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Motorola's New Open Source Resource
illogict writes "Among with their new A1200 GNU/Linux-based mobile phone, Motorola unveiled yesterday its new community-based development platform, http://open source.motorola.com. It is primarily aimed at developers who are willing to contribute to Motorola's GNU/Linux-based mobile phones, either directly on firmware, or creating programs (native or Java) who are aimed to work on those phones. It currently features phone kernels, SD-TransFlash card reader drivers, Java MIDP3.0 draft. Such commitment on open source-development could be seen as a good step, and may show the way to other companies."
"Such commitment on open source-development could be seen as a good step, and may show the way to other companies.""
Well that's all well and good, but how's the phone itself?
Hmmm, open source for a proprietary, niche HW platform. Sounds like they're too cheap to hire their own developers and are using the Open Source buzzward in hopes for some free SW development.
So, there was some debate about whether you can package proprietary drivers with open source. So, can you package open source drivers with proprietary hardware?
Open source generally implies users installing the OS on their own devices. I don't really see this happening on a large scale with Motorola since it'll come pre-bundled. So on has to wonder, what's the point of open sourcing stuff?
I saw lots of "linux," but I didn't see any "GNU/Linux." Is this embedded device loaded down with the GNU software, or is the person who submitted the article ignorant and politically pushy?
So if new apps start to threated revenue streams for the carriers you can expect them to be disbaled. Or, alternatively, you can expect the carriers to provide their own similar services. If you think about how MS destroyed 3rd party middleware developers you'll probably be on the right track.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That's the whole point. If you don't like the UI YOU can fix it on YOUR phone. If you want you can contribute the fix the the world and other users can have it. It Moterola likes your fix they can include it in thier next relese. There is no need to submit your changes and hope they are accepted, yes that's nice as it lets others see your hard work but you can keep them all to yourself too and have a one of a kind phone too.
No more complainning about how the UI could be better. You have the means to fix it. OK but few users have the skill to fix it but itonly takes a few. If you can't write software maybe you can step in and manage some usability studies or write some documentation or something
Jeez, cynical much.... I agree with another poster - big companies can't win with you Slashdot crowd - you whine if it ISN'T open source, and you bitch if it is.. Grow up..
There's the Silicon Valley Homebrew Mobile Phone Club. If the comparison with computers is accurate, then in about twenty years we'll start seeing phones that don't suck.
I think as your repliers have pointed out that you can probably buy it here (USA). The question is whether any operator will subsidize it (answer: no) and therefore it will fail miserably like every other handset that doesn't cave to the operators will to maximize their DRM/lock-in of every single bit of content they can get their hands on.
Motorola is having a lot of trouble in the market. In order to make it they have to attract not only more customers, but more top engineers as well. This move could draw in more customers and also interest more potential employees. If this works for them, then this could be an extremely efficient way to build up an email list of competent engineers while at the same time generating the goodwill necessary to harvest their labor in the future.