Open Source Phone on the Way

prostoalex writes "Dr. Dobb's Journal reports on GPE Palmtop Environment's aim to create a full stack of open source software for mobile phones. Mobile operator Orange and France Telecom are contributing to the project. The goal is to have a fully featured mobile handset with applications like instant messaging and email, with only a portion of the price."

Comments

"New" my foot.

[utopianfiat]

closed, but open source.

Re:"New" my foot.

[zanglang]

That's Trolltech's Greenphone, GPE is a different project:
 

GPE is committed to the Open Source idea. All GPE core components are released under GNU licenses, applications using the GPL and shared libraries using the LGPL. Those allow for the most free usability of the GPE system. http://gpe.handhelds.org/

Re:Interesting thought

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure I can monitor more than one person at a time.

Re:Interesting thought

[networkBoy]

No, the NSA'a computers monitor the communications, the people monitor the computers, which have a list of keywords likely weighted. once a conversation gets too "heavy" a human monitor gets involved.
Um... at least that's how I'd do it.
-nB

reducing duplication of efforts?

[straponego]

I'm going to take the rare step of admitting that I could be wrong on a lot of this. People who know more about these issues are invited to correct me.

This looks like a good thing, but I've noticed that there are several different similar efforts out there. There's Maemo for the Nokia tablets, OpenMoko for the Neo1973 (which is the closest I've seen to what I want in a phone), the Motorola Linux stuff, and this. I'm sure there will be some cross-pollination, but this seems like something that a consortium of phone makers or maybe Google could really push along quickly. How? Either by providing build servers which would build executables for the target environments, or providing emulators. Yeah, it's going to be hard to emulate the actual telecom functionality, but I think a majority of applications for these devices will not use those.

The reason I mentioned Google is that I believe they're doing something similar already, though a quick search didn't turn up what I remembered. IBM, Intel, or OSDN might be other good candidates.

Or are these different platforms using such different APIs for things like graphics toolkits that I'm smoking crack here?

Open source doesn't mean unlocked device.

[gd23ka]

Just because they're using open source code and even give you whatever
source they have to give you, doesn't mean the device is "open" as in
you can change any binaries or config settings, add or remove software
etc. All the GPL forces them to do is to publish their source code
modifications / additions where it applies. It doesn't force them to
deliver the binaries on a device that allows modification of that code.

Abandoned and Expired Patents Should be Added

[Patent-Monkey]

It'll take a bit of work to assemble everything relevant to cell phones, but we've got a tool that shows which patents are expired or abandoned. Here is a list of expired or abandoned cell phone patents we've got as a starter and will add to it as we go. Some aren't that great, think of it as a 'bargain bin'. :P I agree that cell phones have many possibilities and we should use the patent system as an advantage for this.

Re:And then there's OpenMoko

[walter_f]

http://www.openmoko.com/press/index.html
http://www.openmoko.com/press/index.html#pictures

which is a truly open platform based on all GPL'd software.

The first hardware using OpenMoko, the Neo1973 Smartphone by Taiwan's FIC, will be available to the public soon.

http://planet.openmoko.org/

Walter.