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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."
A mobile phone based on the A1200? With Motorola technology? Who would have guessed.
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I think it is a great move, but I just wonder how people who actually contribute will be treated by the company down the road. Often times, little or no credit is given to someone who makes a successful and meaningful contribution because they could easily just take the idea and release it as a feature on the next iteration of the phone. Either way it is a great move on the companies part - they can rest now and let other people come up with the next ideas that will sell the phones next iteration.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
My open-source mobile phone development solution: Verizon Broadband, Ubuntu, VoIP, and an ultraportable Fujitsu Lifebook P1510. And with the number of unsecure networks around, I can probably drop the Verizon Broadband one of these days.
Yeah, I may look silly with a laptop against my ear, but it's no sillier than a boombox back in the day. I hope it conveys similar street cred.
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"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?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
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?
Motorola showed actual thought and innovation for the V3 RAZR and it's ilk. Thin flip-phones makes so much more sense. I hope they can do it again with the software.
Other than an old Ericsson T39m, the V3i is the best phone design I've ever used. That is, except for the software - which is.. quirky, to say the least. Games consoles get much of the attention in terms of reverse engineering and modding, each generation is designed to be more locked down and 'trustworthy'. However phones seem to have fared infinately better against the modding crowds and this sucks. Mobile operators get away with charging 15p for a 20 byte SMS and other restrictions that would leave Sony/MS XBox division drooling.
I wish it were possible to rip the Motorola supplied firmware and replace it with something buggy but useful. I wish I could sync to anything and actually run real software, that does real things like access bluetooth and the camera. I wish my current phone could run programs written in C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, C# and AIML. I want my phone to make a Star Trek communicator noise every time it opens. I want it to work in landscape mode and allow input from a bluetooth keyboard and to log GPS. I want it to do all the things Motorola didn't think of or didn't have the budget for.
So please, if anyone from Motorola is reading, do this properly. Open up more than just a few smartphones or far east only models. Let your geek users break from the shackles of MIDP across everything. I note from TFA that you've released an open source mmc+sd driver, that's a great move - make it the first of many.
Thanks
Alex
Such commitment on open source-development could be seen as a good step
But we can always spin it to look like pure evil.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
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
Under the FOSS philosophy, software developers really are reduced in value. Basically, any work a FOSS developer does will not translate to much personal value for him/her. If any money is to be made, it is in services that set up and customize said FOSS for paying customers. The programmer gives whatever value he/she had away. FOSS developers only hope for a sustained source of income from developing software is to setup a donations-based system (think PayPal) or work for a company who takes the zero-value software and make money off of it from services.
Which is why companies who make money off of FOSS should not be frowned unless they do not contribute anything back to the developers (either by hiring them or donating money).
What FOSS developers gets is 1) recognition, 2) satisfaction knowing he has contributed something to the greater public and 3) should the FOSS community grow, he/she will have the benefit of using all that available FOSS software. (Admittedly, there's not much there that translates to man's basic necessities of food, shelter and security.)
As a software developer, I can (and do) charge money for that one-time development of FOSS. From there there'll be no recurring charges nor can I sell it again. My hope is that if there's a groundswell for this kind of development, I can make money off of other people's work as well. In that sense, it's a cross between capitalism and communism.
I downloaded the source code for the A1200 and e680/a780. There IS NO WAY you can create a native graphical application with the tarballs they offer. Whoever submitted the news on Slashdot is an idiot and he didn't try the tarballs. The modified Qt/EZX toolkit is NOT included in these tarballs.
In other words, Motorola gave us NOTHING more than they didn't before. They just released a fancy web site about it. And we, Linux phone users, STILL CAN NOT create graphical native apps!
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.
http://www.openezx.org.nyud.net:8090/
The OpenEZX project seems to be quite active, with Harald Welte (of GPL-Violations fame) doing a lot of 2.6.x kernel porting and hardware support. Join the mailing list if you are interested in helping out with this rapidly progressing project!
Unfortunately several people say that Motorola has been less helpful with OSS development than they could have been, but let's hope that this site will change this in a very positive way.
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.