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Why Open Source Makes Sense For Handhelds
Guylhem writes "Are you still wondering why you should prefer an handheld running free software over one running Palm OS or Windows CE? Here's a short article to explain the main reasons you should consider.
The most important are sustainability and freedom: you don't want your applications to break when you update your handheld OS or hardware, and you certainly want to decide what *you* may do with your data. Palm and Pocket PC's DRM protected and obscure formats stand in your way. That's another good reason to prefer free software: you have the source code so you can develop plug ins to read such obscure formats. Even better - you can stick to standards formats such as divx which are poorly supported on handhelds running proprietary software." On the topic of handhelds, tanmay submits brighthand.com's small chart of some upcoming handhelds and smart phones that may be launched in the coming months.
...breaks my other OSS all the time. Conflicting lib requirements/*.SOs, et al. I can't remember the last time some of my Windoze software broke because I installed something else or 'upgraded' or 'patched.'
Now, there's plenty of other reasons why you should use OSS over CSS, but 'breakage' usually isn't one of them unless you are running a machien that is dedicated to a particular task (i.e. web server)
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I can do what I want only with Palm and Windows. Linux is intriguing, but fails the tests of functionality and compatability.
I'm currently using my friend's old Handspring Visor. Runs quite a few great OSS programs, such as PCash and Vexed, and it does everything I need.
You are not the customer.
They are so damn cool.
My C750 Zaurus is one of the best looking PDAs out there (the rest all being Sharp ones too) - miles ahead of any Palm, Sony or HP offering.
As well as being so goddam sexy, it has a much easier to use (for mobile computing purposes) interface than the PocketPC as well as one that is more flexible than the Palm which I find to restrictive. (Since mine is more than a productiviy tool, I use it more like a mini laptop.)
Throw in Bluetooth and WiFi (which you can use at the same time _as well_ as a SD memory card - try that with another device) for less than $600, all in a box that fits in a pocket and is reasonably robust, with 5 hours battery life... it's hard to say no.
Beep beep.
No they won't put the girls off. My girlfriend stole my Zaurus SL5500 and refuses to give it back, so I had to go out and buy a C750 instead. Oh the pain.
Beep beep.
Freedom of choice is always better, Dude (or Dudette).
I just bought the Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 and it kicks the snot out of my Palm Pilot. It's a few years newer but is still a better machine than the most recent Palms. And when I get the addons sneaked in past the lovely but untrusting Morticia, then I will have far more than had I upgraded the Palm.
Mine came from Amazon.com @ $300.00 - new in the box. This is the best techno trinket I've had years.
Original poster has to be a troll - or his significant other won't let him get the better toy and it's just sour grapes talking.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Not knowing what to expect out of a PDA? How about reminding me of important dates and meetings; keeping a searchable contact list; allowing for short note taking; email.
Fun extras that I can do with my new PPC Toshiba e755: Surf web with builtin 802.11b will on the toilet; show off some pics; listen to music; watch videos I've captured with my Radeon A-i-W and crunched with command line WM encoder 9 to incredibly small, smooth and clean files.
Some "innovative uses" by "inspired thinkers" mentioned in article: Install Apache to show your webpage off to friends; ease of upgrade to new device by writing your own compatible SW (anyone ever hear of Export|CSV?
Oh, and I love this: "If you are lucky, you can download a new version that runs on PalmOS 5. If you aren't, forget your beloved application."
Yes! That's inspired thinking and innovation, being unable to move on from your beloved 1994 PDA apps.
How easy would it be to get a real standardisation body to draw up a standard for Open Source software?
.....
Obviously, ISO would be the biggie, but maybe it would be more realistic to begin with a national standards body {German DIN [?] for instance} first, even if only to give the others something to use as a template?
What I'm thinking of is a standard literally for openness of source; so claiming compliance with the standard would oblige vendors to certify that they were giving you permission to copy and modify. Standards bodies themselves do not necessarily do the testing {though many will rent you testing facilities}; but rather, publish the specifications -- and a list of approved test procedures -- and anyone can test and certify their own products, though in doing so they are accepting responsibility for the consequences. The standardisation body gets the right to sue you {for misappropriation of trademarks} if you apply its mark to products that do not meet the standard.
A "standards-compliant" sticker on Open Source software might carry some clout with purchasing authorities, too
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I just swapped my old Palm Pro for an M505. I miss the Palm Pro horribly. It actually worked, and never once suffered an electrostatic-discharge refusal to sync or a "dreaded green-light crash." Not once in five years.
As far as handhelds go, reliability is the most important feature. That's an excellent reason to go with a stable but modifiable platform, if you ask me.
Microsoft's approach to PocketPC is completely the opposite of how they established DOS and cornered the PC market. DOS was sold as an operating system that would run on anybody's PC, regardless of manufacture. It wasn't what you'd call "open source" but it did open up the hardware platform and provide a common reference point we could build on.
PocketPC, on the other hand, takes an entirely different approach. You're stuck with MS-imposed limitations like a chunky 320x240 screen size and you can't break out of the Windows shell to the underlying lower-level functions. Working with PocketPC has been very frustrating for me; it's got vendor lock-in coming at you from two angles (MS and whichever OEM branded the unit).
With PocketPC, Microsoft has torn a page from Apple's playbook when it comes to product positioning and the complete lack of "freedom to innovate." Unfortunately their design ideas aren't any better than Apple's were a decade ago with the Newton.
If Microsoft truly wanted to compete in the PDA realm, what they need to do is come up with a DOS-equivalent that will run on a Palm or Clie or even a PocketPC. Indeed it's clever how they're pushing the commodity hardware costs onto the OEMs, and all they have to do is come up with the software. (A bit reminiscent of Dell's JIT manufacturing.) But in the long run I think a product that has both a closed software architecture and a closed hardware spec isn't going to fly.
And there's also the bloatware problem. Why should a PocketPC need a 406MHz CPU? A Clie with twice the pixels gets by on a much leaner chip.
I can't remember the last time some of my Windoze software broke because I installed something else or 'upgraded' or 'patched.'
It used to happen all the time with Microsoft Windows systems. But Linux came along and challanged Microsoft in terms of reliability. Microsoft scrambled and came up with Windows 2000 as their response. It's far, far, more stable than older MS offerings.
Problem is, many of the most frentic Open Source advocates haven't used a Microsoft OS since before W2K so their experience of 'buggy easily-broken' Microsoft OSes is dated and no longer the case.
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Not ironic at all. When designing for a system with constraints (limited MIPs and RAM for early mainframes and PC's, mAH of battery and viewable kilopixels in handhelds, etc.), a developer who is capable of hand crafting an application to fit in that environment will be able to produce something far more usable than a trivial port of some bloatware meant for a system many times larger.
Technology advances will help out some types of bloatware (e.g. Mr. Gates depends on Intel keeping up with Moore's law). But advances in battery energy density are very slow; so, in some ways, the constraints for optimal applications for handhelds will always be different than for PCs.
One of the main failings of PocketPC handhelds is that a large portion of the applications for it are ports of applications meant for hardware with bigger displays, larger caches, and unlimited power (AC wall plug plus noisy fans).
The Zaurus is great... but it's nowhere near it's potential. Think Mac OS X with it's beautiful exterior and powerful innards. The Zaurus is just like that but without the beautiful exterior. In fact, the exterior (meaning the software) is terrible.
I love using my Zaurus for SSH, web development (I have Apache, PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, and CVS installed and in regular use. I have all my current projects checked out in a big SD card and I do development work while checking source code my modem card or WiFi card.
But do I ever use the PIM software? No. They're hideous. QT is bloated enough on the *desktop*, on the zaurus it's just insane. Simple apps take up 10-20 MB of RAM, it takes 20 seconds to launch a program...not worth it! I do everything in vi and text files!
I have a dream of some smart developer taking the Zaurus, gutting it completely, and coming up with a new lean and mean Linux distro that blows everything away. Heck I'd do it myself if I had the time..I wish I did.
The Zaurus unfortunately is for the geeks like me still. But to be honest I prefer good ol' paper and pencil for stuff like appointments and phone numbers.
I have a Palm Pilot - specifically, a Tungsten E, their newest low end model, which I got for $170.
So far, I've gotten movies to play in divx format with mmplayer (which means they're about 1/10 the size they were with the included app); 15 books to be stored in 3MB with plucker; a better light dimming system (you could hardly affect the light before) with dimmer, a NES emulator from nesem, and a remote control system (using your palm as a remote) through Omniremote.
It also comes with Documents-to-Go, which can read and write word, excel and powerpoint documents (the same kind you find on the PC, not an import).
What exactly am I missing in freedom of choice? All the stuff I chose didn't come with my Palm device, with the exception of Documents-to-Go, and one app is even GPL (plucker).
I think I'm limited only by the speed of the processor, and for wireless stuff. I could have gotten the faster ones, or wireless, but I'd have paid more for those. I got a lot of bang for my buck, without paying the extra $130 that you did.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I use Opie on Familiar Linux. Before this I used a Palm IIIc. Perfectly fine for my use, basically typical PDA stuff.
Just because you *can* do more doesn't mean you *have* to. Linux makes for a perfectly good underlying OS for a PDA. Opie is an excellent environment for a palmtop.
I do a little database stuff with some PyQt based apps. I tossed 'em together in a GUI, tested it on my laptop, and transferred them over. Nice and easy. And easy database apps are likely the biggest missing thing from a typical PDA setup.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
- I can only sync using ActiveSync(TM), which is proprietary and only runs on Windows.
- Contacts & calendar only sync with Outlook(TM).
- The SDK, albeit free (beer) only runs on Windows(TM).
It boils down to: to make full use of my WinCE IPaq, I would have to buy Windows for my desktop machine. I have yet to try SynCE - the free ActiveSync protocol implementation, perhaps it will let me sync with Linux, but more probably I'll just install Linux on the IPaq.