Stefan Monnier <monn...@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote: > There are tradeoffs everywhere. I think that having a 100% free > firmware for the cell-phone part is really great. Having an up to date > "smartphone" that runs Free Software is also great.
Hypothetically speaking, if someone would like to have a device in the Neo FR form factor that combines a FreeCalypso modem with an "up to date" AP (application processor) subsystem like that in the GTA04, there is nothing to stop you (that's an abstract "you", not directed at anyone in particular) from building such a hybrid device. Calypso and its companion chips are still available on the Chinese surplus market; the 100 chipsets I bought some months ago most certainly weren't their last. But I doubt that someone would want such a device badly enough to invest the massive amount of time, effort and money such a project would require. I suspect that I may be the only person crazy enough to actually (want to) build a new phone (or a mobile device of any kind) based on the ancient Calypso, but it just so happens that I want a "dumbphone" rather than a "smartphone" (or "mobile computer" or whatever you want to call it) in my pocket, and naturally I'll be building the device which I would want to use myself... Oh well - when I do build that "dumbphone" for my own personal use and enjoyment, it will also have a side effect of a known-working Calypso reference design (quad-band!) becoming available for anyone to reuse, so at that time (probably in a few years) we can look into combining this FreeCalypso modem with something like Neo900 for the AP subsystem. > I see no reason why one project should feel like the other is a threat. It's the destruction of GTA02s entailed in the process of making GTA04s that sets me off. Some months ago (or was it a year or two ago?) someone here posted about how he wanted to use GTA02 motherboards as wall decorations or somesuch - now THAT kind of waste should be criminally punishable! If you feel that your Openmoko-made case+LCD+misc set would serve you better with a GTA04 mobo inside, and you don't see value in the GTA02 mobo, then please pass that old mobo to someone else who would appreciate it enough to 3D-print a new case for it or whatever, rather than waste it. > BTW, one issue with Calypso is that as the proportion of non-3G phones in > use decreases, coverage for non-3G phones is going down. Maybe it's not > yet a problem, but it's only a question of time. Yes, that is a very major threat. Fortunately it hasn't happened yet, at least not in my part of the world. I use a Calypso-based Pirelli DP-L10 as my daily phone, I roam all over Southern California (from Los Angeles to the Mexican border), and I have yet to encounter even one spot with poor or no GSM coverage. And that's despite this phone (like all of my other GSM phones) supporting only the primary USA band at 1900 MHz and not secondary band at 850 MHz! (The latter is a relatively new addition, a spectrum reallocation from AMPS which was still in service as late as 2008, at least according to Wikipedia.) But when the major commercial operators do shut down their GSM services, we would have to set up our own, squatting on "unused" frequencies like pirate radio broadcasters do... VLR, SF _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
