Why Open Source Phones Still Fail

adeelarshad82 writes "Truly open-development, open-source phones like the Nokia N900 will never hit the mainstream in the US because wireless carriers in the country hate the unexpected, writes PCMag's Sascha Segan. The open-source philosophy is all about unexpected, disruptive ideas bubbling upwards, and that drives network planners nuts. So, you get unsatisfactory hybrids like Google Android, which uses some open-source components but locks third-party developers into a crippled Java sandbox. The bottom line is that while Linux the OS, the kernel, and the memory manager are attractive to phone manufacturers, Linux the philosophy — and users banding together ad hoc to create new things — is anathema to wireless carriers."

Comments

Oh for....

[ceoyoyo]

"The open-source philosophy is all about unexpected, disruptive ideas bubbling upwards, and that drives network planners nuts."

Open source phones are about being user configurable, extendable and customizable. Wireless carriers like to charge for features, by the feature, and they don't like forking over what you've already paid for. That's pretty hard to do when you don't control one end of the transaction, as others have found out.

No buzzwords or BS about "disruptive ideas bubbling upwards" required.

Re:Oh for....

[Areyoukiddingme]

As always, follow the money.

However, there's more to it than that. You should have said American wireless carriers. European wireless carriers don't get to play that game, nor do South American carriers, nor Asian carriers. So really the PCMag columnist is pretty myopic. The utterly bizarre wireless market that exists in the United States is nearly unique in the world, and the majority of the world's population lives somewhere else. Open source phones will do just fine because there are great big markets for them on every continent except North America. And since it's not like the Nokia N900 or any of its components are manufactured in the United States, the greedy graspy control freak US carriers can't affect it in the slightest.

Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with the sentiments of the article. It is true that carriers would like to limit what people can do with the phones but that cat has effectivly been out of the bag for quite a while now. Carriers are content with charging large monthly fees for data plans.

Googles andriod uses java/sandboxing because it protects the phone from potentially "evil" applications.

In terms of radio/carrier network access all phones still use RIL (Radio Interface Layer) to communicate with the business end of the device which is *not* linux or open source so there is little to fear in terms of carrier radio interop.

The N900 is a computer milestone

[kurt555gs]

Whether or not the N900 reaches iPhone numbers is irrelevant to the fact that it will stand in computer history along with the Kaypro II, PDP-11, SORD IS-11, Altair 8080;

I don't care if AT&T likes it or not.

If you actually get your hands on one, you will understand that it feels good to actually own something, and not pay to carry the wireless equivalent of a cable box.

If people in America were "customers" and actually were allowed to decided what they wanted, and not "consumers" to be culled by the wireless carriers, then the N900 would on it's merits be the best selling mobile computer of all times.

Does anyone really like the fact that all you can get from the big wireless carriers is what they want you to have, and not what you want?

Those that go out and buy an N900 will understand.

Re:The N900 is a computer milestone

[grcumb]

His email address is ...@ovi.com. Ovi is the name of Nokia's internet services brand, so it looks like this is just astroturfing.

You couldn't be more wrong. Astroturfing is when you hide your professional affiliation, pretending to be completely objective and disinterested. This person is doing exactly the opposite. That's commonly known as advocacy, and it's perfectly all right in my books, because we can weigh what they say on its merits.

General note: I'm getting really, really tired of people who think bias has anything to do with the merits of an argument. Bias is good. It breeds enthusiasm and makes it clear which side a person is arguing. Until we all become Spock, there will be no objectivity in the world, so let's quit pretending that objective sources exist.

That said, anyone who can't change his mind in the face of a better argument is just a fool.

Go ahead, prove me wrong. I'm willing to listen. 8^)

Re:Open their blinders with amazing apps

[sexconker]

There are many reasons to lock shit down.

Fear of teh hax0rs taking down a tower.

Fear of pirates sucking up your bandwidth, and getting all your apps for free.

Fear of zealots circumventing traditional pay schemes by getting voice, data, and other services off network (and thus free).

Fear of the russian mob using the phone hardware to spy on or disrupt other people's communications.

Fear of lawsuits when it gets out that you illegally used copyrighted shit when making the phone's os image.

Fear of people finding out that you rig the fucking battery display to show higher than it is, or that you rig the reception indicator to show full bars when it shouldn't...until you make a call.

Fear of Bob deciding to take his shiny new toy to another network.

While virtually ALL of the reasons center around the company being afraid of people exploiting the company's stupidity, they are still valid concerns - the companies are stupid.

However, TFA is completely incorrect. Companies don't fear the unknown - they know EXACTLY what we'd do with open phones.

Re:Open their blinders with amazing apps

[sexconker]

Then do it.

Get the FCC approve your devices for use.

Get any sort of decent battery life out of a mesh network with no towers while still maintaining access to the PSTN and emergency services.

Sell the device at a profit.

It's so easy why didn't I think of it?

what do you call "truly open" there??

[JoSch1337]

"Truly open-development, open-source phones like the Nokia N900..."

are you kidding me???

what is "Truly open-development, open-source" about a platform that has

* proprietary power management (bme)
* no docs for the gsm modem interface (and no source code for the apps using it)
* proprietary powervr graphics drivers
* proprietary osso-dsp-modules

read also:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1584
http://wiki.maemo.org/Why_the_closed_packages

i'm not so much pissed by proprietary applications as i can replace the rootfs by a free and open source one what pisses me off is the undocumented hardware used and lacking communication with upstream kernel development.
dont call this device "truly open"-blah... it is definitely NOT.

there are a few devices that strive to be as open as a linux phone should be:
openmoko tried and indeed even though the calypso is undocumented they provided a implementation of how to interface it and thanks to it one can use all of its hardware without binary blobs - NOT POSSIBLE ON THE N900!!!
then there is the FLOW by gizmoforyou which uses a gumstix overo as the base and added a telit modem for which you can download the FULL DOCS from their website - hey guys at nokia, this is the kind of modem you should have picked if you wanted your device to be called "truly open"!
the modem used in the n900 uses ISI for which no reference interpretation in oss exists.

is it only me or did the slashdot crowd forget what "truly open" means and is now all over a device that is open on the top but not if one wants to really start messing around with it?

Re:Too costly

[Yrrebnarg]

Here you go. A port-o-rotary for $200. They provide full source and schematics. You can even buy a 6000mAh battery to run the thing for weeks and you don't have to deal with any PDA functionality. Any more complaints?

Radios are expensive. The only reason phones are cheap is because they're heavily subsidized or because they're a simple little phone produced a million at a time from a small handful of highly-integrated mixed analog/digital ASICs. "Open-source" devices are small-run devices with hopelessly obsolete radio hardware because it's all they can get documentation for and manufacturers aren't looking to release their secret sauce to just anybody.

And on top of all of this, most of the open-source types are desktop or server programmers. On the desktop, you don't have to think about low-power code. Everything changes when you're running off a battery. There just isn't the expertise there (yet). Having said all this, I love my rooted T-mobile G1. I built a scratchbox environment for it and ported a few important CLI tools and it's now perfectly capable of being all the pocket Linux machine I need and it's not very difficult getting Debian running on top of the Android environment.

Re:It's called "Proper Planning"

[sznupi]

This is not my position, this is reality...

Worse economic position (at least when they were starting to invest in their communication network), much more costly to build and operate...and they still beat you. By a long shot

But hey, I see where you're coming from; "bad, commy" gov interventions, regulated market, etc. (why do people like you can't get over the idea that governments are simply a reflection of...society itself? If the latter seems to be functioning decently, so will the former)

Thanks a lot.

[dtmos]

... so you're one of the guys screwing up communications on the amateur bands, just for your fun. Thanks. Thanks a lot. And thanks for caring about someone other than yourself. Would you corrupt others' Internet communications as readily?

(n.b.: This type of illegal CB operation is especially bad because the illegal "channels" used are in the portion of the amateur 10m band used for international narrowband, weak-signal work -- usually in Morse code, and often at the threshold of audibility in a 250 Hz bandwidth. Since the transmission modes were different, the illegal operators often can not hear the communications they are disrupting; further, since the "freebanders" use wider, single sideband transmissions, a single illegal transmission can interfere with dozens of narrowband signals at once. Since this band is capable of worldwide communication at certain points in the sunspot cycle, the interference can quite literally be global in nature.)

By the way, the world has changed. In the UK, an amateur radio licence is now free, valid for the lifetime of the user, and available online. If you're worried about the licence examination (but you're a geek, so technical matters are no problem for you -- right?) there are clubs that will hire the room, give you the study book, and teach you the exam material, all for £45. So if you want to talk to the world, why not just follow existing international standards and agreements, and get an amateur radio license?