Steven ** wrote:
I don't see how GSM is much less "closed" of a network protocol than
CDMA (the interchangeable SIM cards being the big difference). The
GSM chip is the most locked down hardware on the Neo. A CDMA chip
would be no different.
Actually the situation here IS very different, because of that
interchangability. With a GSM phone, its the SIM that allows you on the
network. You can (theoretically at least), go down to the T-Mobile
store and get their bottom-of-the-line 20$ phone, then take it home and
put the SIM into your neo, with T-Mobile being none the wiser.
With CDMA, you will not be able to use your phone on their network
unless they say ok. This means I can't use my old CDMA sprint phone on
my new verizon account. If I switch back to sprint, my verizon phone
won't work anymore. If openmoko was CDMA but sprint and verizon decide
they don't like the openness of the openmoko phones, you're SOL. GSM
gives the users choice as to what phone they want to run, and takes that
choice away from the carrier.
As far as the aims of the Openmoko project, I don't see how CDMA
conflicts with that. I thought one of the aims of Openmoko was to
show people the benefits of opensource, mobile computing. It seems
odd to give people choices over everything but the service provider.
You can choose any service provider you want - as long as they are on
GSM.
_______________________________________________
Openmoko community mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
