Dear Openmoko Community, In light of the refocusing of Sean's company on consumer items, there has been a perceived vacuum created in the Openmoko community's efforts to create next-generation open cellular smart phones.
I happened to be working with Dr. Marcelo Zuffo, a full professor and the head of the Laboratory for Integrated Systems at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, on an unrelated project. I asked Dr. Zuffo if the university would be willing to join the Openmoko community and to provide critical resources to the task at hand. I subsequently have met with Dr. Zuffo several times on this matter, have seen his facilities (which include a very modern and state-of-the-art SMT line) and have discussed the goals of the community to design and prototype a completely open design for a cellular phone. Dr. Zuffo and the university understand your issues, understand free and open source software and hardware and are willing to assist the community with this project. I might add that the university can bring several new capabilities to the community: First of all, Dr. Zuffo has discussed the Openmoko project with the Minister of Telecommunications of Brazil, and the Minister is very enthusiastic about the concept. Having the support of the government of the twelfth largest economy behind the project might really help us with various negotiations with vendors. Secondly the University has been working on several aspects of telecommunications for a long time, and therefore has expertise in telephonic security and codecs (among other things) that could be of use to the Openmoko community. Third, the university has the ability and expertise to design new integrated circuits. Recently they designed a a range of analog-digital chips. Therefore the possibility of developing, manufacturing and freely licensing new chips to help reduce the cost of the phone is possible. Forth, while the facilities I mentioned are capable of producing up to 10,000 units at the rate of one circuit board every 30 seconds, the purpose of the facilities is research, developing and support projects that can lead innovation, the lab's charter does not allow them to manufacture more units then the 10,000 because that would be "commercial production". Therefore the university has a goal of freely licensing the design to companies for manufacture. Fifth, the university would be happy to host the mailing lists and forums of the Openmoko project. If some of the software projects need hosting and can not find hosting services other places, the university will consider acting as a primary hosting facility for these projects. Sixth, personally I would like to see this concept extended, of inviting more universities and their facilities to help with this project world-wide. I hope that the leadership of the University of Sao Paulo will help create the structure and inspiration for this to happen. Finally, the university has a non-profit legal entity, LSITEC, which can easily do the type of paperwork that Sean's company did (NDAs, certification) so the community can leverage off that. I know that there will be a lot of questions and considerations to take before the community is comfortable with this relationship. Dr. Zuffo has asked that I help coordinate the joining together of the university with the community, and in the interest of seeing Openmoko continue to do the fine work started by Sean and all of you, I will be glad to help in this capacity. I am monitoring the community mailing list, and people are also welcome to email me directly ([email protected]) with questions that you do not (for any reason) wish to post to the list. A copy of Dr. Zuffo's letter of intent is below. I have the original PDF if anyone would like to see it, but it was too big to make it through the community's standards on mailing lists unmoderated, and I thought you might like to see this as soon as possible. Warmest regards, Jon "maddog" Hall President, Linux International CTO of Koolu, Inc. ========================================================================================================== São Paulo, 8th July 2009, Mr. Jon Maddog Hall The Executive Director Linux International. Dear Mr. Hall, according our conversation LSI-USP the Laboratory for Integrated Systems at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, is interested in hosting the OpenMoko Community to design innovative cell phone designs. We would like to offer the community the following facilities: ‐ State-of-art facilities for SMT (Surface Mounting Technology) prototyping of complex electronics boards; ‐ State-of-art facilities and expertise for design HW and SW in telephony and communications; ‐ Expertise in testing and certification; ‐ A new building located at a Center position at USP São Paulo, to host community meetings, as well as computational infrastructure for email , WEB servers and project databases. -LSI has a long term expertise in designing complex electronics systems, including integrated circuits, and we would like to involve also our IC design team that could eventually design some components of the OpenMoko models. All legal procedures will be conducted by LSITEC, our non-profit organization to help technology developing. Finally I would like to be completely available for any further questions and discussion. My regards, Marcelo Knörich Zuffo Full Professor Laboratory for Integrated Systems University of São Paulo – Brazil _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
