Internet radio can't be cheap as long as unreasonable download caps exist, as are common, at least in Canada. Broadcast radio costs effectively nothing, leave the radio on 24/7 if you want. If you try that with your net connection you'll be paying for surplus usage long before the month end.
Maybe for Canada, for USAians, we typically have "unlimited" service which is quite reasonable. Now, if you start running servers or doing a lot of bittorrent, you'll get temporarily capped or even booted off for running a server against your TOS, because upstream bandwidth is rationed, but downloading a radio stream at 128kbps? No problem.
So are the OpenVMS, Windows, and Symbian POSIX layers. Are these operating systems also UNIX-like n your book?
I've never seen anyone use a BASH shell on OpenVMS, fork() on Windows, or anything Unixy other than Qt on Symbian. QNX, on the other hand, is regularly programmed with the Unix API and has a Unix userland as its primary command line interface.
QNX is a bit more Unix-like than Symbian or OpenVMS or WinNT. It's userland is Unix, with a bash shell, GNU utilities, and so on. So from both an API level, and a user interface level, it's Unix-like.
Now, if you define Unix as "has X11 as its main GUI", you'd have to define such Unixes as early SunOS (using NeWS) as non-Unix, and define OS X as non-Unix when it is Unix(r) certified, while such clones as Linux get called Unix...
You are right of course that a real time Microkernel is not the typical kernel on a Unix operating system, but then again, several Unixes were made with microkernels, especially the CMU Mach variety which powered the Unix known as OSF/1, which had a Unix vendor of none other than Digital Equipment (eventually it got named to Tru64, and is still in production by HP after the Compaq merger). Real time variations on Unix have a long history, AT&T even made one. Maybe your definition of the Unix kernel is "something that resembles the 4BSD kernel", mostly because that's what Linux resembles best, but it would be in variance with the certification authorities' definition, which is API, or the common user's definition, which would be what the userland resembles.
Instead of fighting about Israel, help me. I live in Israel but I can't find a girlfriend. I never had a serious relationship.
So.. is there any cute girl from here who would take me? I'm 34 years old.
-----
Offer not valid for: girls who are mentally unstable, fat girls, evil girls or smokers
Your problem is you're looking for girls on/. There aren't any girls on the internet, much less on slashdot.;-) I'd recommend trying a matchmaking service in Israel.
Example: I have many Jewish friends, which is hardly surprisingly, since I too am Jewish. But I have very few Israeli friends. The reason? Because I've met few Israelis I care to be associated with. The majority of non-extremist Jews probably share a similar view.
I have Israeli friends here in America, simply because they are much like Americans; other than a slight bit of cultural Israeli chutzpah. They even tend to want peace, as many elections, and governments, in Israel have demonstrated. (Yes, even Netanyahu's previous government.) I suspect you, Anonymous Coward, are actually not Jewish at all, and are just using this as a form of the "my best friends are Jewish but..." argument, and have a political axe to grind.
Android has its own issues. For example, the game some Android phone makers play with modders, where every version change unroots phones, or actually bricks (as in permanently trashes w/o change to reflash) devices.
I actually miss Windows Mobile. To use the phone to its fullest capacity (yes, including capacity), I had to do no hacks, no low level patches. Just install the right program and go.
Palm's WebOS is like that, root out of the box (well, with the developer's mode code activated by typing from the keyboard, which Palm has pledged not to remove, and even if they did, you can always install ssh then and have a prompt to use.) and it has the ability to install apps both from the official "App catalog" and homebrew apps.
There's a thriving homebrew community, which makes unofficial apps, patches the OS without needing to flash a new ROM image (though no patches are needed for full access), and makes themes for WebOS. Palm's WebOS is also a lot more like Linux under the hood (Android of course shares the custom Android Linux kernel but that doesn't make a GNU/Linux system by itself) than Android. Palm has also released an official "PDK" in beta for native apps, but you can get or make homebrew native or JavaScript apps without the official PDK. (Linux games and emulators port easily, as it includes now SDL as well as OpenGLES.)
A lot of people sing the praises of Android's openness because it has the Linux kernel and some open source Android components, and Google has a reputation for being a "good" company, but really the Palm Pre and also Nokia's N900 (which is basically a Linux PC in a phone...) are much more open for hacking than Android.
Too bad Palm is in trouble and the N900 is a transitional device. Nokia is making some big changes to Maemo, going with their historic tendency to break backwards compatibility with new versions in both Maemo and Symbian, so people with N900s are getting the software rug pulled out from other them. Palm, as everyone knows who follows these things, is in deep financial trouble.
I'm happy I got my Pre though, it's really an excellent somewhat underrated device with a terrific operating system that in a lot of ways (multitasking managment ("swipe to close"), openness, large media-drive partition program installation for software like games instead of Android's limited RAM space) is superior to Android. The only thing that's missing is the large software library, though WebOS has over 2,000 programs available for it, so I've been surprised at what I can do with it anyway, including 3D games unavailable on Android and open software and tinkering that doesn't rely on you re-flashing the device unnecessarily or rooting it from an exploit that could be closed any day... If you want a modern operating system that is as open as Windows Mobile without its drawbacks, I'd recommend the Palm Pre or the Nokia N900, in spite of their drawbacks. I must admit though the new HTC Evo 4G on Sprint is making me wonder if my next phone will be Android. I do hope Palm will make it though.
I have a Debian chroot on my Palm Pre, so I too can do apt-get, (or use the optware packages if the chroot isn't needed) though since the phone apps are based on Javascript usually rather than C, most of the time they have to be command-line or framebuffer, though lately it's become possible to port SDL apps to it! (Linux games often run with only slight modification now.)
I noticed some brave soul has also ported X11, though I don't know if that will ever become the main way to run a GUI driven app on it.
Somehow I managed to forget Nokia for being more open than Apple - and arguably - Google. I guess because so few people use, or will likely ever use, their smartphones.:)
You also forgot Palm, who have WebOS, which is more "Linux like" than Android (No forking here!) Palm's WebOS is often thought of by Android fans as being so Apple-like that they immitated the closed source nature of Apple. Nothing is further from the truth.
By the way, Nokia's market is limited to Europe (and the third world, but they don't buy smartphones in India, Africa, and the Far East), but there, they are the Blackberry of Europe with regards to smartphones. In other words, there are arguably more N and E series Nokia owners in Europe than any other smartphone. (Those *are* smartphones, albeit some of the older Symbian ones are more on the Palm Treo type of Smartphone technology than iPhone, very capable devices but very old-fashioned interface. Though it should be noted that they had a mobile WebKit browser before Apple did on the iPhone for Symbian's "Nokia browser"!)
By comparison, Palm not only has root available on all their WebOS phones,
That's what developer phones like the ADP1 and Nexus One are for. The ADP1/N1 comes with both root and the engineering boot loader which readily allows for installing alternate images. On the N1, such features is available on every device.
So what was your point again?
Why should I need an expensive "developer hardware" phone to have control over the hardware I bought? Would you say the same thing if your PC were locked-down and you had to buy, for three times the price, a "Developer Computer" to have control of it?
If Mer supported sound, I'd be more enthusiastic. The sound chip has closed-source drivers on the Nokia Internet Tablet though, so this is not likely. (One of the closed-source parts of Maemo.)
and gstreamer, and binutils, and glibc, and pulse audio, and other elements of a Linux system. Need I go on? I linked to the article that compares it to a regular GNU/Linux system, it's pretty open, other than the JS/HTML5 apps themselves - but they have their source code in plain non-obfuscated text files. (Not in an inaccessible partition with closed source binaries like Android does.)
Yeah, I don't exactly agree with the "steaming pile of shit" comment of the parent post to mine, but I do think it needs work on the interface department. At least, if it's anything like the N810, which I have, which has an interface that's complex. Of course, if what you want is a UMPC with a cell radio, it's exactly that, and probably does an admirable job of it.
WebOS uses WebKit for the browser too. My point is that Android is not an entirely open-source platform, and not only that, even though it is somewhat open by license it is being "tivoized" by this carrier. (i.e. even though it is open source, you aren't in control of your device, which is why open source was invented in the first place.)
I don't think that the GP was questioning whether or not the N900 did run Linux - I think he was responding to the 'and all that implies' statement. Not everyone will see that as a positive thing.
I've tried the N900 and I personally feel it is a steaming pile of unusable shit. It's not a phone I could hand to my parents and expect them to use.
Yeah, the N900 is really just a Linux UMPC with a cell radio added. WebOS has a much smoother interface, a bit better interface as far as that goes than Android even (here I go again talking about WebOS on an Android board, it really *is* a nice OS tho, too bad about the lack of apps and hardware build quality for the Pre.)
Really, although Android has Linux, among the Linux-based phone OSs, it is probably the most closed.
Yes and no. While I wouldn't have gotten anything but the n900, for precisely the fact that Maemo is more like a regular (gnu/)linux distro compared to Android and WebOS, I hear that for example Android is indeed as much open as far as licences on code goes.
Apparently they side with Android (but partly because there are more hardware vendors to choose from, I hear).
But *all* of those Android vendors don't give you root, it has to be hacked, which leaves it open to "tivoization" as you said, when inevitably some of the carriers or phone vendors take it away, even if just for a while. (And if they take it away, even if just for a while, this is practically as closed as the iPhone; where you have to jailbreak it to get any freedom on the device.) Keep in mind that open source has a purpose, at least according to the non-pragmatist wing of the free software movement. It's purpose, according to the FSF, is not merely the proliferation of friendly licenses; it's the ability to modify and use the hardware and software you bought the way you see fit. As such, WebOS is slightly more in spirit, and Maemo even more in spirit, of the meaning of open source than Android; in spite of Android having a larger percentage (none of these are 100% open source) of code with a nice license.
But, again. I prefer maemo 5 on the n900, because I want an open "linux distro" on my phone, not just an open "linux based newfangled mobile phone OS" (or whatchamacallit, I realize one might technically call Android or WebOS "distros", but you know what I mean).
It is nice, I do kind of like WebOS's interface, but I already have an older Nokia Internet Tablet anyway and besides, I'm enslaved to a CDMA carrier so it doesn't make sense for me to get an unlocked GSM phone. (Though I'm thinking of selling the N810, it's a bit redundant once you have a smartphone with a good browser.) Also, the N900 is a transitional device; when Mameo goes from GTK+ to Qt, it will become incompatible with all newer Maemo devices that will be released by Nokia. That made me a bit reluctant to get it as well, I've been stung already by Nokia's tendency to make their devices obsolete. (They do this with Symbian too, much to the consternation of Symbian phone developers who have to deal with a half dozen different incompatible versions.)
It's partially open source. Ever seen the source code for Android Google Maps or any of the other Google apps on Android?
those are applications, not the OS which is far more important IMHO to have as open source / free software.
I think we're getting away from the core practical implications of Android vs. other phone operating systems. Android is open source for the most part (some exceptions exist even in the OS itself, but I'll grant you more of it, percentage-wise, is open source than WebOS). Android is more locked down than WebOS in several ways, and less Linux-like from a native programmer's standpoint, but since most of it is open source, it's easier to port to new hardware.
This is great if you're a phone mfr. who needs to adopt an OS to new hardware, but if it's more locked down, the only way to get root is essentially the Android equivalent of "jailbreaking", and the core apps are a closed-source black box rather than easy to modify, certain aspects of tinkering with it are more difficult for the phone's owner than WebOS.
It's a pity that something like OpenMoku isn't available for the smartphone world (it's a dumbphone OS), even Maemo is partially closed-source, but Maemo is probably the closest thing to an open source OS for phones out there now that it's left the UMPC world and entered the smartphone world thanks to Nokia. Android though, ultimately gives you an illusion of open source freedom on a certain level, as this demonstrates.
>you have essentially a little Linux computer with all that implies
Haha, be careful with that one;)
I own an n810, the predecessor to the N900 smartphone. Maemo indeed is Linux, and other than a few adaptations for the UMPC-sized screen, is a lot more like running a desktop distro than a smartphone OS. The applications are C and C++ mostly, and use libraries similar or identical to those of Linux desktop apps for the most part.
WebOS is a lot like Linux under the hood, but a lot of it is "under the hood" as far as the user and even non-native app developer are concerned. (Native apps are a different story, you can port an SDL game from Linux in a very straightforward fashion now.)
Android is even farther from a Linux distro as far as the guts go (see my link in a previous message), though it is more open-source as far as the parts that aren't like a Linux distro go that it adds, unlike WebOS, though it is more locked-down than WebOS, unless hackers root it (without the aid or endorsement of Google), as I pointed out. I should point out that unauthorized rooting and custom ROMs have nothing to do with the openness or open source status of a system, plenty of Windows Mobile phones have custom ROMs and unauthorized tethering access and the like.
Palm not only has root available on all their WebOS phones,
Android is Open Source, part GPL and part Apache.
It's partially open source. Ever seen the source code for Android Google Maps or any of the other Google apps on Android?
WebOS is closed source, it uses the Linux Kernel but most of the OS is proprietary.
It has a lot of open source components. Not just the kernel. WebOS is a recognisably Linux in a way the Android isn't, it contains many of the elements of Linux besides the kernel. Heck, it even contains an ARM assembler on-board. (And mine contains gcc too, but that's because it has a Debian chroot installed.:) )
Even the closed-source stuff is mostly HTML5 and Javascript, is not obfuscated, and is easily modifiable.
I cannot customise nor install a custom version of WebOS on a Palm device.
You can customize WebOS quite a bit, and literally hundreds of patches and themes are available for it. Yes, few custom ROMs have been developed for WebOS, but since you don't need to do anything special to get root, or to customize WebOS, there's not much of a need to flash a new ROM.
I guess the only truly open phone is the Openmoko Freerunner. There are so many "open-source based OS" out there but the whole point is lost because you can't install your own version - there are lots of restrictions and locks to prevent you from doing that too. You are forced to accept the cellphone manufacturers' and operators' crap.
Maemo and WebOS are more open than Android, but they also have non-open-source components. OpenMoko is very open, but it's also very primative, it's essentially a feature-phone OS at best, not a smartphone OS; which is a pity. So it's really not much of an option.
I thought the one of the battle cries that Android fanboys wave at the iPhone fanboys was that it was open and you weren't locked into running what the provider wanted, you had root on your own device and they can't take it away... Turns out they can force remote updates and lockout root?
By comparison, Palm not only has root available on all their WebOS phones, it is provided by Palm's SDK itself and not by an unsupported hack that can be closed later at the carrier's or device maker's discretion. CEO Jon Rubenstein has even publicly praised the Homebrew community, who's efforts are encouraged, and they've promised not to close developer mode.
Maemo, from Nokia (N900, Nokia Internet Tablets) is even more open in a way; not only you have root, you have essentially a little Linux computer with all that implies; this is due to it's UMPC heritage, it originally wasn't really a smartphone OS. (Though it's a little easier to hack the apps for WebOS with "patches" because they're just JS/HTML5 text files, except the new native apps.:) )
Really, although Android has Linux, among the Linux-based phone OSs, it is probably the most closed.
Now, this also goes into their corporate image, and this is where it gets really tricky. Their corporate image is the products. You are to think about the processes which went into them as little as possible. This is part of why they crack down on leaks so much. Ideally, they want you to think of the product alone. So naturally, the fact that it's probably made in some poorly-paid factory in China doesn't enter your mind. That's maybe not as true with a Microsoft-carrying machine, where you think of the Microsoft corporate entity and so on.
PCs are made in the same Foxconn factory that Apple Macs are, as well as in a number of other Chinese factories. There are no American (or European) made big-name-brand PCs anymore. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any of them with components that aren't made in the Far East somewhere, under poor conditions. This has nothing to do with Apple's secrecy, or Dell's openness, regarding their road map. Your observations, in the previous paragraphs, were interesting, but your conclusions are bull. I have no idea why the mods modded you up.
Although the Apple Cinema Display, the 27" iMac, and I think the 17" Macbook Pro matte screen is IPS, the rest of Apple's product line no longer use IPS screens, and haven't for some time.
Correct, unless the phone supports both American 3g bands, you'll lose 3g with your unlocked iPhone or any other GSM phone in the US. In Europe, the situation is different, as the EU forced all the carriers there to use the same standard for frequencies; GSM and 3g. (Their 3g is yet another 3g standard, different than both the ones used in the US, so don't get imported unlocked phones from there unless you want to lose 3g unless they support your US standard), and as a result, there's a lot less carrier lock-in there.
The carrier lock-in in the US is solely because the FCC under Bush and other administrations took a hands-off approach to the US cellular phone market, allowing not only more than one kind of 3g network, both of which only work in the US (and maybe Canada), but also allowing several flavors of CDMA. Budget carriers like MetroPCS, if not GSM, use their own flavor of CDMA, just to make sure you can't use your nice smartphone from the big-name carriers and migrate to a budget carrier, and also iDEN for Nextel phones and Boost. Even the CDMA frequencies, identical for Sprint, Verizon, and some other carriers like Cricket, don't support other features such as SMS/MMS the same; so even if you hack your CDMA phone to unlock it (there's no such thing as an unlocked CDMA phone) not everything will work!
I see this message is a bit complex, but it gives you some idea of how much the American consumer is getting screwed by the FCC's "free market" approach to regulating near-monopolies.
It's hard to have sympathy for AT&T not having enough infrastructure to deal with the iPhone when they had a profit well over 3 billion dollars last quarter, and have spent less on infrastructure over the past year than on previous years.
Slashdot Mirror
Internet radio can't be cheap as long as unreasonable download caps exist, as are common, at least in Canada. Broadcast radio costs effectively nothing, leave the radio on 24/7 if you want. If you try that with your net connection you'll be paying for surplus usage long before the month end.
Maybe for Canada, for USAians, we typically have "unlimited" service which is quite reasonable. Now, if you start running servers or doing a lot of bittorrent, you'll get temporarily capped or even booted off for running a server against your TOS, because upstream bandwidth is rationed, but downloading a radio stream at 128kbps? No problem.
So are the OpenVMS, Windows, and Symbian POSIX layers. Are these operating systems also UNIX-like n your book?
I've never seen anyone use a BASH shell on OpenVMS, fork() on Windows, or anything Unixy other than Qt on Symbian. QNX, on the other hand, is regularly programmed with the Unix API and has a Unix userland as its primary command line interface.
Now, if you define Unix as "has X11 as its main GUI", you'd have to define such Unixes as early SunOS (using NeWS) as non-Unix, and define OS X as non-Unix when it is Unix(r) certified, while such clones as Linux get called Unix...
You are right of course that a real time Microkernel is not the typical kernel on a Unix operating system, but then again, several Unixes were made with microkernels, especially the CMU Mach variety which powered the Unix known as OSF/1, which had a Unix vendor of none other than Digital Equipment (eventually it got named to Tru64, and is still in production by HP after the Compaq merger). Real time variations on Unix have a long history, AT&T even made one. Maybe your definition of the Unix kernel is "something that resembles the 4BSD kernel", mostly because that's what Linux resembles best, but it would be in variance with the certification authorities' definition, which is API, or the common user's definition, which would be what the userland resembles.
Instead of fighting about Israel, help me. I live in Israel but I can't find a girlfriend. I never had a serious relationship.
So.. is there any cute girl from here who would take me? I'm 34 years old.
-----
Offer not valid for: girls who are mentally unstable, fat girls, evil girls or smokers
Your problem is you're looking for girls on /. There aren't any girls on the internet, much less on slashdot. ;-) I'd recommend trying a matchmaking service in Israel.
Example: I have many Jewish friends, which is hardly surprisingly, since I too am Jewish. But I have very few Israeli friends. The reason? Because I've met few Israelis I care to be associated with. The majority of non-extremist Jews probably share a similar view.
I have Israeli friends here in America, simply because they are much like Americans; other than a slight bit of cultural Israeli chutzpah. They even tend to want peace, as many elections, and governments, in Israel have demonstrated. (Yes, even Netanyahu's previous government.) I suspect you, Anonymous Coward, are actually not Jewish at all, and are just using this as a form of the "my best friends are Jewish but..." argument, and have a political axe to grind.
Android has its own issues. For example, the game some Android phone makers play with modders, where every version change unroots phones, or actually bricks (as in permanently trashes w/o change to reflash) devices.
I actually miss Windows Mobile. To use the phone to its fullest capacity (yes, including capacity), I had to do no hacks, no low level patches. Just install the right program and go.
Palm's WebOS is like that, root out of the box (well, with the developer's mode code activated by typing from the keyboard, which Palm has pledged not to remove, and even if they did, you can always install ssh then and have a prompt to use.) and it has the ability to install apps both from the official "App catalog" and homebrew apps.
There's a thriving homebrew community, which makes unofficial apps, patches the OS without needing to flash a new ROM image (though no patches are needed for full access), and makes themes for WebOS. Palm's WebOS is also a lot more like Linux under the hood (Android of course shares the custom Android Linux kernel but that doesn't make a GNU/Linux system by itself) than Android. Palm has also released an official "PDK" in beta for native apps, but you can get or make homebrew native or JavaScript apps without the official PDK. (Linux games and emulators port easily, as it includes now SDL as well as OpenGLES.)
A lot of people sing the praises of Android's openness because it has the Linux kernel and some open source Android components, and Google has a reputation for being a "good" company, but really the Palm Pre and also Nokia's N900 (which is basically a Linux PC in a phone...) are much more open for hacking than Android.
Too bad Palm is in trouble and the N900 is a transitional device. Nokia is making some big changes to Maemo, going with their historic tendency to break backwards compatibility with new versions in both Maemo and Symbian, so people with N900s are getting the software rug pulled out from other them. Palm, as everyone knows who follows these things, is in deep financial trouble.
I'm happy I got my Pre though, it's really an excellent somewhat underrated device with a terrific operating system that in a lot of ways (multitasking managment ("swipe to close"), openness, large media-drive partition program installation for software like games instead of Android's limited RAM space) is superior to Android. The only thing that's missing is the large software library, though WebOS has over 2,000 programs available for it, so I've been surprised at what I can do with it anyway, including 3D games unavailable on Android and open software and tinkering that doesn't rely on you re-flashing the device unnecessarily or rooting it from an exploit that could be closed any day... If you want a modern operating system that is as open as Windows Mobile without its drawbacks, I'd recommend the Palm Pre or the Nokia N900, in spite of their drawbacks. I must admit though the new HTC Evo 4G on Sprint is making me wonder if my next phone will be Android. I do hope Palm will make it though.
I noticed some brave soul has also ported X11, though I don't know if that will ever become the main way to run a GUI driven app on it.
Somehow I managed to forget Nokia for being more open than Apple - and arguably - Google. I guess because so few people use, or will likely ever use, their smartphones. :)
You also forgot Palm, who have WebOS, which is more "Linux like" than Android (No forking here!) Palm's WebOS is often thought of by Android fans as being so Apple-like that they immitated the closed source nature of Apple. Nothing is further from the truth.
By the way, Nokia's market is limited to Europe (and the third world, but they don't buy smartphones in India, Africa, and the Far East), but there, they are the Blackberry of Europe with regards to smartphones. In other words, there are arguably more N and E series Nokia owners in Europe than any other smartphone. (Those *are* smartphones, albeit some of the older Symbian ones are more on the Palm Treo type of Smartphone technology than iPhone, very capable devices but very old-fashioned interface. Though it should be noted that they had a mobile WebKit browser before Apple did on the iPhone for Symbian's "Nokia browser"!)
You know why they call brokers, "brokers"? Because if you listen to their advice, you'll end up broke!
By comparison, Palm not only has root available on all their WebOS phones,
That's what developer phones like the ADP1 and Nexus One are for. The ADP1/N1 comes with both root and the engineering boot loader which readily allows for installing alternate images. On the N1, such features is available on every device.
So what was your point again?
Why should I need an expensive "developer hardware" phone to have control over the hardware I bought? Would you say the same thing if your PC were locked-down and you had to buy, for three times the price, a "Developer Computer" to have control of it?
If Mer supported sound, I'd be more enthusiastic. The sound chip has closed-source drivers on the Nokia Internet Tablet though, so this is not likely. (One of the closed-source parts of Maemo.)
and gstreamer, and binutils, and glibc, and pulse audio, and other elements of a Linux system. Need I go on? I linked to the article that compares it to a regular GNU/Linux system, it's pretty open, other than the JS/HTML5 apps themselves - but they have their source code in plain non-obfuscated text files. (Not in an inaccessible partition with closed source binaries like Android does.)
Yeah, I don't exactly agree with the "steaming pile of shit" comment of the parent post to mine, but I do think it needs work on the interface department. At least, if it's anything like the N810, which I have, which has an interface that's complex. Of course, if what you want is a UMPC with a cell radio, it's exactly that, and probably does an admirable job of it.
WebOS uses WebKit for the browser too. My point is that Android is not an entirely open-source platform, and not only that, even though it is somewhat open by license it is being "tivoized" by this carrier. (i.e. even though it is open source, you aren't in control of your device, which is why open source was invented in the first place.)
I don't think that the GP was questioning whether or not the N900 did run Linux - I think he was responding to the 'and all that implies' statement. Not everyone will see that as a positive thing.
I've tried the N900 and I personally feel it is a steaming pile of unusable shit. It's not a phone I could hand to my parents and expect them to use.
Yeah, the N900 is really just a Linux UMPC with a cell radio added. WebOS has a much smoother interface, a bit better interface as far as that goes than Android even (here I go again talking about WebOS on an Android board, it really *is* a nice OS tho, too bad about the lack of apps and hardware build quality for the Pre.)
Yes and no. While I wouldn't have gotten anything but the n900, for precisely the fact that Maemo is more like a regular (gnu/)linux distro compared to Android and WebOS, I hear that for example Android is indeed as much open as far as licences on code goes.
I havern't listened yet, but the software freedom law show talks about mobile software freedom in a recent podcast: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2010/jan/19/0x1F/
Apparently they side with Android (but partly because there are more hardware vendors to choose from, I hear).
But *all* of those Android vendors don't give you root, it has to be hacked, which leaves it open to "tivoization" as you said, when inevitably some of the carriers or phone vendors take it away, even if just for a while. (And if they take it away, even if just for a while, this is practically as closed as the iPhone; where you have to jailbreak it to get any freedom on the device.) Keep in mind that open source has a purpose, at least according to the non-pragmatist wing of the free software movement. It's purpose, according to the FSF, is not merely the proliferation of friendly licenses; it's the ability to modify and use the hardware and software you bought the way you see fit. As such, WebOS is slightly more in spirit, and Maemo even more in spirit, of the meaning of open source than Android; in spite of Android having a larger percentage (none of these are 100% open source) of code with a nice license.
But, again. I prefer maemo 5 on the n900, because I want an open "linux distro" on my phone, not just an open "linux based newfangled mobile phone OS" (or whatchamacallit, I realize one might technically call Android or WebOS "distros", but you know what I mean).
It is nice, I do kind of like WebOS's interface, but I already have an older Nokia Internet Tablet anyway and besides, I'm enslaved to a CDMA carrier so it doesn't make sense for me to get an unlocked GSM phone. (Though I'm thinking of selling the N810, it's a bit redundant once you have a smartphone with a good browser.) Also, the N900 is a transitional device; when Mameo goes from GTK+ to Qt, it will become incompatible with all newer Maemo devices that will be released by Nokia. That made me a bit reluctant to get it as well, I've been stung already by Nokia's tendency to make their devices obsolete. (They do this with Symbian too, much to the consternation of Symbian phone developers who have to deal with a half dozen different incompatible versions.)
It's partially open source. Ever seen the source code for Android Google Maps or any of the other Google apps on Android?
those are applications, not the OS which is far more important IMHO to have as open source / free software.
I think we're getting away from the core practical implications of Android vs. other phone operating systems. Android is open source for the most part (some exceptions exist even in the OS itself, but I'll grant you more of it, percentage-wise, is open source than WebOS). Android is more locked down than WebOS in several ways, and less Linux-like from a native programmer's standpoint, but since most of it is open source, it's easier to port to new hardware.
This is great if you're a phone mfr. who needs to adopt an OS to new hardware, but if it's more locked down, the only way to get root is essentially the Android equivalent of "jailbreaking", and the core apps are a closed-source black box rather than easy to modify, certain aspects of tinkering with it are more difficult for the phone's owner than WebOS.
It's a pity that something like OpenMoku isn't available for the smartphone world (it's a dumbphone OS), even Maemo is partially closed-source, but Maemo is probably the closest thing to an open source OS for phones out there now that it's left the UMPC world and entered the smartphone world thanks to Nokia. Android though, ultimately gives you an illusion of open source freedom on a certain level, as this demonstrates.
>you have essentially a little Linux computer with all that implies
Haha, be careful with that one ;)
I own an n810, the predecessor to the N900 smartphone. Maemo indeed is Linux, and other than a few adaptations for the UMPC-sized screen, is a lot more like running a desktop distro than a smartphone OS. The applications are C and C++ mostly, and use libraries similar or identical to those of Linux desktop apps for the most part.
WebOS is a lot like Linux under the hood, but a lot of it is "under the hood" as far as the user and even non-native app developer are concerned. (Native apps are a different story, you can port an SDL game from Linux in a very straightforward fashion now.)
Android is even farther from a Linux distro as far as the guts go (see my link in a previous message), though it is more open-source as far as the parts that aren't like a Linux distro go that it adds, unlike WebOS, though it is more locked-down than WebOS, unless hackers root it (without the aid or endorsement of Google), as I pointed out. I should point out that unauthorized rooting and custom ROMs have nothing to do with the openness or open source status of a system, plenty of Windows Mobile phones have custom ROMs and unauthorized tethering access and the like.
Android is Open Source, part GPL and part Apache.
It's partially open source. Ever seen the source code for Android Google Maps or any of the other Google apps on Android?
WebOS is closed source, it uses the Linux Kernel but most of the OS is proprietary.
It has a lot of open source components. Not just the kernel. WebOS is a recognisably Linux in a way the Android isn't, it contains many of the elements of Linux besides the kernel. Heck, it even contains an ARM assembler on-board. (And mine contains gcc too, but that's because it has a Debian chroot installed. :) )
Even the closed-source stuff is mostly HTML5 and Javascript, is not obfuscated, and is easily modifiable.
I cannot customise nor install a custom version of WebOS on a Palm device.
You can customize WebOS quite a bit, and literally hundreds of patches and themes are available for it. Yes, few custom ROMs have been developed for WebOS, but since you don't need to do anything special to get root, or to customize WebOS, there's not much of a need to flash a new ROM.
I guess the only truly open phone is the Openmoko Freerunner. There are so many "open-source based OS" out there but the whole point is lost because you can't install your own version - there are lots of restrictions and locks to prevent you from doing that too. You are forced to accept the cellphone manufacturers' and operators' crap.
Maemo and WebOS are more open than Android, but they also have non-open-source components. OpenMoko is very open, but it's also very primative, it's essentially a feature-phone OS at best, not a smartphone OS; which is a pity. So it's really not much of an option.
I thought the one of the battle cries that Android fanboys wave at the iPhone fanboys was that it was open and you weren't locked into running what the provider wanted, you had root on your own device and they can't take it away ... Turns out they can force remote updates and lockout root?
By comparison, Palm not only has root available on all their WebOS phones, it is provided by Palm's SDK itself and not by an unsupported hack that can be closed later at the carrier's or device maker's discretion. CEO Jon Rubenstein has even publicly praised the Homebrew community, who's efforts are encouraged, and they've promised not to close developer mode.
Maemo, from Nokia (N900, Nokia Internet Tablets) is even more open in a way; not only you have root, you have essentially a little Linux computer with all that implies; this is due to it's UMPC heritage, it originally wasn't really a smartphone OS. (Though it's a little easier to hack the apps for WebOS with "patches" because they're just JS/HTML5 text files, except the new native apps. :) )
Really, although Android has Linux, among the Linux-based phone OSs, it is probably the most closed.
Now, this also goes into their corporate image, and this is where it gets really tricky. Their corporate image is the products. You are to think about the processes which went into them as little as possible. This is part of why they crack down on leaks so much. Ideally, they want you to think of the product alone. So naturally, the fact that it's probably made in some poorly-paid factory in China doesn't enter your mind. That's maybe not as true with a Microsoft-carrying machine, where you think of the Microsoft corporate entity and so on.
PCs are made in the same Foxconn factory that Apple Macs are, as well as in a number of other Chinese factories. There are no American (or European) made big-name-brand PCs anymore. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any of them with components that aren't made in the Far East somewhere, under poor conditions. This has nothing to do with Apple's secrecy, or Dell's openness, regarding their road map. Your observations, in the previous paragraphs, were interesting, but your conclusions are bull. I have no idea why the mods modded you up.
Really good quality IPS screens
Although the Apple Cinema Display, the 27" iMac, and I think the 17" Macbook Pro matte screen is IPS, the rest of Apple's product line no longer use IPS screens, and haven't for some time.
The carrier lock-in in the US is solely because the FCC under Bush and other administrations took a hands-off approach to the US cellular phone market, allowing not only more than one kind of 3g network, both of which only work in the US (and maybe Canada), but also allowing several flavors of CDMA. Budget carriers like MetroPCS, if not GSM, use their own flavor of CDMA, just to make sure you can't use your nice smartphone from the big-name carriers and migrate to a budget carrier, and also iDEN for Nextel phones and Boost. Even the CDMA frequencies, identical for Sprint, Verizon, and some other carriers like Cricket, don't support other features such as SMS/MMS the same; so even if you hack your CDMA phone to unlock it (there's no such thing as an unlocked CDMA phone) not everything will work!
I see this message is a bit complex, but it gives you some idea of how much the American consumer is getting screwed by the FCC's "free market" approach to regulating near-monopolies.
It's hard to have sympathy for AT&T not having enough infrastructure to deal with the iPhone when they had a profit well over 3 billion dollars last quarter, and have spent less on infrastructure over the past year than on previous years.