[News] eWeek Talks About the iPhone Linux Rival, Which is ..

In article <2469594.WD1szktxd5.RemoveThis@schestowitz.com>,
newsgroups.RemoveThis@schestowitz.com says...
> OpenMoko: An iPhone Alternative for Developers?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | He said innovation is "seldom found within the endless cubicles of a large
> | corporation. Most commonly it manifests itself within the intense focus and
> | concentration that all individuals seem to have access to when they stare at
> | a single problem long enough."
> `----
>
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2152759,00.asp
>
>
> Related:
>
> Forget iPhone, hail OpenMoko, the true revolution
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | ...I would rather wait for OpenMoko to become available for purchase
> | than shell out high bucks for iPhone. Just like with any Apple
> | product, it is like an awesome looking golden cage. I always
> | preferred freedom to control my own digital devices than to be
> | mostly dependent on one vendor for everything.
> `----
>
> http://www.libervis.com/article/forget_iphone_hail_openmoko_the_true_revolution
>
>
> Open Phones with Open Moko
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | While the hardware may be similar, the strategy is a complete
> | reversal of Apple's closed platform and proprietary hardware.
> | OpenMoko is an open Linux-based mobile application development
> | platform that's designed to help operators and developers build
> | innovative applications on top of a basic phone platform.
> `----
>
> http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/01/15/open_phone/
>
>
> Free Your Phone
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | 2007-03-11 Phase 1: Official Developer Launch
> |     We will sell the Neo1973 direct from openmoko.com for US$350 plus
> |     shipping. Sales and orders will be worldwide. We are specifically
> |     targeting open source community developers.
> `----
>
> http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2007-January/001586.html
>

iPhoney, more overpriced pretty paint from Apple.

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
> OpenMoko: An iPhone Alternative for Developers?

ROTFL.

http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/2007/06/28/

-------
An update from the OpenMoko world

As Sean has now made his latest OpenMoko Announcement
[http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/announce/2007-June/000013.html]
last night, this is a good point in time for me to write some more bits.
Up to this announcement it was hard for me to publicly state anything,
since the whole internal restructuring process has been underway, but
not yet publicly announced.

I can only join Sean in his assessment about the superb support of FIC's
senior management. They are providing us with the kind of resources we
wanted.

But being the realist (well, Sean as optimist would call me pessimist,
you know that old story), I also see severe challenges both right now,
and ahead.

Whatever you might think: I bet that none of you has not the slightest
idea about how many problems the OpenMoko team is fighting all day long.
If you're thinking "what's the problem with a purely technical task,
i.e. designing hardware and software for an Open phone"? Then my reply
would be: It's not that big of a technical problem.

However, the really big issues start as soon as you leave the R&D world.
On the one hand, there is the actual hardware production. Many
components have incredible lead times (3 months or more), and our yet
sort-of-unknown-but-initially-very-low quantities are not particularly
helpful either. Any .tw OEM/ODM thinks in different terminology. The
kind of production processes, shipping infrastructure, ... is just not
meant for low-volume and direct shipment. We obviously knew this from
the beginning, but everyone just happily works in their usual mode of
operation, ignoring our concerns for many months.

Then think about the various customs / legal / trade issues. If you ship
components from Taiwan to mainland china and use them to manufacture a
product there, you need a special import license in order to get those
products back into Taiwan. This license costs money (and, most of all:
Time).

Or another example is the lack of double-tax agreements between Taiwan
and the rest of the world. So payments to all our various external
consultants all over Europe are taxed twice: Once in Taiwan, a second
time in the respective country of residence.

For the last two weeks I have been working on finalizing the floor plan
and infrastructure planning for the new FIC Mobile Communications and
OpenMoko software groups offices in Taipei. And believe it or not, it is
a very long and time consuming fight to ever get what you actually want.
We know exactly what kind of servers, switches and routers we want. We
know to which height we want to reduce the cubicles. We know what kind
of Internet uplink we want. Still, it's close to impossible to get
anything done. People will just outright refuse to do what they are
asked (and paid!) to do.

Take our new servers as one minor example. You would assume that it is
no problem at all to configure high-end servers around here. When doing
this in Germany, I usually consult one of the many mailorder stores, go
through their extensive list of mainboards and other components, select
products based on their availability, price and features, and within
24hours I have everything delivered to my doorstep. 99% of those
components are from Taiwanese companies.

Now enter Taiwan. First of all, you will discover that the concept of
mailorder or extensive online product lists doesn't exist. "Taiwanese
people don't trust e-commerce", is what they tell me. Secondly, you
can't just call those places and ask them if they have a certain
product, since apparently they would always say yes, only to get you
into their store.

If you actually get into the various stores, you will see that almost
all of the products you want are not available locally. "Not sold into
the Taiwan market" is something that you hear very often. So e.g. the
choice of Socket 478 mainboards from ASUS goes down from 52 (German
online store) to something like 15-20.

So in the end we were really unable to find anything remotely decent
(good performance, chipsets with excellent free software support)
locally and I ended up importing Asus and Tyan mainboards from Germany
into Taiwan, while buying the other components in Taiwan.

Now I could continue and name dozens of examples like this. If this
project was just about _developing_ hardware and software, I would be a
happy man, and we could look ahead to complete one device after the
other. But it's all the other issues, administrative, political,
cultural, sales, finance, accounting, shipping, ... which make people
like Sean and me run at something like 20-25% of their usual efficiency,
despite putting in at least 180% of regular working hours. And there is
nobody who can help this, because nobody non-technical really
understands what we're doing here, and why we need to do it different
than whatever they might have done it before.
-------

regards,
alexander.

--
"We currently have 185 open tickets (i.e. reported GPL violations)
at gpl-violations.org"
-- The GNU Monk Harald Welte

On Jun 30, 9:40 am, Alexander Terekhov <terek....DeleteThis@web.de> wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
[...]
> Now I could continue and name dozens of examples like this. If this
> project was just about _developing_ hardware and software, I would be a
> happy man, and we could look ahead to complete one device after the
> other. But it's all the other issues, administrative, political,
> cultural, sales, finance, accounting, shipping, ... which make people
> like Sean and me run at something like 20-25% of their usual efficiency,
> despite putting in at least 180% of regular working hours. And there is
> nobody who can help this, because nobody non-technical really
> understands what we're doing here, and why we need to do it different
> than whatever they might have done it before.
[...]

How is it different than building another cell phone? I would presume
you list the hardware, outsource production, then load the OS. bah.
I guess that's what you're saying, that it just doesn't work that way.


-Thufir

Roy Schestowitz wrote:

> OpenMoko: An iPhone Alternative for Developers?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | He said innovation is "seldom found within the endless cubicles of a
> | large corporation. Most commonly it manifests itself within the intense
> | focus and concentration that all individuals seem to have access to when
> | they stare at a single problem long enough."
> `----
>
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2152759,00.asp
>
>
> Related:
>
> Forget iPhone, hail OpenMoko, the true revolution
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | ...I would rather wait for OpenMoko to become available for purchase
> | than shell out high bucks for iPhone. Just like with any Apple
> | product, it is like an awesome looking golden cage. I always
> | preferred freedom to control my own digital devices than to be
> | mostly dependent on one vendor for everything.
> `----
>
> http://www.libervis.com/article
forget_iphone_hail_openmoko_the_true_revolution

There is also the greenphone. Runs Linux, the device
is even reported to sport a 40Gb drive in some configurations.



> Open Phones with Open Moko
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | While the hardware may be similar, the strategy is a complete
> | reversal of Apple's closed platform and proprietary hardware.
> | OpenMoko is an open Linux-based mobile application development
> | platform that's designed to help operators and developers build
> | innovative applications on top of a basic phone platform.
> `----
>
> http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/01/15/open_phone/
>
>
> Free Your Phone
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | 2007-03-11 Phase 1: Official Developer Launch
> | We will sell the Neo1973 direct from openmoko.com for US$350 plus
> | shipping. Sales and orders will be worldwide. We are specifically
> | targeting open source community developers.
> `----
>
> http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2007-January/001586.html

http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/2007/07/11/

-------
Insanity

If you want a status update on OpenMoko: I'm at a point where I won't go
to the office again because I know the agression inside myself will turn
into physically hurting someone there.
-------

ROTFL.

regards,
alexander.

--
"We currently have 185 open tickets (i.e. reported GPL violations)
at gpl-violations.org"
-- The GNU Monk Harald Welte

Alexander Terekhov wrote:
>
> http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/2007/07/11/
>
> -------
> Insanity

http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/2007/07/17/

-------
Sick but not insane (yet)

Some people were troubled by my last posting about 'insanity'. And I
have to admit it is justified. It isn't nice to pull internal issues of
some company out into the public that way. But I just couldn't do
differently anymore. FIC should think about providing a free corporate
psychiatrist for us. I think I have a fairly big tolerance when it
comes to mishaps, incompetence and cluelessness, but some of the things
we're experiencing here are just not bearable. Especially not if they
lack any kind of rational explanation.

So my latest outburst was mainly related to the fact that despite being
with flu and fever in bed, I had to personally hack that embarrassing
little online shop we now have at https://direct.openmoko.com/ [my first
perl CGI code in about ten years!!]. Can you believe it, we just did not
have (and still don't have) anyone in this project who has ever done
some real work on CGI's or 'technical web things' at all. And if this
was not enough yet, the requirements kept constantly changing all the
time, up to this day, more than one week after the webshop opened.

So for gods sake, how many months have we been knowing that at some
point we need to ship? And then you have plenty of people who produce
over many months three entirely different concepts on how to shop and
distribute those devices. And in the end, you have something with a
Chinese-only credit card processing page, no proper setup with regard to
the carrier (UPS in our case), tons of people talking vapor, but from
what I've heard drawing nice diagrams. And no working solution.

Some people might wonder why those shipping rates in the shop are so
high. Shouldn't a large company like FIC get huge discounts? Yes, they
do. But believe it or not, FIC does up to this day not know in advance
how much a shipping costs. Only after it was made. UPS has something
like a Rates and Service Selection API. UPS has also a nice and detailed
manual on how this XML API reports those rebated 'negotiated rates' in
addition to the standard rates.

But then till this very day, UPS keeps claiming that such an API does
not exist. Despite the fact that off-the-shelf e-commerce applications
_support_ this API, and despite the fact that UPS' very own API
documentation goes into every detail describing how that information is
XML-encoded. What comes to my mind is the O'Really: Distributing Clue to
users in a slightly modified version: Distributing clue to UPS' own
sales representatives. How on earth can you get or keep a job there if
you haven't even read the company's own documentation on their products?

Then you have companies like WorldPay, who very broadly advertise the
many different payment variants they accept, not only all the credit
cards known to man, but even things like direct debit (Lastschrift) in
Germany. But do you believe they are able to process American Express
for us? No, obviously not. Customers located in Taiwan (like
FIC/OpenMoko) cannot process AmEx. No explanation given. So much for the
word WORLD in WorldPay.

Or would you believe that some large bank like Citibank (Taiwan) was
able to charge credit cards (VISA/MasterCard) in USD? No, obviously,
being in Taiwan they can only charge in NT$ (New Taiwan Dollars). WTF?
It's the 21st century, and there are dozens of online credit card
acceptance partners that allow you to bill in about any currency you
want. But not a world-class bank like Citibank.

And now you might think that we're actually no longer working on
development. That is wrong. Yet another funny story from the
MokoUniverse is that one of the worlds largest semiconductor
distributors just had a long meeting yesterday, with FAE's and tons of
FIC hardware engineers to crack their heads about the question whether
or not we can use a "new" silicon revision of a certain component, and
where exactly the differences between the old and new revision might be.
I refused to participate in such a meeting, indicating that I just want
a document describing those differences. In writing. Soon after that, I
find out that we have always been using that supposedly-new revision,
for the better part of one year. Nobody actually bothered to look at a
unit of hardware, or at all the high-res photographs of GTA01 that I
posted on people.openmoko.org ages ago.

Then lets get to another of my favorites. Purchasing. I wrote an
extensive list of networking gear that we desperately need in order to
crate the internal IT environment for our fast growing new OpenMoko
company. After many delays, today I finally got our two core switches.
And what did they do? They "forgot" to order the transceivers, even
though they were explicitly listed in the requirements/order list. God
knows what happens in the heads of such people. So I'm now back to once
again just mail-ordering things from Germany and then billing FIC for
the expenses.

And to not bring up more embarrassing facts, and to at least preserve
some level of confidentiality, I'm now going to stop. But believe me,
there are _much_ more insane stories to be told. With some luck, at some
distant point in the future, I'll get permission to publish them in my
memoirs.

But that's basically the kind of thing that drives me close to insanity.
Whether for that cause, or completely unrelated: My health is actually
quite bad recently. Maybe the lack of regular sleeping hours, let aside
regular intake of food and the tons of stress have contributed to the
flu that lead to a severe fever attack today. You know there's something
wrong if at 33 centigrade in the sun, you're shivering more than when
riding your motorbike at -13 centigrade in German winter.

So I'm going to take it slowly for the time being, working much from
what has now become my 2nd home (apartment in Taipei, provided
gratuitously by FIC for people like Werner and myself, who are spending
so much time over here).

My sincere apologies in advance. But given my multitude of roles/hats
and functions in the OpenMoko project, I bet my health issues will now
contribute to some further delays in about any area of the project. But
there's little I can do. One day, we will get there. Let's hope you're
still interested in our products at that point.
-------

regards,
alexander.

--
"Mathematics is primarily a language for ensuring reliable results
in human social activity. "

-- Columbia Professor Eben Anarcho-Dot Communist Moglen

http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/2007/08/04/

-------
Progress with the new OpenMoko and FIC Mobility office

The final 24 hours of my current Taipei trip have started. This is a
good time to reflect on what has happened in those last weeks since July
9.

As with the overall status of the project, I'm still extremely
dissatisfied. The frequent reader of this blog will have noticed the
last postings on this subject, full of discontent.

So the further we are into this project, the more time we put into it -
the further I expect it to produce anything that I would consider
reasonable results. Please don't confuse this with the commercial
success, or the ability to produce working products. This is an entirely
different matter.

To me, it is extremely important to do things systematically, with lots
of planning, safeguards, checks, verifiable and reproducible processes,
as much automatization as possible, little room for human error, etc. So
as long as not everything from hardware to software development, mass
production, production testing, distribution/logistics/sales, etc.
follow a well-thought-through process, I will not be happy with the
results. Because any such "results" are more or less the mere product of
luck or randomness, and not a trustworthy basis upon which we can rely
on.

So reflecting on those past weeks, I think the following things have
made humble and moderate progress:

- GTA02v2, the second prototype generation of GTA02 was finalized after
many issues including unavailability of key components. I'm more than
looking forward to see how it turns out

- DebugBoard v3, the third version of the Neo1973 Debug Board was
finalized and is actually also verified and can go in mass production
Our internal software team finally has proper leadership and guidance
from somebody who is both Taiwanese and has a thorough understanding of
Free Software: jserv

- The new, second (intermediate) generation user interface was
implemented and released. It's implemented mainly by O-Hand, since
embarrassing as it is, we still don't yet have managed to build a proper
internal software development team.

- The first batch of Neo1973 GTA01 was sold, though with a entirely
last-minute, error-prone and way-too manual process for order, payment
and logistics.

- We have found a capable sysadmin for our hosted, publicly-accessible
servers. More news about that in September.

- We have managed to find a extremely valuable senior technical person
for our graphics driver and low-level UI work. This, too, will make big
news in September.

- The FiWin (FIC wireless networks) company, home to the team working on
the it-exists-but-nobody-publicly-knows-what-it-is HXD8, was merged into
OpenMoko and FIC Mobility

- We have finalized the specification for the workstations of our
software developers. It's incredibly complex to find something that's
compliant with our requirements (mainboard with Intel 945/965 on-board
graphics, Ethernet chip != attansic/realtek, dual core CPU with
2x2048kByte cache) in Taiwan. So now our developers will all get a Q6600
CPU (what nonsense!). I've tested it, and it compiles the GTA01 kernel
in 1.59minutes. Guess they'll be happy about that.

- Realize how many things really are fundamentally wrong internally.
What we knew so far about our inheritance was just the beginning

One major thing that finally started to move forward, with something
like four to six weeks of completely unnecessary delays, is the new
office. After it was decided that we will split FIC MCBU into the
independent OpenMoko, Inc. and FIC Mobility (aka Mobile Communications),
we also decided to move into bigger, scalable and independent offices.

To our big luck, two thirds of the 7th floor in the FIC headquarters
were currently unused, and they're now undergoing quite a bit of
renovation and reconstruction. Walls have been removed and brought in,
floors have been properly removed and new ones laid - after days of
fighting by Sean and myself.

The networking and phone cables get a major overhaul and will be tested.
I've also seen the AC for the new OpenMoko server room being brought in.
The contract for our own Internet plink has been finalized. The fiber
will be put in place within the next week. The core switches have been
configured, but we're still fighting very hard to get those damn 10Bit
XFP transceivers from Dell.

So the current schedule is to move on August 17, one day after I'll be
back from Germany. If that works out, I could spend the weekend 18/19
for doing the final network/server/router/firewall/... configuration.

Obviously, all of this causes quite significant resource drainage for
everyone involved. But it's a more than necessary step forward to
building an environment that we can actually work in. An environment
where our developers have real Internet access, can join IRC channels,
and can get in touch with the OpenMoko community without the obstacle of
strange corporate policies. An environment where we can have a 'clean
start', even in the most literal meaning of the word

So all in all, bear with us, have patience. The revolution might take
significantly longer than anticipated. But we're still busy doing
whatever it takes to get us to the product that the OpenMoko core team
set out to build.
-------

regards,
alexander.

--
"Mathematics is primarily a language for ensuring reliable results
in human social activity. "

-- Columbia Professor Eben Anarcho-Dot Communist Moglen