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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."
I'm not really sure an "open source" phone is possible. These things are too miniaturized to be able to build in your garage. There are guys out there who build their own GSM phones, but these things are not something you can carry around in your pocket.
Hopefully, Open software for phones will fall a "build it, and they will come" path. Coming from the US, I hate how every phone is branded to a particular company. You have to jump through hoops to unlock it to use with another provider, if it's even possible at all. The phones are almost always crippled, too - Verizon disables a lot of the Bluetooth functions on their phones unless you pay to unlock them. If you want a new software Feature X on your phone, you pretty much have to throw it out and buy a new one with Feature X on it. Buying a phone is a game where you have to choose between what you want and what you can live without. Choose carefully, because you're going to be stuck with the phone for two years unless you want to pay $500 for it to go month to month. It's total bullcrap.
It'd be really nice if companies would start rolling out phones designed to work on an open platform, like what FIC did with the Neo1973.
-R