Slashdot Mirror
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."
For those too lazy to go read the press release, it's GPLv2, not GPLv3.
E pluribus unum
The polling issue described in that blog is not a restriction in Qtopia, but a workaround for 2.4 kernels because inotify support is missing. The kernel from OpenMoko is a 2.6 kernel so if your toolchain is configured properly, this will be detected and you get the inotify implementation instead of the polling implementation.
hmm. actually, the device the article is about - Neo1973 - is pretty much open.
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973_Hardware
few things are closed for quite valid reasons, but hopefully with time this will have a chance to improve.
Rich
If you already have the phone, it meant you bought a phase 1 device, about which the site clearly states (in bold, on the front page) that "currently it is not suitable for users". I'm sorry, but your complaints are entirely your own fault.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And a little bit of research is a little different to posting to Slashdot, isn't it?
FWIW http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Supported_Hardware. Of course, on any platform, it's clearly WIP.
In any case, the Greenphone is way too expensive to purchase for personal use:
http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone/greenphone_pricing ($695)
The user version of the Neo will be around $450 or so - still pricey - but I might be able to justify it. I'm still considering one of the iPhone clones (Cect P168 et al at $160 or so), despite some of their nastiness (including being nothing to do with Linux). Either way, I'd only make $5 of calls per month.
1 seconds of google usage brought me a list of 670 voip provider in the USA. There are plenty (if not most) of Voip providers which are cheaper then skype. There is also is a far wider variety of hard and software which can be used with SIP, you can even set up your own PBX if you like.
There really is no good reason to use a totally closed Voip protocol over SIP. There are a whole lot of reasons not to promote closed communication protocols. I don't even care if you choose to use closed source software, but for crying out loud, use a standard, open and portable protocol for you Voip communication.