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Trolltech GPLs Qtopia Phone Edition
Provataki writes "Trolltech has announced that they are releasing the new version of Qtopia Phone Edition under the GPL along with a port on the FIC Neo1973 smartphone. Trolltech also continues to support Greenphone as a reference platform for mobile development within the company and through its partners. Benoit Schillings, CTO of Trolltech (also of BeOS fame as one of the original Be, Inc. engineers) commented on the news."
The viability of these phones as a platform depends on whether they manage to attract a large enough user and developer base to have a sustainable "ecosystem" of application development. Time will tell...
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
because i read this article on a blog, and googled after it around to get news about it, so my question is, that polling stuff, will that be resolved, too?
or how accurate is the blogpost from zecke? (was posted on may 27 i know, dont bash me about that, its just, it is one of the first articles if you google after "qtopia for moko")
So... At this point, QTopia runs on several phones while OpenMoko only runs on the one they designed. I have to say, I've been planning to buy a neo9173 for a while now, but I'm starting to seriously thinking about re-flashing it with QTopia or just buying a green phone with QTopia. In terms of how many apps will be ported to it, I think QTopia already has a huge advantage since it works on multiple phones already.
As I stated in the other news topic, I want a phone that has Skype and will let me answer with Skype or via cell tower when both ring at once. I use Grand Central to ring both numbers at the same time, and I'd rather have just a single phone to do it with. I think QTopia is likely to offer that more quickly than OpenMoko.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
And you should be modded troll.
For those too lazy to go read the press release, it's GPLv2, not GPLv3.
E pluribus unum
That is worrying news. But fear not, Angela Merkel will be making a statement later and President Bush is flying out to offer his support. I'm sure I speak for all slashdotters when I say my heart goes out to you and I hope that your Trolltech-adjacency crisis will soon be resolved.
...if any open source developers will start making Open Hardware phones. With the rise of the cell phone as a complete multimedia platform (a wave to Apple in particular here), the market is ripe for sophisticated embedded hardware of the type that OSS developers have been toying with for some time now.
;-)
Obviously, the biggest hurdle is FCC regulations. You can't actually install and run the radio without an FCC license and/or a shielded area to test radio communications from. I don't know what's involved in being licensed for public airwaves (especially for development purposes), but even finding a mini-tower to install in your "Faraday garage" that you're sure properly emulates a true cell tower could be difficult.
Hmm... unless someone OSSed that first? An OSS cell network? (Yeah, right.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I bought a FIC Neo1973 for 450$, I'm not here to complain about the phone, I think I got what I paid for. But until they fix its brokenness (GSM850 doesn't work. That's broken) it's going to be a barely useful PDA sitting on my desk. It's not my fault I live in a state where I'd have to drive 4+ hours to get anything other than GSM850. Right now I can see the cell tower from my desk. Unfortunately I have to use my free prepaid phone to talk with anyone. FIC is a great company with great ideas but they are selling a broken product and they don't warn the buyer sufficiently about exactly WHAT is broken and WHAT isn't.
somewhere, on a Big Red Sign:
if(color==blue){speed--;}
They should be right at home on /. then.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
Can someone explain how I, the cell phone user, would choose a cell phone service provider myself? Suppose I get some sort of open phone that runs either OpenMoko or QtPhones-a-lot or something. Is there a C library that includes the function dial_this(int phonenum)? Do I stick a SIM card in and just do what I want, treating the open phone like a computer and the SIM card like a modem?
For reference: I bought an unlocked Treo 650 (none of the more advanced models were not available unlocked). Treos are offered by Nextel/Sprint and Verizon, but I use T-mobile, which doesn't offer Treos. So I simply phoned T-mobile and said, "I have a Treo. Do you want me to still be your customer, or do you want me to switch to a different network?" Of course they were willing to provide service, and since it was just a matter of taking my SIM card from my old phone to the Treo, everything was straightforward. I've been happily using their voice and data service since.
I hope that the new open phone would work the same way. I probably would not be able to handle a for-developers alpha-version of the phone, but if I got my hands on a beta-version with a fledgling interface to dial out, compile programs and download files, I'd probably be willing to buy it, and then just upgrade the software as more came out.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Just downloaded and tried out Qtopia (I am one of the lucky few who got a Neo1973 before they ran out of the developer edition). It ALMOST works. It can make and receive calls seamlessly, and does power management. In this respect, they are way out in front of OpenMoko (the system developed for the Neo by FIC). However, once in one of those calls, sound doesn't work. Any attempt to set the volume above 0 fails. Also, Qtopia was developed originally for the greenphone, which has a keypad. The Neo uses a large touchscreen instead. Since Qtopia assumes that there is a keypad, they don't bother to offer a software number pad in anything other than the phone application which makes entering numbers (in say, one's contacts) kind of difficult. It seems like these issues are probably only a couple hours of work for the right developer, but right now, neither platform is viable for the end user. Qtopia is definitely closer, but the competition will only benefit the end user. This is why open devices are great.
There are standard SIP clients for all the major OSs. It's a standard, after all. There are also standard SIP hardware devices, from ATAs (analog telephone adaptors) in both end device and router versions, to Ethernet based SIPPhones (including PoE, power over Ethernet, so single cord) to cordless wifi devices, to computer card phone adaptors, available from several different manufacturers and multiple vendors. There are also both open (Asterisk) and proprietary (Cisco, among others) VoIP/PBX implementations as complicated and featureful as you care to get.
I recently switched to 100% VoIP here (I can't justify the additional cost for cell service, so this was from standard telco land-line). One of my big requirements was everything I got was SIP-standard, no-lockin. The going (US) rate is ~$25-30/mo including all taxes/fees, or prepay a year for $199 plus fees (which is what I did), which works out to $16.58/mo, and my fees are $2.50/mo, so I'm paying <$20/mo total, by prepaying. That includes at least US/48 as if it were "local", plus incoming. The differentiation between providers is that some provide up to 25-nation "local" calling for that, while others include a few extra features -- altho all the "standard" features the telcos like to charge extra for, caller-id, voice-mail, etc, are included at no additional cost by nearly all providers. Since all the folks I call are in the US, I chose the extra features, including such things as selective announcement voice mail (so my friends get a different greeting than ordinary callers, can be handy at times) and scheduled automated wakeup/reminder (b-day, anniversary, etc) calls -- no additional cost! =8^)
If you do mostly net calling, as I think with Skype, you can get that for free. If you need incoming phone only, that's available with a local number in many cities in the US from $2/mo, if you shop around. Outgoing only, available from $10-ish/mo. unlimited or 4 cents a call (NOT per minute, per call) or a penny a minute, both without monthly fees, just usage. (The 4 cents a call thing is to the US, but provided by a company in Norway, Vyke.com... I couldn't get my US credit cards to work with it, unfortunately.) There's also 500-ish minute accounts and the like available, and 35-nation, regional, and nearly worldwide "local" calling plans, for those that need them. "Unlimited" does in the cases I've been talking about refer to "residential" service, but there's also commercial service, without residential use restrictions, available, from $30/mo or so, and fully unlimited, wholesale resale and phone bank and etc services allowed, at per minute rates, of course depending on provider.
I went with a two-line ATA/router, which plugs in between my cable modem and my network, and can handle two separate SIP based phone accounts. The two phone lines (two separate jacks, two separately controlled SIP accounts) plug into it pretty much as they'd otherwise plug into the telco NID at the demarc point. The adapter cost $57 -- again, I elected to buy my own unlocked SIP standard based equipment, for additional flexibility and no lockin. I bought a grandstream, but there are other brands with a variety of features and at a variety of costs. Mine is about the size of a cigarette pack -- which surprised me as I was expecting something about three times that size.
** I did have to go to the net to buy it, as everything the local brick and mortar stores seemed to offer was locked to one provider or another, generally Vonage, Lingo, or Skype (the latter proprietary not standard SIP of course). However, going local rates for the locked versions was about double what I paid ($57 as mentioned) for my Grandstream on the net, so it was well worth it.
Since I no longer have a regular land-line, I bought a (separate, again standard/ordinary) UPS to power my ATA, cable modem, and cordless phones, so I have phone service even when the power goes out, as long as the cable internet stays up (and it should be fairly reliable as they run their own phone service in competition with the telco, too, and have battery backups for it).
Duncan
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master,
and if you use the program, he is your master."
R Stallman
to prevent grandparent's FUD from confusing the issue
Assuming the phone uses the same network type, it's as simple as just sticking your sim card in. For instance, I bought a Cingular phone a while back that had been unlocked, and I just use it on my T-Mobile account with my sim card. I didn't call them or anything. They don't actually care.
In fact, in europe, locking a phone to a provider is illegal. The last phone I bought was the european version so I didn't have to bother unlocking it. It works just find in the US.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Except having a light weight windowing system made for a framebuffer allows Qtopia to do things like window composition effects without fancy hradware and the X Composite Extension.
I think I got the joke in there.
Trolls, however, have a different meaning in Norway. (not the internet kind of trolls)
Except having a light weight windowing system
There is nothing "light weight" about Qt/Embedded.
made for a framebuffer
It's not really "made for a framebuffer", it's an adaptation of a desktop toolkit.
allows Qtopia to do things like window composition effects without fancy hradware
So does X11.
and the X Composite Extension.
Indeed. And that again illustrates how Qt is designed: as a big, monolithic C++ library.
X11's protocol and extension architecture is a good thing, and it's a major deficiency that Qt isn't designed like that.
So, how difficult is cross building X11 and Gtk+?
I see the Troll Tech fanboys are out in full force again, suppressing anything that might be critical of their favorite company.
Well, yet more proof that Qt developers are realizing the technical and legal problems with their favorite platform.
OpenMoko is based on GTK+.
Qtopia is (obviously) based on Qt.
I like KDE and Qt. I don't like GNOME and GTK+. So, other considerations aside, I already want to like Qtopia.
(I'll be the first to admit that not all of the above are based on rational thoughts.)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I haven't actually read TFA, but it seems that while there are open source drivers for everything, and probably open specs for everything, I'm not sure that you can actually plug it into a chip fab and make your own just yet.
I also remember the OpenMoko guys actually refusing to support certain features because they couldn't obtain an open driver for them.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Perhaps you've forgotten, but this comment was referring to this project, whose whole point is exactly what I was talking about. They tend to be a bit more programmable, I'd imagine, so they don't have to have as many hardware designs (and so they can re-use existing hardware).
But you can take your objections up with them -- I was only pointing out that saying we have open drivers is not answering the original question here, which was whether the OpenCores stuff would be used.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Please, get your facts straight first, as this dicussion hasn't even gotten out of the graphics library yet.
Qt Open Source Edition is licensed under the GPL from a long time ago. http://troll.no/products/qt/licenses/licensing/opensource
The best way to predict the future is to invent it