Perpetual quest for GNU smartphone

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:38:23AM +0300, Shlomi Loubaton wrote:
> 2009/5/29 Lionel Elie Mamane <lionel at mamane.lu>
> >
> >   - That you can get root access on a G1 is an accident in history, not
> >   by design.
> 
> An accident which tends to occur over and over again.
> (see link in my previous message)

But it means that the setup voids your warantee. And if you happen to
brick your new toy along the way? you get a nice small paperwieght for
your desktop.

That's something to factor in the price.

Now, think about somebody who wants to provide a product or a service
for such a platform. Think about instllation instructions you'll
provide. Fun, isn't it?

> 
> >
> >   - The shipped applications have a very closed mindset: upload all
> >   your data to Google or suffer. A friend of mine got a G1, and I was
> >   evaluating it for my parents to eventually get one. Really, the
> >   only thing I wanted to check is that they would be able to import
> >   contacts (and hopefully appointments) from their old Treo/PalmOS
> >   smartphones, via their desktop computer. Oh, boy, I was in for a
> >   surprise. The only way to do that is to get a Google account,
> >   UPLOAD YOUR CONTACTS TO YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT and have your G1
> >   synchronise with your Google account. THERE IS NO WAY TO GET
> >   CONTACTS IN YOUR G1 SHORT IF SHARING THEM WITH GOOGLE. A company
> >   that is known to have trouble "forgetting" stuff you delete from
> >   your account. That's *so* not acceptable to me. That's utterly
> >   broken design; I don't want to have anything to do with
> >   applications written by people that think like that.
> 
> What's keeping you or anyone else from writing applications for this
> phone that doesn't require syncing with a google account?
> 
> >
> >   With some Googling, you can find third-party applications that
> >   sort-of patch a beginning of a brittle solution. So it is not a
> >   total blocker, but it let me a very bad taste of the platform in my
> >   mouth.
> 
> If you compile it - they will come. If there will be demand for such
> third-party application, you'll see more of them.
> This platform still sound more "tasty" than the iPhone or even
> OpenMoko with it's "open hardware" .... pffffff!! (
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner_GTA02_Hardware#Graphics.2F3D_Acceleration
> ).
> 
> BTW: iPhone is not a bad GNU phone at all (jailbroken). 
> Somebody created a portage-apt-get-like system for it. You can run GNU tools
> and even ssh server.

Likewise: maybe slightly Unix, but not GNU. And likewise: jailbroken =>
unsupported and risky. Especially for those who want to build their
businesses around it.

There was a company who made a lot of noise around providing "MAC
compatibles" recently. They finally wen bankrupt a while ago.

  http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/05/mac_clone_maker_psystar_goes_bankrupt.html

Apple is a company that likes to keep tight control over its platforms.
Sure, there might be some hobbists providing some systems. But it will
never take off: people will never be able to sell such systems to your
mom and dad. Which is why other than the cool factor this is not the
place to spend time on.

-- 
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