seen by the world. Sean promised to help them re-write their documentation so they could publish it, and all was fine.
If Sean had been able to see me in the audience, I was nodding my head in agreement, since I had exactly the same experience at Digital Equipment Corporation over twenty years ago. Companies who make "closed" components, or components where they expect to write the device drivers themselves, often do not take care when they write their specifications and documents. They think these documents will only be for internal consumption, and they sometimes put trade secrets, competitive information, or just insulting comments in the documents, thinking that the documents will always be "internal". When asked to make the documents public, the companies refuse, knowing that they would have to spend time and money "cleaning" the document. Sad, but true. Perhaps in the future vendors will train their engineers and product managers to produce professional "open" documents from the beginning, separating out the trade secrets from the publicly needed data, and this particular issue will disappear.
However, the NEO FreeRunner has successfully made it past the gestation period, and is now celebrating its birthday. We can hope that having a completely open phone will generate the kind of freedom in communications and integrated telephony/IT that the Openmoko people envision.
comments powered by DisqusSubscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.
-
DebConf24 to be Held in South Korea
Busan will be the location of the latest DebConf running July 28 through August 4
-
Fedora Unleashes Atomic Desktops
Fedora has combined its solid distribution with rpm-ostree system to make it possible to deliver a new family of Fedora spins, called Fedora Atomic Desktops.
-
Bootloader Vulnerability Affects Nearly All Linux Distributions
The developers of shim have released a version to fix numerous security flaws, including one that could enable remote control execution of malicious code under certain circumstances.