Thanks Jeremy for your kind words. I've copied pat meier Johnson our PR person on the thread. Like you we believe there is a great positive story here. In addition, I've copied some of the key people in the Openmoko community to get their reaction to your ideas
Jeremy McNaughton wrote: > Layoffs are always sad, and never an easy decision to make. To those > who are leaving the company, thanks for the great work. I wish the > best for your future endeavours and hope that you are able to remain > in the community in some way. > > I know I haven't really contributed much to the project. I'm not much > of a programmer and only have time to poke around on the phone every > other weekend or so. Still, I've read almost every thread on the > mailing list and have learned a great deal. > > I do have a fair bit of experience doing media relations for local > grassroots organizations and non-profits. My experience isn't with > software or technology, it's with anti-poverty activism and social > service work. Nonetheless, I have some feedback based on some > non-tech community organizing to share. > > Handing development of the Freerunner over to the community is a big > deal. There is a lot of opportunity here to get good press for both > Openmoko Inc. and the community. > > The way I see it, giving the phone to the community is every bit as > radical as launching an open source phone was in the first place. The > Openmoko community is now coordinating development of an updated > Freerunner (using Free software), there are multiple distros, lots of > apps, multiple phone gui apps. Not only that, but the mailing lists > are far from stagnant, and outside of openmoko.org, other parts of the > broader Openmoko community have their own mailing lists, wikis and > tracs. > > The key point here is that Openmoko succeeded in building a community > around its product. This is no easy task. Companies and > organizations with more resources behind them have tried this and not > succeeded nearly as well as Openmoko has. For this the company should > be commended. There's definitely a newsworthy story here as well. > > Naysayers might look at Openmoko handing responsibility for the > Freerunner to the community as a death knell for the project, or proof > that an open source phone can't work. Instead, it seems the > Freerunner is transitioning from a phone that was designed in house > and then open sourced, to a phone for which the hardware itself is > designed by an open source community. That's huge! > > There's a big difference between how the Freerunner was developed and > how the gta02-core is being developed, and that means that once again > Openmoko is breaking new ground. > > It may be a little early to bring this message to the media. It > probably makes sense to let the community have a chance to formalize a > bit, develop some structure. A Openmoko Foundation maybe? > > Anyways, once the dust settles maybe Openmoko could make a big > announcement about how the thriving community is in the process of > taking over development of the phone. It could be a chance for > Openmoko to get some good press for being innovative and altruistic. > It could also be a huge boon for the community, as it raises awareness > about the work being done and reaches out to potential new members. > Not to mention reminding people of all the incredible work that has > been done with these phones so far. > > Openmoko is a success story. Despite all the frustrations and delays, > a new community that develops open source phone technology has been > created. In the FLOSS podcast interview a few weeks ago (I think) > Sean spoke about how the Openmoko has reduced a lot of barriers to > phone development, potentially allowing the kind of garage workshop > innovations that led companies like Hewlett Packard or Apple. > Facilitating the community and that kind of development just lowered > one more barrier. > > > Well, that's my 2 cents. > > > Jeremy McNaughton > > > On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Harald Welte <lafo...@gnumonks.org> wrote: >> Thanks for your update, Sean! >> >> It's more than welcome to see Openmoko Inc. is still very much in support >> of the Freerunner/GTA02 and will provide the community with support in >> areas like the hosting infrastructure as well as the legal side (trademarks). >> >> I'm happy to see this transition and willing to help wherever I can. >> >> Regards and thank you once again, >> Harald >> -- >> - Harald Welte <lafo...@gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/ >> ============================================================================ >> "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." >> (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6) >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Openmoko community mailing list >> community@lists.openmoko.org >> http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community >> > > _______________________________________________ > Openmoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community > _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community