OpenPhoneux / GTA04 Still Going As Niche Phone

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OpenPhoneux / GTA04 Still Going As Niche Phone

The GTA04 is still being worked on and sought after by a small community of open-source enthusiasts and Linux developers as the next-generation OpenMoko platform. Unfortunately, the project has yet to really take off with success. As part of this there is the OpenPhoneux as "the future 'independent mobile handheld' project aiming at complete devices." Tomorrow also marks the four-year anniversary of the Neo FreeRunner launch...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTEzMjI

[oliver]

While it's certainly admirable what they are trying to accomplish, it feels they are missing the boat and failing quite hard.

First off, the price is extensively high. Paying a price premium can be understandable, prototype like 'runs' etc. On the other hand, the design would be 'free as in beer', while costing much time to do, they wouldn't charge you for it?

It hardly compares to devices out there. It's faster then my current smartphone I'll give them that, but again, at what cost? The free-runner case is ugly as hell and the phone isn't even really much more 'free' then most devices out there.

Modem firmware? Closed.
GPU drivers? Closed.

though I didn't RTFA, I would not be supprised if the GPS, Accelerometer and Compass be also closed drivers as seen with many other devices.


So what does this phone give me, others don't? It's really just the same. Really, a shame.

[Zeroedout]

While it's certainly admirable what they are trying to accomplish, it feels they are missing the boat and failing quite hard.

First off, the price is extensively high. Paying a price premium can be understandable, prototype like 'runs' etc. On the other hand, the design would be 'free as in beer', while costing much time to do, they wouldn't charge you for it?

It hardly compares to devices out there. It's faster then my current smartphone I'll give them that, but again, at what cost? The free-runner case is ugly as hell and the phone isn't even really much more 'free' then most devices out there.

Modem firmware? Closed.
GPU drivers? Closed.

though I didn't RTFA, I would not be supprised if the GPS, Accelerometer and Compass be also closed drivers as seen with many other devices.


So what does this phone give me, others don't? It's really just the same. Really, a shame.

Your stances are understandable, however they are not justified. The price is due to it being manufactured in a German factory. When you pay your workers a fair living wage and operate within safety standards the cost goes up. This is what all devices would cost if they were not made in factories where workers are underpaid, overworked, and treated improperly (eg many Chinese factories). They could've gone the cheap route, but they have a stronger moral compass than other manufacturers.

The GPS, accelerometer and compass drivers are 100% FOSS. The only other thing that is closed besides the modem and gpu drivers is the wifi firmware. However when the device was being built, there were no SoC's at the time which provided a GPU with a FOSS driver. There is no working open modem firmware out there; osmocomBB comes very close requires one to telnet in to make calls. If you're interested in the choices they made, it is all on the mailing list. The fact is that this is the most FOSS device on the market.

[Zeroedout]

I sincerely thank you for covering the GTA04, but I (and some others apparently) found some of your points unfair. http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail...ly/002556.html has written a very good response, please read this. I would really appreciate knowing what parts you disagree with.

For the future, what can the GTA04 community do make a better case for people who are writing about it? I'm trying to collect marketing material at http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Marketing_GTA04 and have added a section for good points about the product so future writers can have an easy list to pull from. The mailing list post I linked to is attempting to find more good reasons for a GTA04. Do you think this is sufficient? Can you make any other suggestions so the community can present the GTA04 and itself in a better light?

[xchris]

The OpenMoko started as a nice 'idea' (I even got one of them) then the real mess started when hardware bugs were discovered and
users like me had to solder smd capacitors etc in order to fix them... the device was not even useful as mobile phone, as I clearly remember the battery life was very short at first...(not to mention bad reception etc).

[89c51]

^ and thats the reason why open software works and hardware doesn't. HW needs money and a lot of them.

[uid313]

There exist no open source GSM?

[0xBADCODE]

First of all, new unlocked iphone could go as high as almost $1000. If you buy it locked and with long contract, you just re-paying "credit" during contract which costs far more than I would spend on mobile communications otherwise. Since OpenMoko ppl are not going to apply operator lock, it's not an option for them. The only non-locked iphone worth of $100 is iphone 1 or 2 generation which would hardly beat that omap as well.

So you have to pay full hardware price at once. No discounts and credits. But what's good results from it?
1) It's not locked to any operator. It's yours, not operator's. So you can choose operator and plan yourself. As it always has been in GSM/3G designs.
2) No DRM (restrictions) crap as well. So you're owner and phone obeys you. And not going to make harmful actions you could dislike. Isn't it good?
3) It haves clean system design, not HSPA modem centric at all, unlike many other designs. It's a computer and HSPA modem. Amount of harm it can do to you and your data on remote requests are limited. Other phones may contain really unwanted activity like RRLP, backdoor-style misfeature. Sure, it's declared for use in emergency but you see, it's possible for governments, staff and others to (ab)use this feature for very accurate position tracking. Lack of such features could be a good idea and once cell modem have to rely on Linux system controlled by owner, it's easy to keep under control who can use GPS and when. On some other phones it could be much harder. For example, on Qualcomm, modem is a core of system and can access everything. Including GPS. On a proprietary firmware will.
4) It's not restricted in boot loaders so owner can boot anything that is able to run on this hardware. Isn't it nice to have such option?

Basically, it's phone for owner and developer. Not a phone made to keep media mafiaa guys happy. Not a phone to make cell operators happy with their lock-ins. Not a tool of vendor to enforce their dictatorship what to do, what you can and when. Unlike many other devices. Sure, this device is not for dumb iphone users who abandoned their privacy and consumer's rights in favor of glamorous crap. But it's still haves it's niche.

[Lasse.]

Here's some points for those arguments.

1) At least here in Finland, you can buy any phone without operator-locks. I do not know for US, but I have the feeling that huge majority of phones there are sold with operator-contract. Also I do not know how it's for the rest of Europe.
2) My phone obeys me just fine. I run community-build of Android 4.0.4 on my ZTE Blade. Stock ROMs might be different but I think this second point is mostly theoretical.
3) Again I think this whole tracking-thing is mostly harmless for average Joe. Is there any known case where average joe has been tracked? If government wants to follow you, I think you got bigger problems than what phone you use. Besides if I am not completely mistaken, GSM-connection alone can be tracked. For RRLP, I do not know. Also, with a rooted Android-phone, you can set the system pretty much the way you want.
4. Why would anyone want to boot everything that hardware is capable of running on their phone? Phone is a phone, I would like to hear why it's nice to have such option. At least when I used the device (2010 - early 2011) SHR and QTMoko were the only decent enough systems for the phone.

And yes, I do own OpenMoko GTA02, and for a phone, it is the worst device I have ever owned. I had to constantly reinstall the OS (SHR) because it started bugging out. I do not blame SHR-developers, they did a great job for their limited time & manpower. It's just obvious that the device doesn't cut it for so called normal user. It's a nice toy for developers who want to get their hands dirty in mobile-development, nothing else. These are my opinions on it. I have been using ZTE Blade with custom ROMs from the moment I received it, already unlocked & rooted from Ebay. iPhones are probably worse in this case, I never owned one. I still wouldn't go and call an iPhone user dumb. Everyone gets what works out for them.

First of all, new unlocked iphone could go as high as almost $1000. If you buy it locked and with long contract, you just re-paying "credit" during contract which costs far more than I would spend on mobile communications otherwise. Since OpenMoko ppl are not going to apply operator lock, it's not an option for them. The only non-locked iphone worth of $100 is iphone 1 or 2 generation which would hardly beat that omap as well.

So you have to pay full hardware price at once. No discounts and credits. But what's good results from it?
1) It's not locked to any operator. It's yours, not operator's. So you can choose operator and plan yourself. As it always has been in GSM/3G designs.
2) No DRM (restrictions) crap as well. So you're owner and phone obeys you. And not going to make harmful actions you could dislike. Isn't it good?
3) It haves clean system design, not HSPA modem centric at all, unlike many other designs. It's a computer and HSPA modem. Amount of harm it can do to you and your data on remote requests are limited. Other phones may contain really unwanted activity like RRLP, backdoor-style misfeature. Sure, it's declared for use in emergency but you see, it's possible for governments, staff and others to (ab)use this feature for very accurate position tracking. Lack of such features could be a good idea and once cell modem have to rely on Linux system controlled by owner, it's easy to keep under control who can use GPS and when. On some other phones it could be much harder. For example, on Qualcomm, modem is a core of system and can access everything. Including GPS. On a proprietary firmware will.
4) It's not restricted in boot loaders so owner can boot anything that is able to run on this hardware. Isn't it nice to have such option?

Basically, it's phone for owner and developer. Not a phone made to keep media mafiaa guys happy. Not a phone to make cell operators happy with their lock-ins. Not a tool of vendor to enforce their dictatorship what to do, what you can and when. Unlike many other devices. Sure, this device is not for dumb iphone users who abandoned their privacy and consumer's rights in favor of glamorous crap. But it's still haves it's niche.

[AnonymousCoward]

Phoronix: OpenPhoneux / GTA04 Still Going As Niche Phone

The price on the GTA04 is 666.66 €, or about $840 USD, for hardware that's slower than a $100 iPhone.

There's no such thing as a $100 iPhone. You can buy contract free Android Phones for less than €100 though. But you being an Apple fanboy...