Tinkerphones Stammtisch Pfalz
Hi all, there is a small group of us who think about having a "Stammisch Pfalz" in August, maybe on 20th. Location is to be defined in the area between Pirmasens, Kaiserslautern, Landau, Grünstadt. Please let us know if you are interested to attend so that we can better estimate participation and think about a nice location. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
1st notice: Letux/GTA04 Kernel- and Userspace-Hacking weekend
Hi all, we (OpenPhoenux community Munich) are organizing a kernel- and user-space hacking weekend to improve the Letux/GTA04 kernel and to make progress on matching QtMoko with newer kernels and latest Debian. This workshop is planned to have two groups: a) Kernel - to work on the known (and new) issues [1], mainly power management, but also others (e.g. Camera, Audio for GSM/FM/Bluetooth). The idea is to close as many issues as possible. b) QtMoko [2] - update the basis to Debian Jessie, make it compile, add fixes so that we can use the latest kernels, make new packages. The workshop location will be in Munich (Germany) area (details to be defined). Date is also to be defined so that it fits for the participants, but the target is some Saturday+Sunday in spring 2016. We have a budget to support travel expenses. Participation will be limited in the total number of people. I think a good group size will be ca. 5 developers each. More is not productive and less is not enough breadth of different experience. If you think you can and want to participate and actively contribute, please apply by a short mail to me, telling what you want to do and which expertise you have and if you need support with travel expenses. If you don't, but know somebody who could be interested and helpful, please forward this e-mail. Let's hope this helps to bring our community forward and fix some issues we want to see solved for a long time. BR and thanks, Nikolaus [1]: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-kernel/issues/ [2]: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-qtmoko/ ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
OpenPhoenux Stammtisch München
Hi, just in case you are not aware of and subscribed to the special „Stammtisch“-list, here the announcement that the next (german language) „Stammtisch“ in Munich is in its planning phase: http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/stammtisch/2015-August/90.html Please register yourself and add your preferred day/date. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
[ANN]: decided to start production for GTA04A5 boards
Hi, we finally decided to start the production of the GTA04A5 [1] boards and use the ~40 plastic cases we have recently received to also build a batch of complete Letux 2804 [2] devices. And we have secured a set of GTM601W modem modules. Details will follow. Thanks for your patience. Stay tuned. It will pay off! BR, Nikolaus Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/goldelico [1]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04A5 [2]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04%20Complete ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Gta04-owner] OpenPhoenux and GTA04 at CCCamp?
Hi, Am 24.07.2015 um 18:53 schrieb Paul Kocialkowski cont...@paulk.fr: Next month, CCCamp will take place near Berlin, Germany. The event is a great occasion to highlight the GTA04 project and our OpenPhoenux community at large. Neo900 folks already plan on attending and will organize a Neo village: https://events.ccc.de/camp/2015/wiki/Village:Neo I will also attend to represent Replicant (and hopefully get a lightning talk about it, if not a self-organized session). Good! In addition to presenting the project and the various freedom and privacy/security-related issues in mobile devices, I would also like to try and get new people to join-in. Nikolaus, do you plan on having some OpenPhoenux and GTA04 representation at camp besides Neo900? I didn’t know about this event until some weeks ago - and I personally have a schedule conflict… And I am not a fan of outdoor camping either :) Also, my GTA04 still has a broken GPS connector, so I thought perhaps it would be the right time to see about it and get it fixed (Joerg already mentioned he would bring some soldering tools, too). Yes, that would have been a good occasion. But you can also send it to me (any time you like) and I can return it next day (sometimes same day). It needs around 10 minutes to repair if the person knows how to do it quickly and reliable. I would be very happy to meet members of the community there and talk about the future of Replicant on the OpenPhoenux projects and community! Thanks for making us aware! I am sure that some members of our community are going there. Maybe they can share their plans and reply to this mail? BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Linux gta04 4.1.0-rc4-gta04+ #1096 SMP Tue May 19 13:58:31 CEST 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux
We are proud to have this kernel available for testing [1]. What is new: * we have fixed a NULL pointer issue in the bq27x00 driver which was introduced by 4.1-rc1 * we are preparing for DT support of the camera module; the OMAP3 ISP (Image Signal Processor) should already be configured correctly * everything else that is new with 4.1 and comes to us without big efforts Some things we are still working on: * get the GPS chip power managed on open(“/dev/ttyO1”). Technically it works since 2 years, but we need to find a solution that is accepted by upstream maintainers. * some tweaks to the touch screen driver are needed to make it more general (and useable for Replicant) * camera * twl4030 battery driver (fallback for devices like L3704 where hdq is n/a) * general power management * sound (we still need to implement voice hardware routing, and headset detection) Please give it a try (it also runs on BeagleBoard/XM, BeagleBone Black or PandaBoard ES). As usual, collaboration is welcome and/or donations [2] to support this work. And please follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/goldelico BR and thanks, Nikolaus [1]: http://git.goldelico.com/?p=gta04-kernel.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/4.1-rc4 [2]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04%3ADonation ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Staus update GTA04A5
Hi, Am 12.05.2015 um 11:18 schrieb NeilBrown ne...@suse.de: On Mon, 11 May 2015 09:37:07 +0200 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: Hi all, you may wonder what is going on with this project. Did it turn into a black hole? Or did someone do a “rm -rf /“ :) No, nothing of that. Therefore, I think we owe you some short status update on this project. There hasn’t been much to report in the last months, but now we have several news within some days. 1. I have checked again and we can still get the GTM601W, but the distributor says the risk is high that OPTION declares EOL any time and in that case we would have to make an order of at least 3000 units so that they restart production just for us. This means we must secure these modules for us now, since there is no replacement that easily fits into the space constraints of the GTA04 (resp. GTA01/02 board). Cinterion modules would be nice since they are planned for the Pyra and the Neo900, but they are approx. 10% too big. 2. we see some difficulties in getting the W2SG0084 GPS module, but that is some paperwork the distributor has to do with Wi2Wi. Nevertheless, this is also a risk candidate for EOL because only one distributor shows stock. 3. There are also good news: we participate in the risk buy of Samsung 1GB RAM+512MB NAND chips (as planned for the Neo900). So the GAT04A5 gets twice as much RAM :) This chip has already been tested by reworking a BeagleBoard XM and modifying the boot loader (kernel didn’t find the NAND yet, but U-Boot did. This is a problem that will jointly be fixed with the Neo900 software team). 4. Production: we still are a little away from the quorum of 100 preorders (at the moment of this writing we have estimated approx. half = 45 units). So it is still not possible to make final decisions about production dates and final pricing. So we need to get a little more support for our project. If you have ideas, please let us know or start activities. Many small activities are as good as a big one! And we know that this is a niche product that requires an existing GTA01/02 device. So it is not possible to “attract the masses”. We must find and convince the previous GTA01/02 owners whose devices are collecting dust. There had been produced ca. 15k such devices so that we just need another 1/3% or in other words only 1 out of 300 GTA02 owners needs to decide for a GTA04A5. 5. Regarding the risk buy of the GTM601W, RAM chips and W2SG0084, I plan to take the budget (~5100 EUR) that we already have collected. This will transform the vouchers into ownership of components. So it has the consequence that we can’t refund in money (cash, bank transfer) any more, but only in unused hardware components (i.e. 100 EUR ~ 1*GTM601+1*RAM+1*GPS)… For future preorder vouchers you would also buy such a component set (which we would keep in safe warehouse of course) until we can really build the whole devices. So quite some news and I would be happy if we can fill up the missing preorders [1] sooner than later so that we can start production. Please think about securing your set of components for the last production batch of the most open smartphone platform that we already have. I have been thinking about ordering a GTA04A5, but there is one barrier. I need to be confident that it can draw less than 10mA in standby. Currently the best we have seen with GTA04A3,4 is about 20mA (and 40mA on Linux 4.0, but that must be a software issue). This is probably a software issue, but until it's actually been demonstrated that the hardware can sit in standby using under 10mA, I cannot be certain. There will be = 2 changes that affect the standby current: a) the 26 MHz oscillator is not always on any more b) IrDA receiver and RS232 level shifters can be turned on/off separately (on A3/A4 either one is always on) c) the HMC5883l and ITG3200 will likely be replaced by newer Bosch sensors If you know something else which could affect standby current, please let me know. Ah, a new unknown is the new SAMSUNG RAM/NAND chip. There we have no data sheet but know that it is used in the N9. It’s all very frustrating... At least for me it is fun and a playground to learn :) BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Staus update GTA04A5
Hi all, you may wonder what is going on with this project. Did it turn into a black hole? Or did someone do a “rm -rf /“ :) No, nothing of that. Therefore, I think we owe you some short status update on this project. There hasn’t been much to report in the last months, but now we have several news within some days. 1. I have checked again and we can still get the GTM601W, but the distributor says the risk is high that OPTION declares EOL any time and in that case we would have to make an order of at least 3000 units so that they restart production just for us. This means we must secure these modules for us now, since there is no replacement that easily fits into the space constraints of the GTA04 (resp. GTA01/02 board). Cinterion modules would be nice since they are planned for the Pyra and the Neo900, but they are approx. 10% too big. 2. we see some difficulties in getting the W2SG0084 GPS module, but that is some paperwork the distributor has to do with Wi2Wi. Nevertheless, this is also a risk candidate for EOL because only one distributor shows stock. 3. There are also good news: we participate in the risk buy of Samsung 1GB RAM+512MB NAND chips (as planned for the Neo900). So the GAT04A5 gets twice as much RAM :) This chip has already been tested by reworking a BeagleBoard XM and modifying the boot loader (kernel didn’t find the NAND yet, but U-Boot did. This is a problem that will jointly be fixed with the Neo900 software team). 4. Production: we still are a little away from the quorum of 100 preorders (at the moment of this writing we have estimated approx. half = 45 units). So it is still not possible to make final decisions about production dates and final pricing. So we need to get a little more support for our project. If you have ideas, please let us know or start activities. Many small activities are as good as a big one! And we know that this is a niche product that requires an existing GTA01/02 device. So it is not possible to “attract the masses”. We must find and convince the previous GTA01/02 owners whose devices are collecting dust. There had been produced ca. 15k such devices so that we just need another 1/3% or in other words only 1 out of 300 GTA02 owners needs to decide for a GTA04A5. 5. Regarding the risk buy of the GTM601W, RAM chips and W2SG0084, I plan to take the budget (~5100 EUR) that we already have collected. This will transform the vouchers into ownership of components. So it has the consequence that we can’t refund in money (cash, bank transfer) any more, but only in unused hardware components (i.e. 100 EUR ~ 1*GTM601+1*RAM+1*GPS)… For future preorder vouchers you would also buy such a component set (which we would keep in safe warehouse of course) until we can really build the whole devices. So quite some news and I would be happy if we can fill up the missing preorders [1] sooner than later so that we can start production. Please think about securing your set of components for the last production batch of the most open smartphone platform that we already have. BR and thanks for continued support, Nikolaus Schaller [1]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04A5 ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OT: Ubuntu phone HTML5 / QML
Hi, Am 21.03.2015 um 13:44 schrieb Matthias Apitz g...@unixarea.de: El día Saturday, March 21, 2015 a las 12:02:13PM +0100, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller escribió: Am 20.03.2015 um 21:40 schrieb Norayr Chilingarian nor...@arnet.am: meanwhile, let's not forget that Ubuntu Touch can be ported to thus installed on GTA04/5 board. Yes, you are right! Sometimes we simply don’t see the obvious… Goldelico would support such a port as good as possible. What do you need? Well, we could start with a mailing list for techical(!) interested folks, like ubuntuphone-port...@lists.openmoko.org or ubuntuphone-port...@goldelico.com Here it is (I have added a “project” and renamed it a little - but it is not restricted to “gta04”): http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-ubuntu-touch/ http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/gta04-ubuntu-touch Please subscribe and use… or something like such a name to express that the intention is not for users without technical background/developers. Thx matthias -- Matthias Apitz, g...@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-170-4527211 Wenn der Mensch von den Umständen gebildet wird, so muß man die Umstände menschlich bilden. Si el hombre es formado por las circunstancias entonces es necesario formar humanamente las circunstancias, Karl Marx in Die heilige Familie / La sagrada familia ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OT: Ubuntu phone HTML5 / QML
Am 20.03.2015 um 21:40 schrieb Norayr Chilingarian nor...@arnet.am: meanwhile, let's not forget that Ubuntu Touch can be ported to thus installed on GTA04/5 board. Yes, you are right! Sometimes we simply don’t see the obvious… Goldelico would support such a port as good as possible. What do you need? BR, Nikolaus 03/19/15 11:31 -ին Matthias Apitzը գրել է. El día Monday, March 16, 2015 a las 08:46:09AM +0100, Ed Kapitein escribió: I did order the ubuntu phone and can't wait to test it out! Hi Ed, Could you please send me a signal when yours arrive. I ordered mine on March 12 and have already the discount on my creditcard, but no device yet :-) Do you know any good mailing list or forum (read: for tech people) to interchange questions and test results etc.? Thx matthias ___ 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
Re: OT: Ubuntu phone HTML5 / QML
Hi, Am 16.03.2015 um 13:40 schrieb Neal H. Walfield n...@walfield.org: At Mon, 16 Mar 2015 10:43:51 +0100, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: For our community products we have: because 1, there is no 2 and because 2 there is no 1. What makes the difference? Some investor (Ubuntu) did cover the risk of buying the first set of thousands of eggs and was able to get the price down (higher quantity buyer). My impression of the GTA04 marketing message is: the more people who buy, the cheaper the phone will be! Unfortunately, it hasn't been very clear to me how much cheaper. I suspect that the same is true for other people, particularly those who are not following the project as closely as I have. If I knew that the GTA04 could be produced for 300 Euro if say, 2000, were produced, that could help me convince other people. Of course, if someone is willing to buy today, they might not be willing to wait a year. Well, there is a rough indication http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04A5 • the final price is expected to be (incl. 19% German VAT) • 599 EUR if we reach 100 production units • 549 EUR if we reach 200 production units • 499 EUR if we reach 500 production units but we will try everything to get below this target! But EUR/USD exchange rate development is beyond our control One way around this is to use the strategy that kickstarter uses: only fund it if a threshold is reached. We also have that. The threshold is 100 units preordered (where each pre-order voucher at 100 EUR or above counts for one unit). This is equivalent to a threshold of 1 EUR which could be used to secure some critical components (e.g. 3G Modem, memory chips, WiFi module). If we don’t reach this threshold before the 3G modem really becomes unobtainable, the campaign ends unfunded. We just don’t have a fixed date for the campaign. Just a thought… Any thought is always welcome! Thanks, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OT: Ubuntu phone HTML5 / QML
Hi, I had not planned to make it a statement-reply session, but it has converted into one :) Am 16.03.2015 um 14:47 schrieb Alfa21-mobile freerun...@my.is.it: Hi *, I think it’s difficult to gain interest of new users if a new user must buy an old casing first of being able to use the new hardware also, old casings are a limited resource and are awful to look compared to newer and slimmer styles Well, that is not the goal of the GTA04A5 project. It was focussed right from the beginning (and therefore still is) to give those who already have a GTA02 a much more powerful processor and some newer peripherals. Like a replacement motor for an old car. moreover the old casings eventually need to be modified (drilled) by the final user to host the camera just my 2cents, A21 BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OT: Ubuntu phone HTML5 / QML
Hi Ed, Am 16.03.2015 um 09:58 schrieb Ed Kapitein e...@kapitein.org: SNIP Interesting. Makes me curious why you both spend money on that one instead of e.g. the GTA04A5? Any answer is valid - and no need to be polite… I am just curious to understand how people think and decide such things in March 2015. BR, Nikolaus Hi Nikolaus, A couple of things made me decide to buy the ubuntu phone. thanks! -1 The price. for me it is afordable at 170 euro vs +/- 600 euro for a neo900 and slightly less for the GTA04A5 -2 The device is in mass production, compared to the volumes of GTA04 or neo900 well, this is the simple henegg situation that we face for some years. For our community products we have: because 1, there is no 2 and because 2 there is no 1. What makes the difference? Some investor (Ubuntu) did cover the risk of buying the first set of thousands of eggs and was able to get the price down (higher quantity buyer). They can, because Ubuntu is not only a free (as in free beer) OS but Canonical sells maintenance services (ubuntu advantage) to get the money to run their operations. This type of services is something our community lacks. And is even beyond the openmoko approach (because it focusses on the client side while the money is with servers, clouds and content). -3 Development is done by a huge team, with a long track record in development. Well, the team here was big - but has become smaller and smaller. I just wonder if they have a longer track record than the Openmoko community. Hm. Makes me think about: * would people be interested in a real maintained Openmoko distribution * combining everything we have (kernel, Replicant, QtMoko and other choices) * not only for Openmoko devices but others as well to get a broader audience * regularily maintained by fixed team * those who spend let’s say 5 EUR / month get bug fixes and updates first -4 Using old components from the GTA02 to build a GTA04 will get me a new phone with and 8 year old screen, 8 year old battery, 8 year old case etc. This is mostly a consequence of 1 and 2. A GTA05 could be much more modern and made out of all-new components. But because of 1 and 2 there is no GTA05. But i really appreciate what all members from the gta02 community have done in the past and are still doing today! Big thanks from me. Ed Big thanks for sharing your thoughts. Our key problem is that we don’t have a big budget to spend for a new GTA05 that can compete with others. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OT: Ubuntu phone HTML5 / QML
Am 16.03.2015 um 15:38 schrieb Alfa21-mobile freerun...@my.is.it: Well, that is not the goal of the GTA04A5 project. It was focussed right from the beginning (and therefore still is) to give those who already have a GTA02 a much more powerful processor and some newer peripherals. Like a replacement motor for an old car. I know, and also for me it's interesting a new engine for an old car, but you will never exit from the 12 statement if new users will remain cut off from the game, imho. your solution is directed only to a subset of older users and this can hardly embrace a wide audience that allows to lower the final prices from my pov, you are cutting out both: - fresh users, potentially interested in getting a real open phone - old users, interested in getting an open phone competitive on price It looks as if you are thinking along a “one solution fits everyone” strategy. GTA04A5 is a solution for some group which is completely feasible, no dream, no vapourware. It is a tested design and just needs to be financed to be produced. Of course it does not make everybody happy. But it does also not exclude to have something different (GTA05…) in the future. But it must be clear that a GTA05 needs a lot of work, prefinancing of engineering and time (expect 1 year to develop from scratch including injection moulds). So this also does not make everyone happy. And it is much less lilkely to happen at all because it needs this prefinancing stuff… Therefore we are not cutting out anyone - I am simply honest not to promise the impossible (competitive price and new and immediately available). I prefer to say what is possible and reachable. Like a low hanging fruit: GTA04A5. -1 The price. for me it is afordable at 170 euro vs +/- 600 euro for a neo900 and slightly less for the GTA04A5 -2 The device is in mass production, compared to the volumes of GTA04 or neo900 ___ 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
Re: OT: Ubuntu phone HTML5 / QML
Hi, Am 16.03.2015 um 09:00 schrieb Matthias Apitz g...@unixarea.de: El día Monday, March 16, 2015 a las 08:46:09AM +0100, Ed Kapitein escribió: What I'm asking me, and want to ask here: How thy 'paint' the picture from the apps written in HTML5 or QML to the display? Is this as well at the end of the day a X11 server or something else? It moves so smoothly. Thanks matthias Hi Matthias, As far as i can tell, they use mir [1] [1] http://unity.ubuntu.com/mir/ Hi Ed, Thanks for the info. I did order the ubuntu phone and can't wait to test it out! Me too on March 12 in the flash sell. The money is already cut from my credit card, so there is hope that I will get one :-) Interesting. Makes me curious why you both spend money on that one instead of e.g. the GTA04A5? Any answer is valid - and no need to be polite… I am just curious to understand how people think and decide such things in March 2015. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Gta04-owner] GTA04A5 - status + FAQ
Am 13.02.2015 um 07:54 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com: Hi, a short status update for this project: 1. we have reached 42 preorders [1] - please continue to think about ordering one as well… 2. we plan to integrate a new barometer sensor BME280 with integrated humidity sensor so the GTA04A5 can be used as weather station - or for checking your room climate (critical for your health and e.g. a piano) 3. as announced this week, Replicant is working really well and Lukas told me yesterday that he already installed WhatsApp So we only need to upgrade hardware to catch up a little to Nexus 6 in functionality… But the Nexus still has to catch up in openness and hardware documentation :) BR, Nikolaus [1]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04A5 I have reveived some questions off-list where I would like to share the answers: Are you seriously considering to upgrade hardware? Very cool. Yes, we constantly monitor what new interesting chips are coming that can be integrated at low risk. Replacing the BMP085 (which by the way is no longer in production) is just wiring up 8 pins to a different package. And, we have to do that anyways since a handful of chips is no longer available and *must* be replaced. I did give a presentation on OHSW about this topic. But we have to be careful, since “big” changes (e.g. bigger display, quad-core CPU, LTE) are not possible. They introduce too much risk that the whole board does not work and some do not fit into the existing Openmoko plastic cases. And they need too much work time to be integrated. It is like mature software with an architecture designed some years ago that you touch only if it is easy to touch and does not introduce regressions in unexpected areas. I.e. changing the color or text of a button is ok, changing the menu structure isn't :) Is there a recording of your OHSW talk? OHSW: http://www.ohsw.de Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktugrICZMKIlist=PL-s0IumBit8Mofxj0Fn2kH6RB9VtnKS4KVideo Slides: http://download.goldelico.com/default/Presentations/20141129%20OHSW/3%20GTA04A5%20Project%20Status.pdf What about this 5000€ or 1€ target? This target is not really comparable to a kickstarter limit. It is more thought as an indicator to give a more imaginable (at least I hope) view on the project funding status. The real target we have is to get 100 preorders (vouchers) at 100 € each. This is equivalent to a 1€ sum of preorders. Only if we have reached that, we can seriously go to the production facility and ask them to give us a quotation (it is some heavy unpaid work for them and I don’t want to go to them just for fun). Only then, we know the real price of building 100 units. We will then announce the price and ask to pay the difference between the voucher and the final price. If nobody cancels his voucher, we can then start the production. There is one aspect which could make us the 1€ a real goal. I fear that we do not have much time left over to buy the OPTION GTM601W 3G modules. They are in production for quite a while, but there is no successor. And as soon as OPTION is no longer able to buy some component inside the module, they will stop production (maybe they already have stopped and we don’t know yet). Then we only can buy what is still in some stock. Maybe at rising price. Or we come too late and they say: sorry, we are sold out. And the OPTION module is one of the deal-breaker components. If we can’t buy it any more there is no chance to redesign the GTA04A5 board for a replacement component. Other modules are thicker or bigger - and need a careful design-in process. So w/o GTM601 (or DM3730 or memory chip) there can be no GTA04A5. In that case, we simply refund the preorder vouchers. So an option would be to use these vouchers to buy OPTION (pun unintended :) GTM601W modules. Then, in case of the project never succeeds, we would not refund the money, but could send you the module in case the project fails to reach 100 units for production. This would transform the voucher for a GTA04A5 into a voucher for a GTM601W module and a separate one for a GTA04A5 production run later. But it is too early to really do that step since we just have 42. If we had 75, I would say that we do this risk purchase. The campaign is already running for a while and running very slowly. Will it ever succeed? When will it considered to be failed? Well, I don’t know since my crystal ball doesn’t tell that. And yes, this funding campaign runs very slowly. Since it is a very special product for a very special target group. Only GTA02 (and GTA01) owners have benefit from it. And since we all are here on these lists, it does not make sense to start a Kickstarter/IndieGoGo for the broad public to get more interested people. And, there is no benefit of making it a competition against the calendar (4-8 weeks). Either you are convinced or not. Or change your
Re: [Gta04-owner] GTA04A5 - status + FAQ
Am 13.02.2015 um 17:32 schrieb Sebastian Krzyszkowiak d...@dosowisko.net: Hi, Thanks for this great follow-up! I have one question: On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 5:24 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: And yes, this funding campaign runs very slowly. Since it is a very special product for a very special target group. Only GTA02 (and GTA01) owners have benefit from it. What about case kits? I remember there was some effort to make it possible to replace old GTA02 parts with easier to obtain equivalents, so using GTA04 board in self-made case (like 3D printed one) would be possible. What's the situation right now? To go into detail the situation is this: In addition to the naked motherboard these parts from a GTA01/02 are reused: a) case (3 black plastic parts plus white speaker box) b) vibramotor c) earpiece speaker d) handsfree/music speaker(s) e) display panel f) battery g) GSM antenna h) active GPS antenna module Replacements are a) there are several STL designs available, even a wooden case looks feasible. b) we will solder a small(er) vibramotor on the GTA04A5 board, so that it does not longer need to be reused. c) here, we did have a replacement but it is now end of life. We have a supplier and catalog for other replacements. d) they were easily available at Mouser until last summer. So we just have ~25 pieces left over [1]. But it could be possible to find them on Alibaba. e) here we have ca. 60 units [2] - and no idea if anyone has stock for more. f) we still have some stock and maybe other of the well known Openmoko distributors as well. g) here we want to offer a replacement (similar to the green “cucumber” in the photo [3]). h) there are several GPS modules to choose from. So in summary, we already offer some of the required components and will offer others. But three key components (battery, handsfree speakers and display) are limited and w/o good replacments. BR, Nikolaus [1]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04%3ASpeaker [2]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=LCD%20Module [3]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04%3ACase%20Kit ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
GTA04A5 - status
Hi, a short status update for this project: 1. we have reached 42 preorders [1] - please continue to think about ordering one as well… 2. we plan to integrate a new barometer sensor BME280 with integrated humidity sensor so the GTA04A5 can be used as weather station - or for checking your room climate (critical for your health and e.g. a piano) 3. as announced this week, Replicant is working really well and Lukas told me yesterday that he already installed WhatsApp So we only need to upgrade hardware to catch up a little to Nexus 6 in functionality… But the Nexus still has to catch up in openness and hardware documentation :) BR, Nikolaus [1]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04A5 ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
ANN 1: gta04-kernel 3.19.0
Hi, we have upgraded the gta04-kernel to 3.19.0 which by itself does not change much or fix significant issues, but we have achieved something we think is awesome: The kernel now also runs on the OMAP3530 based OpenPandora! We did just develop and debug a new device tree. Not everything is working yet, but it is now in a shape where we think we can announce it. The really interesting fact will be that for the first time we have a common kernel over several OMAP based open hardware projects: it supports the GTA04 devices, the Beagle- and PandaBoard, the old OpenMoko-Beagle-Hybrid, the OpenPandora and will also support the new OMAP5 Pyra handheld and whatever might come in the future (GTA04A5?). And as the really latest entry is the BeagleBone Black. The same kernel binary. The same binary kernel modules, the same root file system. Just loading a different device tree file and some small patches for the root file system is sufficient. Even sharing a SD card is possible (within some limitations). Something we are used to from the x86 world. Just replace the motherboard, plug in the old hard disk and boot again. And, we can mix this kernel with different root file systems: Debian, Replicant, QtMoko (if we get it compiled…), QuantumSTEP (if we finish it sometime), others to be defined. So we are close to transforming “gta04” into a multiple-choice-distribution for different hardware. Here is a list of the features supported by this kernel on the different devices: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-kernel/page/Platforms/ And, we are now at the forefront of the kernel development, since we regularily merge with linus/master. By upstreaming our changes, we hope that in some near future all these devices will be fully supported directly by kernel.org. So I hope that we are doing something you appreciate and find useful and perhaps would like to support either through [1] or by testing, reporting bugs and submitting patches. We really appreciate your feedback, since we don’t find every bug and flaw - and we always understand the bad and incomplete documentation [2] we have written… BR, Nikolaus [1]: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04%3ADonation [2]: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-kernel/ ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Where Can I Get A GTA04 Camera?
Hi Alexander, Am 31.12.2014 um 01:09 schrieb Alexander .S.T. Ross maillist_openm...@aross.me: is the optional camera fully supported now? according to the manual it isn’t. so what is it now? The status is that it is supported by the 3.12.7 kernel, but not optimized (the position of the image is shifted). The newer kernels (3.18) do not yet support the camera since the OMAP3 Image Processor (ISP) does not have Device Tree support yet and the camera module driver has not been adjusted to recent kernel API changes. So if you want to help to get it work on 3.19-rc you are very welcome to the gta04-kernel project [1]. BR and have a nice new year, Nikolaus [1]: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-kernel/ ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Free gta02
Am 02.12.2014 um 20:19 schrieb Philip Rhoades p...@pricom.com.au: People, I have not been using this for a while - happy to give it to a more useful home if someone is prepared to pay for postage. Maybe also something to consider is to give it a new life through a new motherboard: http://download.goldelico.com/default/Presentations/20141129%20OHSW/3%20GTA04A5%20Project%20Status.pdf BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Community Event: OHSW in Munich
Hi, with just 4 weeks left to our yearly OHSW even in Munich, planning is getting on speed. Lukas has updated and translated the web page to english since we welcome participants from all over the world. For details, please go here: http://www.ohsw.de And, it is still time to propose presentations and workshops, since nothing has been decided (except location and date/time). Please subscribe to the special mailing list to stay informed and register yourself as a participant through the Doodle. BR, Nikolaus See also: http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/attachments/20141026/220cf389/attachment-0001.pdf ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
[Community] 6th OpenPhoenux Workshop
Invitation for Participation Call for Presentations and Sessions 6th public OpenPhoenux Hard and Software Workshop 29.11.-30.11.2014, 9:30-18:00 TUM Campus Garching, „Mathematik Informatik“ More details here: http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/attachments/20141002/3d5b3bfa/attachment-0001.pdf ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Gta04-owner] Special offer Letux 3704
Reminder! Please think about more interesting project ideas for this device! And the offer is serious - your price is ours (even if 1 € - if the idea is excellent). BR, Nikolaus Am 31.07.2014 um 11:06 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com: Hi, as you probably know, the Letux 2804 has an older brother, the Letux 3704 PDA. As some older brothers it is stronger, but a little clumsy and may not be as versatile as the younger brother :) But he has his strengths if needed... http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=Letux%203704 The L3704 units we offer from stock are sample units to evaluate customization options, and we are looking for more such customization projects. A Replicant 4.2 image is running on it very well, so that you can easily develop (or have developed) and deploy applications to such devices. And since it doesn't have UMTS built in, the incomplete Hayes-RIL for GTA04-Replicant is not a problem. To stimulate your ideas, we make a special summer holidays offer: * please submit a project idea what you want to accomplish with such a device * and suggest a price for a (single) sample unit until 15th August. Then, we will choose the most interesting projects from the submissions and you get the device at the price (plus shipment) you have suggested. Submissions must go to: sa...@goldelico.com to be considered. Please spread the word and invite interested people to this mailing list. BR and have a nice summer, Nikolaus ___ Gta04-owner mailing list gta04-ow...@goldelico.com http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/gta04-owner ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Indiephone.eu
Hi, there appears to be a new initiative which is taking all our values (openness, freedom, community development, ) and casting it into a new name: http://indiephone.eu/faq/ The most common answer to that is that no other product is currently attempting to solve the problem as Indie Phone. That problem is how to empower mere mortals to own their own data. This is why we are crafting a beautiful experience that seamlessly combines hardware, software, and services, to create a consumer smartphone to compete with the likes of iPhone and Nexus. e.g. compare to: http://www.openphoenux.org You are the owner: • Be independent from big players. • Make the system transparent, not the user. • Keep control over your data. Their claim that there is no other product appears to be completely ignoring all our efforts of the past years. And I am not aware of any relation with us. They even copied to use the word indie/independent. Does anyone know more about that? BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Indiephone.eu
Am 28.06.2014 um 11:17 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller: Hi, there appears to be a new initiative which is taking all our values (openness, freedom, community development, ) and casting it into a new name: http://indiephone.eu/faq/ The most common answer to that is that no other product is currently attempting to solve the problem as Indie Phone. That problem is how to empower mere mortals to own their own data. This is why we are crafting a beautiful experience that seamlessly combines hardware, software, and services, to create a consumer smartphone to compete with the likes of iPhone and Nexus. e.g. compare to: http://www.openphoenux.org You are the owner: • Be independent from big players. • Make the system transparent, not the user. • Keep control over your data. Their claim that there is no other product appears to be completely ignoring all our efforts of the past years. And I am not aware of any relation with us. They even copied to use the word indie/independent. Does anyone know more about that? I had in parallel contacted the indiephone.eu people and got an immediate answer that I think I should share, before the discussion is going wrong: Is there any chance you can make it to the summit? (Where are you based?) Would love to be involved and I’m sure there is a lot we can learn from you and perhaps we can bring some of you in to help us out with the hardware side of things. Our approach is very different in that we are focussed entirely on building independent consumer products that are design-led from the business model down (holistic design). That said, I believe we share the same goals independence and giving the user control/owndership. Our user happens to be consumers whereas the user for OpenPhoenux, as far as I can tell, is enthusiasts with technical knowledge. We should definitely be talking and helping each other out. If you can make it to Brighton next week — please try and come on the 3rd for our private social meet-up prior to the event as I’d love the opportunity to chat one-on-one :) (And, although the schedule is tight, I believe we can squeeze in just one demo during the eat, drink, and watch session at lunch if you want 3 minutes to show off what you guys are working on.) The summit mentioned appears to be this: https://indietech.org/summit/ If anyone wants to and can go to Brighton next week, please let me know to arrange the 3 minutes with the summit organisers. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: ping
We have some offers: * GTA04A5 fund raising * GTA02, used (with voucher for GTA04A5) * Letux 3704 * replacement display * ZAGG invisible shield for Openmoko * Letux 400 minibook For details see http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php Nikolaus Am 17.06.2014 um 08:26 schrieb Christoph Pulster openm...@pulster.de: Anybody out there ? :-) May I put some life in this list with my stock / offer list: GTA02, new, 299 eur GTA02, used, 199 eur Wikireader, 29 eur battery, originalnew, 9 eur power adapter, 9 eur Car holder, 5 eur leather case, 29 eur GPS antenna, 15 eur link cable, 4 eur spares display, 49 eur FREE Items for any order: pouch, headset, printed manual, display protection, debug board more infos in my tiny shop www.pulster.eu to all remaining Openmoko'ianian, have a nice summer time ! Christoph ___ 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
Re: GTA02 broken screen / What Nice Projekts to Do Without a Screen or Would Other Screens Work
Am 12.05.2014 um 20:18 schrieb Ed Kapitein: On 05/10/2014 05:23 PM, Francesco De Vita wrote: If you think this is something you would like to try, please let me know, so i can provide you with the kernel and the rootfs image for you to flash. You need to write some scripts to fit everything to your needs, so i hope you have some scripting skills. Probably I do not have the required skills but it is really interesting! Have you already mention your work in the ML or in the Wiki? I'm sure it deserves to be noted, I was looking for this kind of application from years. Do you think your daemon could be easily integrated in QtMoko or other OS? Best regards Francesco Hi Francesco, I did announce it a few years ago [1] and kept working on it, just for fun. By now the internals have changed, instead of 4 separate programs i have just 2, the daemon and the optional gui. integrating it in QTMoko is possible, there are some instructions on the website [2], although i did not try that with the current version. The Original Poster has no screen anymore, so integrating it with QTMoko would be difficult for him. You could give the old version a try, to see how it works for you, and if you like it i can setup a download link for the latest and greatest version. Kind regards, Ed BTW, I just want to mention that we still have some replacement screens in stock: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=LCD%20Module BR, NIkolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Openmoko GTA06
Hi all, I have received a rumor that somebody is working on a truly free and open phone with the following specs: * Quad-Core Intel Z3770D (1.5 - 2.5 GHz) * 4GB RAM * 128 GB eMMC * LTE with free and open baseband * 5 inch full HD display * 100g * 4000 mAh battery * runs any x86 OS (i.e. Linux, Windows, Hackintosh, ...) * shall cost less than Nexus 5 Looks like some dream machine :) Since I don't know how to validate: does anyone know more details? -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Openmoko GTA06
Am 01.04.2014 um 11:53 schrieb Neil Jerram: On 2014-04-01 10:26, shamsul hassan wrote: April Fool :) On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@computer.org wrote: Hi all, I have received a rumor that somebody is working on a truly free and open phone with the following specs: * Quad-Core Intel Z3770D (1.5 - 2.5 GHz) * 4GB RAM * 128 GB eMMC * LTE with free and open baseband * 5 inch full HD display * 100g * 4000 mAh battery * runs any x86 OS (i.e. Linux, Windows, Hackintosh, ...) * shall cost less than Nexus 5 Looks like some dream machine :) Since I don't know how to validate: does anyone know more details? Nice one. I was fooled. Obviously me too... Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Openmoko GTA06
Am 02.04.2014 um 05:00 schrieb Michael Spacefalcon: Oh, and if someone were to build your April Fool's device for real, it should NOT be called GTA-anything, because it is not GSM-TI-AGPS. I The only reference to this secret naming convention is: http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2009-April/045297.html GTA stood for: Gsm;Ti;Agps This means it [b]stood[/b] for something. So it now can stand for anything :) So GTA06 is Good Tale in April number 06 :) -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: sensors on GTA04
Am 02.04.2014 um 03:17 schrieb L. B.: Hi, I'd like to play with the compass but the info from the documentation page does not correspond with what I got on my phone (using qtmoko v58). The page I use is that one: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-kernel/page/Sensors/ In the 'compass' section there is a switch to enable/disable sampling. On my phone there is a directory /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-2/2-001e/ but there is no 'rate' file in there. Same applies for the gyroscope. Has anything been changed? No. The kenrel doc is for the Goldelico kernels which were 2.6.32 some years ago and now reflect the drivers of 3.12 (ff). QtMoko AFAIK uses a 3.7 kernel and since the /sys node names are not stable (and never will be) you might have to do a little guesswork and look into the 3.7 kernel source code to find out how the driver works. Hope this helps, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04 work (was: Openmoko's downfall (was changing IMEI))
Am 21.02.2014 um 10:03 schrieb Bob Ham: On Fri, 2014-02-21 at 08:54 +0100, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: We ... are working on a 3.14 kernel and getting things mainline Why? The GTA04 is not usable as a daily phone. Why would you waste time on the kernel instead of working on the problems that prevent the board being used? Why are you not spending this time working on the power drain? Maybe you don't know or believe but the kernel controls the power drain. So working on the kernel is working on the power drain... Why do you waste time to write such mails instead of working on the problems that prevent the board being used? Why are you not spending this time working on the power drain? ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04 work (was: Openmoko's downfall (was changing IMEI))
Am 21.02.2014 um 10:54 schrieb Bob Ham: On Fri, 2014-02-21 at 10:22 +0100, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: the kernel controls the power drain. How has that been determined? Please find the answer and tell us about the results. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Openmoko's downfall (was changing IMEI)
Am 21.02.2014 um 10:36 schrieb Michael Spacefalcon: I invite every = remaining Openmoko GTA01/02 owner to cannibalize their device for a = GTA04A5 motherboard. There is a special place in Hell reserved for murderers of good free hardware like you. ROFL - you are believing in Hell and you are talking about ethical categories... ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GSM frequency bands in the USA
Am 21.02.2014 um 18:51 schrieb Andrew Schenck: I can corroborate that report. Bought my FR from Belgium, so I presume its the 900/1800/1900 version, but I haven't found any way to verify that. 1. remove battery cover 2. take out battery 3. look at serial number sticker under battery 4. here it either says GSM 900/1800/1900 or GSM 850/1800/1900 A copy of that sticker was also on the backside of the black box - if you still have it. And: there is some chance that it will work on the wrong frequency band - 850 vs. 900 MHz isn't that different. The antenna may be some dB weaker if not optimally tuned and the transmitter may draw more power to be heard by a base station. -- hns PS: another reason to think about a GTA04A5 - it is quadband ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Openmoko's downfall (was changing IMEI)
Of course it will never happen legally, but so what? We can build it illegally instead. You are a Pied Piper of Hamelin. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Openmoko's downfall (was changing IMEI)
Am 21.02.2014 um 08:26 schrieb Radek Polak: On Thursday, February 20, 2014 08:38:35 PM Michael Spacefalcon wrote: I am also convinced that the *real* reason why Openmoko = failure in the general public's perception is precisely because of that NDA and no one having broken it during the years when it mattered the most. That's your point of view. Point of view of a firmware hacker. and someone who wants to modify history to fit his argumentation. But there are other points of view. E.g. some people expect the phone ring when friends/wife/customer calls. I had many phones before and 2 phones after (N900 and now Jolla). None of them had any problems with SMS and telephony. Yes. This is one important factor. The other one was simply the economic hiccup end of 2008 why OM had to cancel the already developed GTA03 for simple economic reasons. Openmoko is different - they never provided SW for reliable phone. Openmoko never provided stable maintainable kernel This is completely different with the GTA04 and why I invite every remaining Openmoko GTA01/02 owner to cannibalize their device for a GTA04A5 motherboard. Because that goal is within reach with the GTA04. We have not reached the goal to get the 100% complete and optimal kernel from kernel.org or debian.org, but are working on a 3.14 kernel and getting things mainline (already with some success). And Replicant 4.2 is starting to work as well. BTW: more support for that work from the community would speed up progress. - instead they wasted their time on doing 4 ugly unusable distros while at the time they had perfectly stable usable and working Qtopia. And even 5 years after there is no good kernel for Freerunner. 2.6.29-rc seems quite stable but the patch against mainline is horrible, besides it's power management is worse then it could be. 2.6.39 has hardly nearly unreproducible problem with resume. Now we have free firmware which is cool, but the usablity of the phone hasnt changed much. Except for QtMoko which IMHO also should get more support to optimize the last 2%. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: IMEI changing kit for GTA02
Am 19.02.2014 um 09:09 schrieb Christoph Pulster: Michael, this is great work ! AFAIK this is the first toolkit allowing easy change of IMEI, impressive. The applaus is very limited here, it seems most people left are hardcore Linux/FOSS geeks which do not understand the concept of your semi-legal activities... what is semi-legal? Lawyers will tell you more... According to http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/1 it is a full (not semi) offence with up to 5 years in prison in the UK. And even possessing such a tool isn't allowed: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/2 So, please go to the UK and tell them that it is semi-legal. In Germany it appears there is no special law but it is discussed (google for it) that it can be punished like replacing the licence plate or the serial number of a car. So you have been warned. Here some text in German written by a Lawyer (Status 2006 - may have changed): http://web.archive.org/web/20120427042949/http://www.heise.de/mobil/artikel/Rechtliches-zu-Eingriffen-ins-Handy-226035.html -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: IMEI changing kit for GTA02
Am 19.02.2014 um 12:21 schrieb Christoph Pulster: Hi, its nice to see, outlaw Michael's activities cause some life in this list. @Nikolaus: damn to UK laws, Michael is providing a tool to change IMEI, no more no less. Besides legal issues, I miss the thanks to Michaels effords. For something that has no use case? And that I don't need? Of course he wrote a lot strange/non tolerable things in this list in the past, but concerning technical effords, he was very insistant and pushed it as far as writing a tool for easy change of IMEI without having full access to NDA-infos. The spirit of Openmoko is to *build* open devices. Because big companies have the tendency to keep things closed. And yes we know that we have quite some limitations to reach this goal. But it was never about *breaking* into devices ignoring NDAs and laws. For breaking into devices I can buy an iPhone and do a Jailbreak. Or any Android device and enable root access. I would applaud if he manages to build his own modem and firmware from scratch (or based on OsmocomBB) *and* gets FCC and RTTE and whatever approvals are needed. That would better bring us forwards than patching firmware for some legacy chipset (designed 10 years ago). Or more useful would be if someone would write firmware for the Marvell chipset or the PowerVR SGX from the scratch. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Community] [Limesco-leden] OpenPhoenux@FOSDEM2014
Hi, Am 06.02.2014 um 11:00 schrieb Parchet Michaël: Hello, Is there some video or photo of this weekend ? You will find them here: https://fosdem.org/2014/news/2014-02-03-videos/ But as the maintainers say: The videos are not online yet, despite what you might think. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Community] FOSDEM 2014 - meetup?
Am 01.02.2014 um 21:45 schrieb Boudewijn: Hi list, Who is in Brussels for FOSDEM? I'll be there tomorrow, at least part of the day at the OpenPandora stand. It would be great to meet some people again. Anyone else around? I am not in Brussels this year, but please say hello to Boudewijn! And, please take a look at the new upcoming cousin of the GTA04 - the Pyra Handheld [1]. The prototypes shown there are running a Debian based on our GTA04-rootfs on OMAP5. BR, Nikolaus [1] www.pyra-handheld.com ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Kernel 3.x and Freerunner
Am 30.01.2014 um 11:54 schrieb Mike Crash: Hello, last two years I was busy with other private stuff, now I have returned to my old projects and also my Neo. I have completely rewritten my software and I want to compile it for Neo. But new software is not compatible with old kernel (for example udev). I have tried to boot up Neo and what a surprice, everything works as 2 years ago. Only battery has half of capacity... I want to ask if there was some progress in support of Neo Freerunner in stock kernel. I still use old 2.6.29 with openmoko modifications, is it possible to use kernel 3.13? I don't need phone functionality, only display, audio and gps. I have looked around, there are some Neo stuff in stock kernel, but I don't know, if it is usable. Please can anybody tell me, what's the situation now? Have anybody tried new stock kernels? You could consider replacing the motherboard with a GTA04A5. It is (will be) well supported [1] and we are permanently working to get things into mainline and reduce the differences. The latest good kernel is 3.12.7 and 3.14 is coming soon. BR, Nikolaus [1]: http://git.goldelico.com/?p=gta04-kernel.git;a=summary ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Community] GTA04A5 / Letux 2804
I have added back your original statement because otherwise this discussion is not completely understandable: So please think again if you want to upgrade your GTA02 with a GTA04A5 board. Upgrade? Surely you must have meant downgrade - why would anyone in his or her right mind voluntarily give up a device that is 100% freeable down to the modem (GTA02) for a Qualcomm-based closed proprietary product like yours? Not everybody is weighting the factor of freeable down to the modem equally when calculating the relative position of two devices to decide between upgrade and downgrade. You have a different weighting than me. Both are equally right minded. Am 16.01.2014 um 21:31 schrieb Michael Spacefalcon: Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: Why do you assume that your (IMHO unlawful) procedure done to free the Calypso is not possible for a Qualcomm modem? Because all modern baseband processors (MTK, Qualcomm etc) have ROM bootloaders which perform cryptographic verification of downloaded fw I don't know, but isn't *that* something you should fight against instead of modifying leaked firmware for a system that never has been locked? So I think your conclusion is just based on your pure incapability to do the same. s/incapability/disinterest/ Even worse. So your claim of GTA02 is 100% freeable and GTA04 is not is only based on your disinterest to work on solutions? ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Community] GTA04A5 / Letux 2804
Am 17.01.2014 um 19:13 schrieb Michael Spacefalcon: Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: Not everybody is weighting the factor of freeable down to the modem equally when calculating the relative position of two devices to decide between upgrade and downgrade. You have a different weighting than me. If freedom is not important to you, then you might as well use an iPhone or the latest Android from Samsung. As Jim Marrs has said very eloquently in the preface to one of his books, being free is like being pregnant - either you are, or you aren't. I don't know, but isn't *that* something you should fight against instead of modifying leaked firmware for a system that never has been locked? Modifying leaked firmware is not an accurate description of what I am doing. As you should know full well, I am designing and building my own Free Plain Phone, and I have chosen to use the same Calypso chipset as used in the GTA02. I chose this chipset because it already exists, because it is known to work exceptionally well, at least in dumbphone applications (I've been using one of my Pirelli phones as my everyday cellphone since last spring, and I have nothing but praise for it in terms of battery life, GSM signal strength and call quality), because all hardware documentation and firmware sources for this chipset have already been freed, and because I have already amassed a great deal of experience working with this chipset. Providing hacking support for Openmoko-made modems is simply a side- product of my FreeCalypso work: I have chosen to bring my firmware up on known-working hardware first, so that when I build my own hw and get to debug it, I will have the benefit of known-working firmware. Put another way, the free phone community (combination of FreeCalypso and OsmocomBB projects) has already made great progress with the Calypso chipset. Switching to another vendor's chipset on a whim would be an enormous setback for the project and for the community, and it is not fair for you to ask that of us - here I am referring to the you should be working on this instead of that argument in your comment. So your claim of GTA02 is 100% freeable and GTA04 is not is only based on your disinterest to work on solutions? I am working on solutions, but the problem I have chosen to solve is different from yours. Agreed. The problem the GTA04 solves is that the GTA02 has no high-speed modem. Has a quite old CPU with scarce RAM and NAND. Has no sensors for games. Has no camera option and some other gimmicks. All this was expected to be solved by the GTA03 which never appeared on the surface. This is what I understand as an *upgrade*. AFAIR it was never the claim of Openmoko to have an open modem firmware. And Openmoko did never provide that (because of contractual obligations). And having this was not formulated as an urgent problem of the Openmoko community and did not stop to have ~20k units produced in total. So we are not doing anything differently. We don't claim that the modem firmware is free and open. But the OS. So that you have 100% control over what the modem does since you can verify that it is turned off if you command it to be off. Some people, such as me, simply want a good working cellphone, a device for making and receiving phone calls on the go - and we want this cellphone to be free as in 100% owned and controlled by the user. Even if you have a free and open firmware, it still has components that are not free and open. Just for example the SIM card. And the network. And the other end of your communication. The speech sent by your 100% free phone is still decrypted at the BTS. And if you encrypt the whole communication path yourself, why do you care what the modem is doing? If the objective is to have a plain phone, rather than a mobile computer, a device consisting of just one baseband processor, without an extra application processor, is a technically superior solution for the problem at hand: greater battery life, less unnecessary complexity, fewer points of failure. And the existence of the Calypso chipset makes it possible for such a simple and efficient dumbphone to also be 100% free by virtue of the user owning and controlling the complete firmware. Then there are those people who do want their pocket-resident device to be a computer complete with an OS like GNU/Linux, rather than just a phone - but some of those people would also want that device to be 100% free including the telephony processor - and not just half-free aka half-pregnant. For this class of users, the best currently extant device is the GTA02, made by Openmoko - not your GTA04, and not my dumbphone either. Yes, there is the problem of these devices no longer being made - but instead of solving this problem by building a new device that would be as near-identical to the GTA02 as possible, including the Calypso (just like how I
[Community] GTA04A5 / Letux 2804
Hi, it is time to take a look onto the GTA04A5 campaign. We have currently collected pledges for 19 units. This is good, but not enough to start a new production run to reach a fairly reasonable final price for those preorders. The calculation is simple. The setup cost of a new production run for a GTA04 type of product is in the range of 4000€ . This is cost that occurs before the first device is produced. It is for getting the PCB produced, getting new stencils for solder pasting, and setting up the pickplace machines. It is so high because the micro-via type of PCBs for 0.4mm BGAs is not a standard technology and setting up the PickPlace machine is manual work depending on the number of components. Usually it would even include the engineering cost for designing the new PCB, but I do that for free (because it is fun and not difficult if you already have a GTA04A4 design done). So this is my personal donation to the community... So if we want to produce 20 units, each one must cover 200€ of these setup costs. In addition to batch size dependent cost like chips (which also become cheaper if we buy more of them), energy cost for running the pickplace machines etc. I we reach a batch of 100 units, this one-time cost goes down to 40€ per unit. I.e. a saving of 160€ per unit (and even more by component cost savings). Just by s/20/100/. So please think again if you want to upgrade your GTA02 with a GTA04A5 board. If you are looking for a Letux 2804 (GTA04 complete) and don't own a GTA02, we still have a handful of used GTA02 devices with a GTA04A5-upgrade rebate. And there have been some generous offers recently by community members for GTA02 devices that collect dust... They are also nice candidates for a GTA04A5 upgrade. Please note that the GTA02 is the only 5 years old smart phone where you can get full support and even a motherboard upgrade. This is very unique and sort of modular concept. So how will be the future of the GTA04? It will be further supported and we are working heavily to get as much of the kernel modifications into mainline. The 3.12.7 kernel is available and working quite well. And we are focussing on getting the device tree to support everything in 3.14. As soon as this big construction site becomes a little more stable I hope that we can better address the remaining power management aspects of OMAP3 again. Currently there is so much change in certain subsystems that things change while you are analysing and the results may no longer be valid after some kernel upgrade... For 3D GPU support we are waiting that TI releases a new 3.12/13/14 compatible SDK. Improving Replicant 4 is also on our to-do list, but we could need some help. QtMoko is something Radek should comment about, if he wants to upgrade the kernel. Nikolaus ___ Community mailing list commun...@openphoenux.org http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo/community http://www.openphoenux.org ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Community] GTA04A5 / Letux 2804
Am 16.01.2014 um 17:55 schrieb Michael Spacefalcon: Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: So please think again if you want to upgrade your GTA02 with a GTA04A5 board. Upgrade? Surely you must have meant downgrade - why would anyone in his or her right mind voluntarily give up a device that is 100% freeable down to the modem (GTA02) for a Qualcomm-based closed proprietary product like yours? Why do you assume that your (IMHO unlawful) procedure done to free the Calypso is not possible for a Qualcomm modem? So I think your conclusion is just based on your pure incapability to do the same. Sorry, couldn't resist. Why? ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: QtMoko v58 with 2.6.39 kernel and improved power management
Hi Radek, Am 12.12.2013 um 10:09 schrieb Radek Polak: Hi, QtMoko v58 for Freerunner is now out! You can download here [1] and visit our homepage [2] for more info. +++ Btw - anyone has working GPS on Freerunner? I cant get fix and it seems it's not SW problem. It would be nice to have it working again... Some knowledge from GTA02 service: a) the U.FL-cable of the GPS antenna module can easily be broken (where it is soldered to the GPS antenna module PCB) b) there is no capacitor on the MMC clock line (this results in 63*25 MHz noise) - was fixed in factory on A6 and A7 boards Does it work with an external antenna? BR, Nikolaus___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: the second operating system
Hi, Am 09.12.2013 um 19:32 schrieb Norayr Chilingarian: There is an osnews article named The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone, and I guess some people in this list may be interested. Not that we didn't know about it, just wanted to share an article with you. http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone you may not have noticed, but this article was already linked and discussed on this list before: http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2013-November/069089.html BR, Nikolaus PS: you car electronics may also run several (embedded) operating system. And the SIM card in your phone also runs a third one. Security is not inverse proportional to the number of OSes. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Fundraising for GTA04A5 has started!
Hi all, after solving some issues, we finally have started the fundraising campaign for producing more GTA04 boards (revision GTA04A5 having improvements). So the story continues! And we have good news for those who don't own or want to cannibalise their GTA01/02: we have stock of a bunch of used GTA02 devices. For details, please refer to: http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/2013-November/000646.html http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04A5 Happy Freerunning, Nikolaus Schaller ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Fundraising for GTA04A5 has started!
Hi, Am 22.11.2013 um 12:17 schrieb Dominic Walden: What are the likely power consumption improvements in the A5? There are some power consumption related things planned: 1. separate the GPIOs to control power of RS232 and IrDA so that both can be switched off in suspend state - this should save another 3-5mA. 2. have a GPIO monitor if the modem is turned on/off 3. use a GPIO to control WiFi power and not an LDO (so we can switch off the LDO) 4. replace compass and gyroscope by other chips that need less power Or is that mainly a software issue? Yes, there appears to be still much in the software an it appears that the SoC is no completely powered down. And what we are evaluating is the risk to swap the USB3322 (USB PHY) with a Texas instruments recommended replacement. The problem is that we can't build a protoype to test that other chip and installing either one has too tight space contraints. What will the relationship be between this and the Neo900? Will the Neo900 motherboard include some of the upgraded A5 components? Depends. The Neo900 is a new design based on experiences from the GTA04 project, and we try to share some components. But the Neo900 is planned to be compatible to the Fremantle software which needs to add some hardware that the GTA04 simply does not need (e.g. a second audio codec). Good luck, I will be watching with interest (and might put some money down). Tnx, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Fundraising for GTA04A5 has started!
Am 22.11.2013 um 15:46 schrieb Pascal Gosselin: What about GPS specifications ? My company would have interest in multiple units if the GPS chip was capable of 5Hz or greater updates. Recent GPS chipsets all seem to have GPS/GLONASS capability, which is very nice to have. I think we can not easily change to use something different than the WSG0084 using a Sirf IV. Unfortunately, the latest datasheet still isn't telling anything about the max. update rate and any updates in the firmware: http://markmail.org/thread/xwvhveabo3ql3mf6 The problem of swapping in a different module is that we have to touch the pcb layout more than planned. And since the camera module is sitting above, we must take care that the replacement module has almost exactly the same dimensions. Finally, it must be easy to purchase it. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Fundraising for GTA04A5 has started!
Am 22.11.2013 um 17:21 schrieb Lukas Märdian: Am 22.11.2013 23:23, schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller: Am 22.11.2013 um 15:46 schrieb Pascal Gosselin: What about GPS specifications ? My company would have interest in multiple units if the GPS chip was capable of 5Hz or greater updates. Recent GPS chipsets all seem to have GPS/GLONASS capability, which is very nice to have. I think we can not easily change to use something different than the WSG0084 using a Sirf IV. Unfortunately, the latest datasheet still isn't telling anything about the max. update rate and any updates in the firmware: On page 15 it says: 3: Defined as current drawn during continuous operation at a 10Hz update rate. Could this be a hint, that the module can actually operate at a max. update rate of 10Hz? Unfortunately no. I also stumbled over this sentence but I think they mean the update rate of the current probe, i.e. they did measuer the supply current 10 times per second. Is there any GTA04 board, which already has a W2SG0084i installed? Yes, about 50 or 80 (I don't remember the exact figure) since the W2SG0004i was EOL and could easily be swapped. Unfortunately we don't have a mapping to serial numbers. If so, we could try to query/set the output rate according to chap. 5 NMEA Input Messages, using the message ID 103. That one unfortunately only allows to specify the reporting rate in multiples of 1 second, i.e. up to 255 seconds. But not 1/10 sec. Also chap. 6.2 OSP Input Messages look interesting, especially message 0x81. Cheers, Lukas Maybe someone knows a good technical contact to Wi2Wi? I only have very indirect support though a distributor. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04A5 ready to be pre-ordered
Hi, Am 13.11.2013 um 22:46 schrieb thomasg: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 11:20 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: Am 08.11.2013 um 23:08 schrieb Michael Parchet: Hello, Sorry I found only GTA04A4 but not GTA04A5 with LTE for pre order and price. Why If you look at the date (22 janvier 2013), a long time has passed. We did start for preorders back then, but there wasn't enough response. So it was put on hold some weeks later. In the meantime the list cited below is still almost correct, but not everything. Now, we are *thinking* about restarting the project with *maybe* LTE (option). Hi Nikolaus, glad to hear that, I'd be really happy to see a new device that might leave the exterior of the Neo's behind for something better. No, the GTA04A5 will keep the Neo's exterior as it is. It is still a motherboard replacement. But as before you may be able to design your own case around it. A long time ago, people were interested in replacing the Calypso with a Telit modem for future devices; as you might think about a new platform, I wonder if the Telit modems might be considered, still? Initially we tried with the Telit modems but they were not flat enough and we would have had to sacrifice the speaker (handsfree). Fortunately we found the GTM601 which is used in the GTA04A1-A4. The big difference to the Qualcomms is, that the user documentation is much better, including a freely available full AT command reference [2] and more. They also have Qualcomm inside. They have, for example, the new L910 [1] with LTE support, and as they aren't used by most major phone makers, I'd assume that they might be more reasonable in delivering smaller, reasonably priced, batches. It also includes GNSS (GPS, GLONASS) support (with documented AT interface), and has VoLTE support (voice over LTE), which makes it reasonably future-proof. With an 28.2 * 28.2 * 2.2 mm (LGA 144) package it isn't exactly tiny, but not that much larger than alternatives I think. Their modules are all pin-compatible, so the NA and EU variants, as well as 2G, 3G, 4G variants can be replaced without further changes. The same holds with the Cinterion PxS8 modules. Documentation is also available w/o problems. We are currently evaluating all these options, but there are technical and commercial aspects to consider. E.g. the Telit xE910 modems are 10% thicker and likely still too thick. An extra wish would be using a main SoC with ARM Mali graphics, so free GPU drivers would be realistic (in contrast to all other options it seems). I'd certainly be in. There is no plan to change the CPU since the OMAP3/DM3730 is still the best mobile processor that can easily be purchased in small quantities. And (despite the GPU) it is very well documented and supported by mainline linux. So please don't expect a wonder to happen... Just small steps and improvements. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04A5 ready to be pre-ordered
Am 08.11.2013 um 23:08 schrieb Michael Parchet: Hello, Sorry I found only GTA04A4 but not GTA04A5 with LTE for pre order and price. Why If you look at the date (22 janvier 2013), a long time has passed. We did start for preorders back then, but there wasn't enough response. So it was put on hold some weeks later. In the meantime the list cited below is still almost correct, but not everything. Now, we are *thinking* about restarting the project with *maybe* LTE (option). Restarting means to think about all details - and decide if it is now a better time to do it. You know world economy has changed, attitudes for openness, freerom have changed and people are no longer following that much the top 2 brands. I.e. please wait for a new announcement. BR, Nikolaus Thanks for your answer Best regards mparchet Le mardi 22 janvier 2013, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller a écrit : Hi all, finally, the GTA04A5 batch is ready for production and we are open for pre-orders through http://www.handheld-linux.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04 What will be different to GTA04A4? * the GPS receiver can provide a 1 second impulse interrupt to the CPU * the infrared receiver can be independently powered off (it was alternatively powered with RS232 before) * some sensors have been upgraded to non-obsolete versions (e.g. BMA180 is out of production) * WLAN/BT power controlled through a GPIO (so that VAUX4 is now free for other use) * 6-pin ZIF connector for external keyboard or other I2C devices * it is possible to use a new earpiece (from Knowles) so that we finally can offer a complete case kit * the GPS antenna switch has been redesigned * improved headset detection hardware * CPU will be always 1 GHz and Memory 512MB RAM / 1GB NAND * UMTS module may have newer firmware inside (tbc.) * there is a plan for a 3D printed case (approx. 50 EUR) with integrated touch pen * there will be 3D data (STEP) of the PCB and components so that you can design your own case that fits with a micrometer precision :) Preliminary (there may still come minor changes coming from PCB Layout tuning and from first production feedback) schematics can be found here: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/downloads/48/ -- hns ___ 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
Re: [Community] GTA04A5 ready to be pre-ordered
Am 07.11.2013 um 13:03 schrieb Benjamin Deering: On 11/06/2013 06:02 PM, NeilBrown wrote: . Maybe in the spirit of openness a vote might be instructive. Does anyone actually want stereo aux input through the 2.5mm jack? Does anyone actually want to listen to the FM radio without wasting power? (no and yes for me). Thanks, NeilBrown Is there a similar possibility for the neo900? If so, my answer would also be no and yes. The Neo900 has FM RX + TX (because the N900 has). I see that Silicon Labs has a chip that does FM and weather band (si4739), but without transmit. If there is no place to cram a tx antenna, maybe this would be a good option. It looks like they are almost pin compatible - I think am antenna would replace tx antenna. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Community] GTA04A5 ready to be pre-ordered
Am 07.11.2013 um 00:02 schrieb NeilBrown: On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:20:01 +0100 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: Seeing you are considering trying again for the GTA04a5, I thought I might re-visit these issues: Am 22.01.2013 um 12:29 schrieb NeilBrown: On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:02:38 +0100 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: Preliminary (there may still come minor changes coming from PCB Layout tuning and from first production feedback) schematics can be found here: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/downloads/48/ Thanks! One thing that has always bothered me a little bit is that the FM transceiver is wired for digital IO rather than analog. That means that the CPU needs to be active to copy sound around in order to listen to the radio. If the LOUT/ROUT pins were connected to the line-in pins on the audio chip you should be able to listen to the radio with the CPU off. Yes, that should be possible. It would mean that you couldn't get the same fidelity if you wanted a digital copy of the broadcast, but I wonder if that really matters. What is the expected use-case of the FM radio? If it is just for listening to, the current config doesn't seem to be optimal. Well, the TX direction is more interesting since it can play sound (incl. navigation information) to a car radio. By using text2speech. And mix with sound. Connecting to the Audio in is a problem since we have already connected them to the headset jack. So that it is possible to record sound fed into the headset jack. I.e. portable audio recorder... Is the portable audio recorder use case more valuable than the FM radio without excessive power usage use case? I would be happy to sacrifice the stereo-aux-in if it meant I could listen to the radio for longer. For the price of another analogue switch like the one you use to isolate the headset outputs (U703) you could support both FM and AUX inputs. Maybe that price is too high?? I will check. It is probably less a cost issue (such chips are around 50ct) but space and (shielded) wiring. But since headset jack and the Si4721 are not far away from each other it could work. And the FM-analog out are multiplexed with the digital interface on the Si4721. So we would need some analog/digital switching circuits where we don't have space for :( I wouldn't suggest enabling both the analogue and digital interfaces. Just the analogue. Digital might be nice but isn't really necessary. Well, it gives a better S/N since the signals are already A/D converted in the Si4721 and just need to be arecord file if you want to capture signals. Related: have you thought about connecting the bluetooth PCM interface directly to the TPS chip in the same way that the Modem's PCM interface is connected? That should allow the use of a bluetooth headset on a phone call without any CPU intervention. Yes, that could work to add these 2 wires (at least in the schematics - I don't know if we can squeeze them into the PCB wire hairball). And I have checked that these two pins at the TPS65950 come up in GPIO (input) mode, i.e. don't interfere. One issue could be that there is no BSP clock for that interface on the TPS side. I.e. it is shared with some other interface and I am not sure how to operate it correctly. So we might have to wire up something else to really make it work. The clock for the bluetooth interface and the voice interface are shared. So the clock from the GSM module drives the whole chain from bluetooth through TWL4030 to GSM. Well, we likely can't use the BT PCM to play music from memory? I put it on the checklist as well. Just thinking out loud - looking forward to the A5 being a reality! So I find both proposals really good, but I hesitate to add them... may need a lot of work to add, and may finally not work. The problem with hardware is that we have to do it 100% right or risk scrapping a big set of PCBs or costly rework in the production line. Unfortunately there is no apt-get upgrade or git pull for the wires on a PCB... :-) I'm waiting for the day when a 3D printer can print a fully populated multi-layer PCB (under voice command of course). Me too. Incl. printing the wires and transistors on a Si chip :) Maybe in the spirit of openness a vote might be instructive. Does anyone actually want stereo aux input through the 2.5mm jack? Does anyone actually want to listen to the FM radio without wasting power? (no and yes for me). Thanks, NeilBrown ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware
Am 16.10.2013 um 19:31 schrieb Timo Juhani Lindfors: Balint Szente bal...@szentedwg.ro writes: Isn't the situation the same with osmocombb as well? Based on what is written here: http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/LegalAspects#Usingmodifiedphonesoncarriernetworks can osmocombb considered free software in FSF's or OSI's definition? What is not clear for me is that can a software be FSF/OSI free but illegal to use? Free is a term only considering copyright. I.e. it is licenced under copyleft. But general usage of some hardware may be regulated by many other laws. Customs, export, radio emissions, safety etc. Everything in life is more or less regulated. And in most cases you are happy that it is (look e.g. at aviation regulation and safety). Afaik you can use it legally if you connect it directly to your own base station. If you connect it by shielded cable or if you place both in a big shielded box. I.e. if the spurious emissions stay below some defined level and don't disturb other services (which includes the public GSM network). ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Kickstarter: Open Source Graphics Processor (GPU)
Am 09.10.2013 um 22:29 schrieb Raphael Wimmer: Sounds interesting (in the long term): Complete Verilog implementation of a 2D/ 3D graphics processor capable of OpenGL and D3D w/ full test suite http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/725991125/open-source-graphics-processor-gpu Oh, yes. That is what we need for our next generation Open Source OMAP chip! Should work with both Altera and Xilinx FPGAs Goals: $200k for 2D, $400k for 3D, ... Well, $400k for 3D looks a little difficult to achieve, and 2D only can be done by any standard CPU quite quickly? It currently has only a PCI interface, however. Well, by their open source nature it can be changed (by anyone experienced enough and having access to work with Verilog). The main fear I have is that there is not enough funding because nobody can really use it in daily work without investing another lots of money (to integrate the FPGA with something). BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Kickstarter: Open Source Graphics Processor (GPU)
Am 12.10.2013 um 19:23 schrieb Ian Stirling: On 10/12/2013 05:43 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: The main fear I have is that there is not enough funding because nobody can really use it in daily work without investing another lots of money (to integrate the FPGA with something). BR, Nikolaus Speaking in generalities - FPGAs use lots more power for a given task than dedicated hardware. They are also a lot more expensive. This is unlikely to be $400K investment, then $20 per chip. More like 400K investment leading to something that works on a $1000 FPGA, and uses several times the power of a comparable device. Is this interesting - in principle - yes - combined with an ARM licence, it could lead to a moderately low risk CPU, if someone were willing to put up the several-many million to make a CPU with it on die. Off-die GPUs are an utter non-starter for mobile devices. Has anyone experience with the Zynq-7000? It has dual Cortex A9 with VFP/Neon - but apparently lacks a GPU... Such a combination could be comparable with OMAP3/4 in computation power. Maybe not the best one for a handheld mobile device, but for a tablet. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 06.10.2013 um 08:42 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller: Hi Bob, Am 05.10.2013 um 12:12 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 07:50 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Neither the Openmoko, OpenPandora, Ubuntu Edge, GTA04 are open hardware - and never were intended to be. That isn't what your OpenPhoenux page says: Open Hardware Devices. Letux 2804 / GTA04 Smartphone http://www.openphoenux.org/ Am 05.10.2013 um 20:10 schrieb Martin Jansa: Using open-hardware-but-without-CAD-files is maybe less misleading for people who has great understanding of all free/open definitions used in the world (and wikipedia), but also more misleading for normal people. Can you agree on the following? 1. you are talking about open SOURCE hardware (which I call free hardware) http://www.ohanda.org/ = Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance 2. OpenPhoenux was and is never claiming to be open SOURCE hardware (like Openmoko, OpenPandora, Ubuntu Edge, RasPi [1], ... never did) And some organizations fostering open SOURCE hardware and free hardware are falsely recognized (e.g. by media) to cover ANY open hardware? -- hns [1]: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=45583p=360559 PS: I have found an old definition of Open Hardware from 1999. IMHO well thought and interesting to read... http://www.opencollector.org/Whyfree/definitions.html http://www.opencollector.org/Whyfree/ If we had known this before, we could have saved this long flamewar. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 08:28 schrieb Paul Wise: On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: You are mixing Free dom with Free Beer. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html But: some people are able to jump out of the window. So do you do as well? I followed the FSF and Debian out the window a long time ago and I am fairly happy with the result. Yes, but they all decided themselves to volunteer to contribute to FSF and Debian. For no payment (or by being paid by others). And I have done that as well. But it was always *my* decision to volunteer or not. And that is not something we can discuss or you can convince me. Strange argument... jOERG is right... To me his mail was a bizarre overreaction to a request for clarification of your reasons for wanting to keep goldelico in control of gta04 production. I agree with him. We don't owe the community anything beyond what we have voluntarily done or will do. In general the offer of Free projects is: look, here is something others have piled up in the past years. If you want to use it, please use it. But you are obliged to give back your changes to support the community. You are argueing from an egocentric point of view: look, there is something, others have piled up in the past years. I want to use it. So they are obliged to give me everything I think I need (even if you don't really need it) to support me or others. At least this is what I read from rah's and your arguments. The request for clarification was probably not needed though, you have made it fairly clear over a few threads over the years that you aren't interested in making the gta04 Free Hardware as rah and myself appear to define it. I simply don't believe in the Free Hardware ideology. The reason is that there is the idea of an allmende or community behind, where everyone gets back as much as he/she invests by volunteer work. This is good - in theory. With Free Hardware I simply don't see that being balanced. I.e. you can't expect to get back enough high quality volunteer contributions from the general public to balance what you have to invest yourself to get something 100% done. And hardware must be finished 100% at some deadline (contrary to community software projects - just send out 3.12-rc4). The GTA02-core project has clearly demonstrated that some years ago. The engineering community development model does not work for hardware. So there is no need for Free hardware licences to regulate the interworking of a big worldwide engineering team. Let's say it with some perspective: everybody should do what he/she can do best. E.g. donate money so that experts can live from that and invest their time to develop great hardware that allows to run as much free software as possible (and is well enough documented for that purpose - but not more). This does not need Free Hardware in your definition. So end of discussion for me, I'll try to avoid replying to any further mails on the gta04 topic. Yes, there is no need for discussions about the freedom of GTA04. But technical discussions are always welcome. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 12:12 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 07:50 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Neither the Openmoko, OpenPandora, Ubuntu Edge, GTA04 are open hardware - and never were intended to be. That isn't what your OpenPhoenux page says: Open Hardware Devices. Letux 2804 / GTA04 Smartphone http://www.openphoenux.org/ You're also contradicting your own previous statements: I see the role of GDC [Golden Delicious Computers] to provide future open hardware but remain software agnostic http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2012-May/066835.html On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 09:11 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: I simply don't believe in the Free Hardware ideology. This admission makes your announcement here seem deceitful: we are happy that we can make an announcement to the Free and Open Hardware Community, right in time for X-mas and New Year: We have finally tested, understood and patched the bugs of the first GTA04 sample board http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/pipermail/discussion/2010-December/006585.html Hm, I wonder what you want to prove? Shaking heads only... -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 14:14 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 14:07 +0200, Sebastian Krzyszkowiak wrote: I can agree that the usage of free hardware term may be a bit confusing. Describing the GTA04 as Open Hardware on openphoenux.org is, I believe, not just confusing but dishonest. Who did put you into the position to make such offensive judgements? -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The open hardware phone project that's had the most interest
Am 05.10.2013 um 17:06 schrieb Sebastian Krzyszkowiak: On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Pascal Gosselin pas...@aeroteknic.com wrote: If technically feasible That's the problem. ++ ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The open hardware phone project that's had the most interest
Am 05.10.2013 um 17:14 schrieb Pascal Gosselin: On 2013-10-05 11:06 AM, Sebastian Krzyszkowiak wrote: On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Pascal Gosselin pas...@aeroteknic.com wrote: If technically feasible That's the problem. What immediately jumps to my mind is the small number of pins for the modules, forcing everything to be based on serial interfaces. Look at what MIPI.org has defined since 10 years. Display, Camera, Modem are all serial interfaces to use less wires. But nobody (not Apple or Samsung or HTC or Motogoogle or Micronokiasoft) has done a modular device. It's probably not realistic to be able to change a CPU module that way for example. Dicy for a camera module too. But for tons of other I/O applications, I think it's quite feasible. The guy behind this seems hesitant to bring it to Kickstarter. Maybe he's got VC plans instead. Maybe he has no plans... ! I would assume that his plan is to get publicity for his person. Not for the project. Promise people infinite life or flying to the moon and they will follow... -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The open hardware phone project that's had the most interest
Am 05.10.2013 um 17:19 schrieb joerg Reisenweber: In the last 50 years I've seen only _one_ truly modular concept for electronic circuits that would basically meet the flexibility requirements you are asking for: http://makezine.com/2011/12/08/the-braun-lectron-system-retro-circuit- dominoes/ My father did own one - unfortunately I don't know where it is now. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 14:14 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 14:07 +0200, Sebastian Krzyszkowiak wrote: I can agree that the usage of free hardware term may be a bit confusing. Describing the GTA04 as Open Hardware on openphoenux.org is, I believe, not just confusing but dishonest. Ok, what would be a better wording for a well documented hardware so open in documentation that everyone can write and install any free and open operating system he/she likes? I.e. there is no documentation hidden voluntarily that is needed to reach this goal (you don't need Gerber files to make Linux, OpenBSD, whatever work). Maybe the usual distinction made between Open and Free software holds here as well? Open does not necessarily mean Free(dom). But open is definitively the opposite of closed. So what is wrong with describing it as Open Hardware on openphoenux.org? -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 17:42 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller: Am 05.10.2013 um 14:14 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 14:07 +0200, Sebastian Krzyszkowiak wrote: I can agree that the usage of free hardware term may be a bit confusing. Describing the GTA04 as Open Hardware on openphoenux.org is, I believe, not just confusing but dishonest. Ok, what would be a better wording for a well documented hardware so open in documentation that everyone can write and install any free and open operating system he/she likes? I.e. there is no documentation hidden voluntarily that is needed to s/voluntarily/intentionally/s reach this goal (you don't need Gerber files to make Linux, OpenBSD, whatever work). Maybe the usual distinction made between Open and Free software holds here as well? Open does not necessarily mean Free(dom). But open is definitively the opposite of closed. So what is wrong with describing it as Open Hardware on openphoenux.org? -- hns ___ 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
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 19:37 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 17:17 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 05.10.2013 um 12:12 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 07:50 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Neither the Openmoko, OpenPandora, Ubuntu Edge, GTA04 are open hardware - and never were intended to be. That isn't what your OpenPhoenux page says: You're also contradicting your own previous statements: This admission makes your announcement here seem deceitful: Hm, I wonder what you want to prove? I want you to stop describing the GTA04 as open hardware. Ah, you are an idelogic activist. I should have taken that into account from the beginning of any discussion. Because prefer to discuss with common sense and not needing to weigh one's words ... You seem to be aware that there is a difference between what you describe as open hardware and what others describe as open hardware and yet you ignore this discrepancy and continue as if what you're saying is true because it accords with your own personal definition. Did you consider the option that all others may be wrong? And, please give me the officially approved definition of Open Hardware by ISO or some other official standardization body. If that exists, I will follow it. Otherwise there are several personal definitions. I want to make it undeniably clear that describing the GTA04 as open hardware is wrong. This is your personal opinion. I only agree that it is not Free Hardware. And since it is obviously not closed hardware (like an iPhone, Lumia etc.) it follows from logic that it must be open hardware. On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 07:50 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: If I remember there was a printout of the ssl code on paper, exported as a book from the US and then typed in again by volunteers to found openssl. Was it non.open source? It was not open source. This issue has been discussed previously. The source must be in the form customarily used for making modifications to it. This is an important factor. Why? I see the distinction between closed and open not in the convenience of sharing information. From the GNU GPL 2: 'The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it' preferred != required https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html From the Apache License 2.0: 'Source form shall mean the preferred form for making modifications' https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html preferred != required From the MPL 2.0: '“Source Code Form” means the form of the work preferred for making modifications.' https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/ preferred != required From the CDDL 1.0: '“Source Code” means (a) the common form of computer software code in which modifications are made and (b) associated documentation included in or with such code.' http://web.archive.org/web/20090305064954/http://www.sun.com/cddl/cddl.html The common form of Schematics is a piece of paper with lines, circles and arcs. If a software company refused access to their software's source code in electronic text form and only released it in paper form (or in the form of a bitmap image inside a PDF), that software would not be considered open source. The phrase that seems most appropriate for such software, I think, would be encumbered source. Wikipedia gives a fair description of open(/free) hardware: 'Open-source hardware consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open design movement.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_hardware And of the open design movement, it says this: 'Open design is the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. ... The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation. That is an description of the status quo and not a normative definition of Open Hardware. The goals and philosophy are identical to that of the open-source movement, but are implemented for the development of physical products rather than software.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_design Wikipedia is not a definition. It is a description of how authors see the world. The Hardware Freedom Day website states the following: 'Goals and philosophy of the Open Hardware movement are closely aligned with the ones of the Free Software movement.' http://www.hfday.org/open-hardware They call themselves Freedom Day but try to coin the word Open Hardware. I would be happy if they would talk about Free Hardware. The free hardware and open hardware communities derive their ethos from free software and open-source software. Access to source files in the preferred format for making modifications is therefore an important requirement for free/open hardware just as it is for free/open software. Again, what is the difference between Free and Open
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 20:10 schrieb Martin Jansa: On Sat, Oct 05, 2013 at 05:37:59PM +, Bob Ham wrote: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 17:17 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 05.10.2013 um 12:12 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-10-05 at 07:50 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Neither the Openmoko, OpenPandora, Ubuntu Edge, GTA04 are open hardware - and never were intended to be. That isn't what your OpenPhoenux page says: You're also contradicting your own previous statements: This admission makes your announcement here seem deceitful: Hm, I wonder what you want to prove? I want you to stop describing the GTA04 as open hardware. You seem to be aware that there is a difference between what you describe as open hardware and what others describe as open hardware and yet you ignore this discrepancy and continue as if what you're saying is true because it accords with your own personal definition. I'm sorry but I think you're doing the same, just from the other side. From this thread it's clear that different people understand open hardware differently, but that doesn't mean that they are wrong or dishonest. open hardware isn't AFAIK any registered sticker or trade mark with clearly defined meaning, so it's pity that different people associate it with different meanings/freedoms, but that's not their fault. ++ Your source code citations from licenses are nice, but license text is the right place where you should find definition of what's meant by term source code, OpenPhoenux page doesn't say that it's using terminilogy from ohanda or oshwa. ++ and not from GPL or BSD or MIT licenses etc. We use CC and it defines: THE WORK (AS DEFINED BELOW) IS PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC LICENSE (CCPL OR LICENSE). Work means the literary and/or artistic work offered under the terms of this License including without limitation any production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression including digital form, such as a book, pamphlet and other writing; a lecture, address, sermon or other work of the same nature; a dramatic or dramatico-musical work; ... I.e. paper is explicitly included and all forms of its expression. open hardware is imho closest term you can use to describe advantage of gta04 for other people asking why you don't use cheaper android phone or why they should buy gta04. or even more closed buy an iPhone or Lumia... Using open-hardware-but-without-CAD-files is maybe less misleading for people who has great understanding of all free/open definitions used in the world (and wikipedia), but also more misleading for normal people. Your accusations sounds like if Nikolaus is using OHANDA clearly defined label without fulfilling requirements defined by OHANDA. ++ this confirms my own answer (was written before reading yours). Tnx -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 04.10.2013 um 19:48 schrieb Bob Ham: On Thu, 2013-10-03 at 21:32 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 03.10.2013 um 20:09 schrieb Bob Ham: I would note that the GTA04 is not a Free Hardware project. Yes that is correct. It is not Free Hardware in the strict FSF definition I don't think FSF has a definition of Free Hardware. Possibly we're ascribing different meanings to the phrase. Yes they have one and even do a certification (which would not be possible with a definition): http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-criteria http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Hardware/Certification_criteria I'm using Free Hardware to refer to free or libre hardware with the four freedoms, as described by the (unfortunately named) Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance: http://www.ohanda.org/ All of them have been as open as it could be practically done at the moment when some design decisions had to be made. You've previously said that the reason you refuse to release the hardware source files, making the device more open, is because you expect money in return. Are you now saying restricting access to the hardware source files is somehow a design decision? ??? I already told you that the hardware source files are open and public. Just not in the format you would like to see them but you are free to convert them. Nobody is taking this freedom from you... Here I am referring to the typical discussion about binary blobs and firmware drivers - because we decide(d) to use chips we can buy. E.g. the WLAN chip. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 04.10.2013 um 21:26 schrieb Bob Ham: On Fri, 2013-10-04 at 20:16 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 04.10.2013 um 19:48 schrieb Bob Ham: I don't think FSF has a definition of Free Hardware. Possibly we're ascribing different meanings to the phrase. Yes they have one and even do a certification (which would not be possible with a definition): http://www.fsf.org/news/endorsement-criteria http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Hardware/Certification_criteria They don't use the term Free Hardware to describe what they're endorsing. Yes, you are right. I'm using Free Hardware to refer to free or libre hardware with the four freedoms, as described by the (unfortunately named) Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance: http://www.ohanda.org/ All of them have been as open as it could be practically done at the moment when some design decisions had to be made. You've previously said that the reason you refuse to release the hardware source files, making the device more open, is because you expect money in return. Are you now saying restricting access to the hardware source files is somehow a design decision? ??? I already told you that the hardware source files are open and public. The source files are not public. The only thing that is public is a PDF file containing bitmap images generated from other (Eagle?) source files. The other source files themselves are not available. Yes. I don't understand how you can maintain that the source files are public. If I remember there was a printout of the ssl code on paper, exported as a book from the US and then typed in again by volunteers to found openssl. Was it non.open source? Just not in the format you would like to see them but you are free to convert them. You don't seem to understand that the difference in format is critical. It is the difference that prevents the GTA04 being described as free hardware. Yes, I don't really understand, because I don't care that much about sophistry and ideology. I want to get things materialize. And for me any printout that I can read is open source. A missing printout is closed source. Tertium non datur. By your logic, all binary software executables are open because the format can be converted into assembler. While it may be true that one can disassemble binaries and modify the resulting assembler, this is not what we're referring to by the phrase free software. Similarly, the GTA04 is not free hardware. And by the way, I looked into your idea of scanning PCB schematics. It's bogus. I tried to see whether any suitable software was available but here's what I found instead: there is no direct way to translate pure graphical data to an intelligent schematic, EDA schematics contain a lot of intelligent information that simply is not available on a sheet of paper http://www.edaboard.com/thread8258.html No, nothing like that exists. ... Such a tool would be difficult to create, and impossible to realistically support considering the multitude of ways even a single IC could be represented. ... In short, it's unrealistic. http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/66432/any-research-to-turn-schematics-as-a-picture-into-a-simulation Here I am referring to the typical discussion about binary blobs and firmware drivers - because we decide(d) to use chips we can buy. You're obviously using the phrase free hardware to mean hardware that can run with entirely free software. This seems to be non-normal usage. For example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_Freedom_Day Hm. That doesn't tell me much. Neither the Openmoko, OpenPandora, Ubuntu Edge, GTA04 are open hardware - and never were intended to be. They are well documented hardware for free and open software. Generally, I agree with jOERG's comments. If you don't like this situation, start your own project and make it open hardware (in your definition), but don't expect us to do that step for you. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 05.10.2013 um 05:09 schrieb Paul Wise: On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 2:16 AM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: I already told you that the hardware source files are open and public. I agree with Bob Ham on this. The source files are not public and even the PDFs are not open, they are licensed under a non-commercial license (CC-BY-NC-SA). You are mixing Free dom with Free Beer. Even the BeagleBone Black people are able to release some sort of hardware source files: https://github.com/CircuitCo/-BeagleBone-Black-RevA5/ Yes, they did decide to do it that way. But: some people are able to jump out of the window. So do you do as well? Strange argument... jOERG is right... -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Hi, Am 03.10.2013 um 05:15 schrieb Stefan Monnier: Production problems show almost immediately, even if there is only one person. And they show after making let's say 20 units. As you know, that has not been the experience with the GTA02, where audio quality output (works fine for line-out but not for headphones), GPS issues, and the 1024 issue have appeared over time and some of them took a long time to track down and fix. I can bet that your tests for GTA04 did not catch problems along the lines of power consumption issues that will only show up in particular usage scenarios that will only be used by the customer number 1462. Yes, I agree that such tests can only be found by a field test (beta test or however you like to call it). But they are not production problems, but problems in the circuit design. With production I mean making n identical copies of a piece of hardware. And a production problem is if those are not really identical. Compared with software, they are not compiler of kernel problems but in the source code of some application. Running field tests is a common practice in hardware development and that is why some guys did loose their new iPhones before they were announced in some bar... And even Apple did not find the antenna problems before product launch. So this type of bugs need a big community of persons really using a design. Also, if you can upgrade the screen and the CPU separately, you might attract a few other users, who aren't so interested in Freedom but do like the idea of customizing their phones. That is a dream that is not realistic. Every display has a different connector (there is no standardization!). And every CPU has different signals and power supply needs. I.e. you can swap an OMAP3505 for an OMAP3530 or an DM3730 but nor for an OMAP4 or OMAP5 or Snapdragon or i.MX6. Because they are not designed for this way of use. I know. But I'm not talking about swapping the actual CPU or the actual display. I'm talking about swapping the CPU module or the display module. I.e. create a standardized module interface around off-the-shelf (i.e. non-standardized) components. Yes, there is even a standard for an interface between displays and CPU. Well, even two or three: MIPI, LVDS, HDMI/DVI. It would have its own cost (in money and in size), but in the long run, I hope the benefits of relying on standardized interfaces would make up for it. MIPI is already doing all this: http://www.mipi.org/specifications http://mipi.org/about-mipi/mipi-interfaces-mobile-platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Industry_Processor_Interface Everyone is there, ARM, TI, even Apple: http://www.mipi.org/member-directory But none of them is building modular devices. I wonder why. From what I can tell, Free Hardware projects don't benefit nearly enough from each other's efforts. Not sure we have enough Sisyphus around to keep them all alive. The problem for us is that we do not that easily get MIPI compliant components or documents (for members only) than others. And we have to use components that someone is willing to sell to us at a reasonable price. BTW: their monthly fees are public (different type of openness :): http://mipi.org/join-mipi -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 03.10.2013 um 20:09 schrieb Bob Ham: On Wed, 2013-10-02 at 23:15 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote: It would have its own cost (in money and in size), but in the long run, I hope the benefits of relying on standardized interfaces would make up for it. From what I can tell, Free Hardware projects don't benefit nearly enough from each other's efforts. Not sure we have enough Sisyphus around to keep them all alive. I would note that the GTA04 is not a Free Hardware project. Yes that is correct. It is not Free Hardware in the strict FSF definition, and it didn't ever try to be. Like the GTA01, GTA02 and the Ubuntu Edge (if it had reached its crowdfunding goals), Raspberry Pi, BeagleBoard, OpenPandora, ... All of them have been as open as it could be practically done at the moment when some design decisions had to be made. Yes, it is nice to have an unreachable goalto keep all those Sisyphus people working :) -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 26.09.2013 um 11:06 schrieb Parchet Michaël: Hello, Is there a device on production with witch I can choice the os I want install or install several os (multi boot) ? Almost. The GTA04A5 can go on production (again) as soon as we get enough orders. -- hns Best regards mparchet Le 25 sept. 2013 à 21:32, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com a écrit : Am 25.09.2013 um 20:45 schrieb Stefan Monnier: I don't see reliability as a problem because it depends on what type of reliability you are thinking of: component, software, hardware, production, or availability. Small production runs means very few people have a chance of discovering, let alone, fixing the various problems that can show up. Production problems show almost immediately, even if there is only one person. And they show after making let's say 20 units. I.e. it does not need to produce let's say 1000 units to find real production problems. And if you produce 1000 and find that 5 are bad, you don't worry as much as if you have 2 bad in 20. In essence it goes to a modular approach - but modular typically drives cost up (at least for the version having the highest production numbers) and is in strong contradiction with miniaturization of handheld devices. In my part of the world, phones have been getting bigger rather than smaller. Only in dimensions - but they became much slimmer in the same step. I.e. the volume has been constant. And while modularity has a cost, it can be offset by economies of scale (both in terms of production as in terms of developping/debugging the kernel support) if that module can be reused in more places. Free Software strives on standards and modularity. Of course it can. It is a matter of calculation. Also, if you can upgrade the screen and the CPU separately, you might attract a few other users, who aren't so interested in Freedom but do like the idea of customizing their phones. That is a dream that is not realistic. Every display has a different connector (there is no standardization!). And every CPU has different signals and power supply needs. I.e. you can swap an OMAP3505 for an OMAP3530 or an DM3730 but nor for an OMAP4 or OMAP5 or Snapdragon or i.MX6. Because they are not designed for this way of use. I'd be very happy to have a Free Phablet (and I actually wouldn't necessarily need it to have cell-phone connectivity, as long as VoIP works well), even if that's not my favorite form factor: at this stage, I'm willing to settle for anything smallish. It would be sufficient to bundle buying power (by summing up # of units for different projects), so that we get existing modules cheaper. I.e. if all projects would use let's say an DM3730+Memory, they still can be soldered into different devices. Or WLAN/BT and UMTS are already coming as SoC/MCP modules. Right. That is a lower-leve of modularity than EOMA but it provides similar benefits (not only direct cost, but also developmentdebugging). So the trick is to use a bigger shopping bag and make a different meal out if it every day. Exactly. The various Free Hardware communities need to pool their resources. Yes but I have no idea how this could happen. BR, Nikolaus ___ 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
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 26.09.2013 um 11:42 schrieb Parchet Michaël: Hello, Can you send me the URL for GTA04A5 ? https://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04 A5 is the board revision/variant: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/page/Versions/ Best regards mparchet Envoyé de mon iPhone Le 26 sept. 2013 à 11:18, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com a écrit : Am 26.09.2013 um 11:06 schrieb Parchet Michaël: Hello, Is there a device on production with witch I can choice the os I want install or install several os (multi boot) ? Almost. The GTA04A5 can go on production (again) as soon as we get enough orders. -- hns Best regards mparchet Le 25 sept. 2013 à 21:32, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com a écrit : Am 25.09.2013 um 20:45 schrieb Stefan Monnier: I don't see reliability as a problem because it depends on what type of reliability you are thinking of: component, software, hardware, production, or availability. Small production runs means very few people have a chance of discovering, let alone, fixing the various problems that can show up. Production problems show almost immediately, even if there is only one person. And they show after making let's say 20 units. I.e. it does not need to produce let's say 1000 units to find real production problems. And if you produce 1000 and find that 5 are bad, you don't worry as much as if you have 2 bad in 20. In essence it goes to a modular approach - but modular typically drives cost up (at least for the version having the highest production numbers) and is in strong contradiction with miniaturization of handheld devices. In my part of the world, phones have been getting bigger rather than smaller. Only in dimensions - but they became much slimmer in the same step. I.e. the volume has been constant. And while modularity has a cost, it can be offset by economies of scale (both in terms of production as in terms of developping/debugging the kernel support) if that module can be reused in more places. Free Software strives on standards and modularity. Of course it can. It is a matter of calculation. Also, if you can upgrade the screen and the CPU separately, you might attract a few other users, who aren't so interested in Freedom but do like the idea of customizing their phones. That is a dream that is not realistic. Every display has a different connector (there is no standardization!). And every CPU has different signals and power supply needs. I.e. you can swap an OMAP3505 for an OMAP3530 or an DM3730 but nor for an OMAP4 or OMAP5 or Snapdragon or i.MX6. Because they are not designed for this way of use. I'd be very happy to have a Free Phablet (and I actually wouldn't necessarily need it to have cell-phone connectivity, as long as VoIP works well), even if that's not my favorite form factor: at this stage, I'm willing to settle for anything smallish. It would be sufficient to bundle buying power (by summing up # of units for different projects), so that we get existing modules cheaper. I.e. if all projects would use let's say an DM3730+Memory, they still can be soldered into different devices. Or WLAN/BT and UMTS are already coming as SoC/MCP modules. Right. That is a lower-leve of modularity than EOMA but it provides similar benefits (not only direct cost, but also developmentdebugging). So the trick is to use a bigger shopping bag and make a different meal out if it every day. Exactly. The various Free Hardware communities need to pool their resources. Yes but I have no idea how this could happen. BR, Nikolaus ___ 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 ___ 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
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Hi Stefan, Am 25.09.2013 um 05:01 schrieb Stefan Monnier: The main problem I see with such Free and/or Open phone is the small production syndrome. Small productions mean high prices and low reliability, whereas we need reasonable prices and reliability. Yes, small production is the key problem. I don't see reliability as a problem because it depends on what type of reliability you are thinking of: component, software, hardware, production, or availability. Each one can also be achieved with small production batches and improves with experience of the team running such a project. So we need to focus on making larger production. For that, we need to widen the target market. Yes, this is the core idea behind the Neo900 project - find a new market for an almost existing design and modifying it a little while sharing as many components as possible. In essence the Letux 3704 and Letux 7004 projects are no different from that. I'm not sure how best to do that, but I think the key is in making products that can be used in more situations. E.g. the EOMA project comes to mind: a single SoC card can potentially be used in various devices (tablet, router, NAS, ...). If the core part of the hardware could be shared between communities such as Openmoko (free phone), Raspberry, etc.. then it'd be easier to get that core part produced at reasonable cost, and to have a reasonably reliable kernel running on it. In essence it goes to a modular approach - but modular typically drives cost up (at least for the version having the highest production numbers) and is in strong contradiction with miniaturization of handheld devices. And another factor is that producing anything in higher quantities in advance means that someone is willing to put more money on the table in advance, not knowing if the product finally sells. I.e. the financial risk goes up. We all know that there are 10 times as many who would like to have something different than what is available... And sometimes nobody wants what has been made available. Some other thought: it must not be a module that *we* produce (like EOMA) to get production numbers up. It would be sufficient to bundle buying power (by summing up # of units for different projects), so that we get existing modules cheaper. I.e. if all projects would use let's say an DM3730+Memory, they still can be soldered into different devices. Or WLAN/BT and UMTS are already coming as SoC/MCP modules. So the trick is to use a bigger shopping bag and make a different meal out if it every day. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone (right now)
Am 25.09.2013 um 20:45 schrieb Stefan Monnier: I don't see reliability as a problem because it depends on what type of reliability you are thinking of: component, software, hardware, production, or availability. Small production runs means very few people have a chance of discovering, let alone, fixing the various problems that can show up. Production problems show almost immediately, even if there is only one person. And they show after making let's say 20 units. I.e. it does not need to produce let's say 1000 units to find real production problems. And if you produce 1000 and find that 5 are bad, you don't worry as much as if you have 2 bad in 20. In essence it goes to a modular approach - but modular typically drives cost up (at least for the version having the highest production numbers) and is in strong contradiction with miniaturization of handheld devices. In my part of the world, phones have been getting bigger rather than smaller. Only in dimensions - but they became much slimmer in the same step. I.e. the volume has been constant. And while modularity has a cost, it can be offset by economies of scale (both in terms of production as in terms of developping/debugging the kernel support) if that module can be reused in more places. Free Software strives on standards and modularity. Of course it can. It is a matter of calculation. Also, if you can upgrade the screen and the CPU separately, you might attract a few other users, who aren't so interested in Freedom but do like the idea of customizing their phones. That is a dream that is not realistic. Every display has a different connector (there is no standardization!). And every CPU has different signals and power supply needs. I.e. you can swap an OMAP3505 for an OMAP3530 or an DM3730 but nor for an OMAP4 or OMAP5 or Snapdragon or i.MX6. Because they are not designed for this way of use. I'd be very happy to have a Free Phablet (and I actually wouldn't necessarily need it to have cell-phone connectivity, as long as VoIP works well), even if that's not my favorite form factor: at this stage, I'm willing to settle for anything smallish. It would be sufficient to bundle buying power (by summing up # of units for different projects), so that we get existing modules cheaper. I.e. if all projects would use let's say an DM3730+Memory, they still can be soldered into different devices. Or WLAN/BT and UMTS are already coming as SoC/MCP modules. Right. That is a lower-leve of modularity than EOMA but it provides similar benefits (not only direct cost, but also developmentdebugging). So the trick is to use a bigger shopping bag and make a different meal out if it every day. Exactly. The various Free Hardware communities need to pool their resources. Yes but I have no idea how this could happen. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Labour conditions and mineral sources
Hi kardan, Am 24.09.2013 um 04:52 schrieb kardan: Hi, I would like to add production stories to the website. Also more info about the companies that produces the prototypes so far would be nice. There is nothing available about hardware[1] or involved companies what I could put to the website. For production stories you can look into the youtube videos we have. But there isn't more raw material available and I don't think people want to invest time to dig into history. So we could work on better documenting future production runs. Have there been any requests so far or do I need to start from scratch? Is there a list with all the parts and selling companies somewhere? No. There have been several component sources, the main ones beingAvnet, DigiKey and Mouser as distributors and some have changed between. But if you buy at a supermarket, you just get the information these grapes are from spain, greece etc. and fulfill this or that quality criteria but no other details. So all we know is that all components are ROHS certified and lead-free solder paste has been used. Another story is that, there have been experiments with different solder pastes and flux to find out why there were production problems. AFAIK there is no documentation about that. But it turned out that the soldering process itself (hot air reflow vs. vapour phase reflow) is the most critical thing. But I am not sure if this approach leads to anything useful. It appears to me that you focus in the fair production aspect and want to /analyse/ what has been done 1-3 years ago. This IMHO does not help anything for the future, since a fair produced product must be /designed/ for fair production and when we started this topic was not yet known and popular as a goal at all. So if you want to see a GTA04 where each part of the production and device is documented you may even have to start to design a new one :( BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Fwd: [Community] 5th OpenPhoenux HardSoftware Workshop in Munich, Germany
Anfang der weitergeleiteten E-Mail: Von: Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com Datum: 11. September 2013 10:22:23 MESZ An: OpenPhoenux Community commun...@openphoenux.org Betreff: [Community] 5th OpenPhoenux HardSoftware Workshop in Munich, Germany Antwort an: OpenPhoenux Community commun...@openphoenux.org Hi all, we are happy to invite to the 5th Open(Phoenux) HardSoftware Workshop in Munich, Germany. The idea is a 2 days weekend meeting (quite informal) to discuss about many topics around open hardsoftware like Openmoko, GTA04 and other topics. It is a mix of presentations, tutorials, workshops and we also did have some soldering session. Since this quite well matches with the ideas and targets of the Openphoenux community, we have renamed it slightly this year to be an OpenPhoenux Workshop. For details please look at and pre-register (i.e. vote for a weekend and make proposals for topics): http://www.ohsw.org/ There you can also find the topics, slides and some videos from previous years. For this year's workhop, please suggest topics you are interested in (e.g. Neo900, future Kernel development, ...). Please note that this page is in German as it is (was) a Germany centric workshop in the past, but we are open to make it more international - if we have attendees from non-german speaking countries. BR, Nikolaus ___ Community mailing list commun...@openphoenux.org http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo/community http://www.openphoenux.org ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
Am 26.08.2013 um 16:24 schrieb Tomas Nackaerts: Hi all! I actually think this is a great idea! I always liked the N900 formfactor. But is it technically possible? I remember somebody mention that the option modem is quite big? Yes, but it is the flattest one we could get. And from the photos of the N900 board I have seen they even need more space for the separate modem chips. And if there will be a redesign the fit the gta04 to the n900 will it possible to update the specs a bit? faster cpu and stuff like that? Faster CPU: yes - the idea is to use the 1GHz DM3730 which is 25-30% faster (at least at peak performance - if clock is reduced to 200MHz it is also slow). But to be honest, i will probably not buy this device if it has the same problems the current gta04 has. (power usage and modem enumeration) Well, we can't say if it will have the same problems - and even if the problems if the GTA04 are really problems or just lack of a solution. And, I must warn a little - a Neo900 design may have other problems we will only see if it has been built and tested by hundredts of users. Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
Am 26.08.2013 um 14:35 schrieb Sebastian Krzyszkowiak: Hello! Short introduction, as I was rather inactive in this community recently: I'm dos, long time Openmoko supporter, owner of GTA02 and (now broken) Nokia N900. Few years ago I was quite an active developer of FSO (opimd) and SHR. Few days ago I've created website draft for GTA04. As we all know, GTA04 project has few non-technical problems. Poor demand is one of them, poor availability of parts is the second one. Those two problems together are pretty much show stoppers, cause if we fix one, the second one becomes harder. But Joerg Reisenweber came up with brilliant idea of adapting GTA04 board into N900 case. Why? - second source N900 housings are very cheap and available on eBay in big quantities - problem with very small amount of Openmoko cases solved - there are still new spare parts floating around on free market But using N900 gives us more: - GTA04 with physical keyboard! - screen that doesn't appear to be off in full sunlight - it seems that while some people like Openmoko case (I do), most rather think it's nice idea, but I wouldn't show up anywhere with such a brick :( N900 case seems to be more commonly accepted by public ;) Wait, there's even more! - if done right, we can engage Maemo community and increase the demand a lot! There are LOTS of broken N900s in possession of Maemo community members due to problems with faulty USB connector and GSM modem. Many of them (owners ;)) are waiting for proper N900 successor that never came (N9 is not, and Nokia is not interested in platform anymore at all). This might be great time to merge efforts from Openmoko/OpenPhoenux and Maemo communities. Neo900 project can benefit from both of them - there will be QtMoko/SHR/Replicant on the one side (it's just modified GTA04, so running all of them should be very easy), and there will be Maemo, Meego and maybe more porting initiatives on the other side. Joerg's idea includes full port of Maemo 5 (Fremantle) to allow N900 users to have drop-in upgrade - just like now GTA04 is for GTA01/02 owners. I think that can increase interest a lot! For now we named it Neo900 - making nods to both N900 and Openmoko roots :) I'm super excited about this idea, and it seems that I'm not the only one: Look at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91142 You can also read logs from #maemo from yesterday and today: https://mg.pov.lt/maemo-irclog/%23maemo.2013-08-25.log.html https://mg.pov.lt/maemo-irclog/%23maemo.2013-08-26.log.html It seems there is some interest, and that's just on Maemo side :) What do you think? Very good idea. If we can use the same basic design both, the GTA04 and the Neo900 could have many common components. And adding the number of chips bought of one type will help to reduce the purchase price of both. So trying to merg this is to the benefit of both. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Releasing GTA04 hardware source files (was: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3)
Hi Bob, Am 24.08.2013 um 02:10 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-08-24 at 00:20 +0200, joerg Reisenweber wrote: Can't you finally come up with some *suggestions* or - even better - real actions that would help? At present the community is beholden to a particular company which produces something the community depends on. No, the community does not depend on it. There is a company that feels itself a member of this community and has developed an offer everyone can accept or decline. That company has a monopoly on production within the community. No. It does not share the source files for its work and does not allow others to contribute to designs. Yes. This is no difference to Openmoko, Inc. did since 2007. This is the same situation as a community that is beholden to a company producing proprietary software. No. The GTA04 is like proprietary hardware. No. For proprietary hardware you have no schematics, no clear identification of the components, some custom made components without any information, and no documentation which GPIO is doing what. We have schematics in a .pdf file but nothing else. Yes. And the PDF is the source. You can run OCR and convert it into any format you like. And modify it as you like. What else do you expect? More convenience? The Schematics and the component placement chart of the GTA02 - both as a printable PDF - were sufficient to design the GTA04 board... So it is not lack of information if nobody is picking up the GTA04 design... There is no shared repository containing the source files for the schematics or the PCB designs. Nobody can commit design fixes. Is this a requirement for FLOSS that you can commit anything directly to the original repository? Do you have commit access to the master branch of kernel.org? Anyways, you can make change proposals and there are others who sign off and accept your patches into the master if they fit into the project goal and fit to some design style and rules. So if you want something to be changed, please write me an e-mail (in natural language) with your patches. Or propose it here on this list. The community is not iterating the GTA04 design. The community is not working together to create a free phone. Instead, all we do is discuss and argue about one company's product. The community can help much better in other areas, e.g. marketing, spreading the word, software, etc. because high density PCB design needs a very specific type of knowledge that isn't widely available. And, the PCB must be 100% correct or even 100.00%. so it is better to have a very small team. A lot of people have come up with various ideas for modifications to the GTA04. Some of them simply require some soldering which is no problem. However, some require a redesign of the board. To my recollection, nobody has ever pointed out that this isn't possible unless Golden Delicious do it. The fact that only Golden Delicious can do it is bad. No. Because you can do it as well. You can start to learn how to design PCBs, aquire some PCB design tool, capture or convert the schematics, and make your own layout. Then, find someone who does production for you. Despite describing the GTA04 as Open Hardware¹ and stating that the aims of the community are for DIY hardware², Golden Delicious does not release any source files for the hardware it produces. There is no community of hardware hackers contributing to shared PCB designs. Because designing such a difficile and miniaturized device is more challenging than the average hardware hacker is capable to do. I suggest that the community changes from consuming hardware designed and built by a single controlling entity to producing one or more Open Source Hardware³ phone designs which can be taken as a base, modified and manufactured by any party. For example, a board design could be used in the same fashion as the GTA04, as a replacement for GTA01/02 boards but could also be modified by the N900 community to provide an updated board for their phone. It is possible to design a board for that by the procedure descibed above. I suggest that Golden Delicious release the source files for the GTA04 board in order to assist this effort and act as a base for the first community phone design. Essentially you are mixing openness and modifiability of source and compiled binary. The source in such a hardware project is the schematics (which is open for the GTA04) and the compiled result is the PCB (which is not easily modifiable, even with proper tools). It is like you are asking an open source project to publish compiled binaries, before you call it open source. IMHO this is only convenience. Finally some more technical aspect: it is not easy to just modify the PCB to fit into an N900 case. You more or less have to redo the whole PCB layout process (i.e. the compilation), although the Schematics can be almost the same. So you virtually want to change
Re: Reasons why people could be interested in this community
Am 24.08.2013 um 01:51 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller: On the Road --- hns Am 23.08.2013 um 22:45 schrieb Bob Ham r...@settrans.net: On Fri, 2013-08-23 at 17:30 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 23.08.2013 um 15:45 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-23 11:27, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 23.08.2013 um 13:18 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-23 10:56, Paul Wise wrote: On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 12:47 PM, Bob Ham wrote: I don't understand. What is the green light with respect to the GTA04? That was already mentioned; money for components being available. The fact that there is *no* money was mentioned. Here you seem to be implying some kind of transition from there being no money to money being available. How is that transition going to happen? What's going to cause the green light to go on? People deciding to spend some money instead of complaining that it is too expensive. What is going to cause people to decide that? What do you think the reason is? I can't see anything that people will cause people to make that decision. This is why I'm wondering what cause *you* see. You said you're waiting. What do you believe is going to happen? What are you waiting *for*? What is going to occur that will cause people to decide to spend money on the GTA04? I can't see any reason. A train stopped at a disconnected signal light waiting for it to go green, doesn't make any sense to me. Why are you still a member of this community and participating in this discussion? This is a honest question. What is your answer? The reason why I ask is that if you can tell yourself why you are so enthusiastically discussing these topics, you must have some reason. And other people may find your reasons interesting and could potentially agree to them. This would help to grow the community. So I think you can develop some helpful answer to your question by answering my question. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: production displays
Am 24.08.2013 um 12:57 schrieb kardan: On Fri, 23 Aug 2013 12:36:42 +0200 Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: If 200 people agree to put 599 EUR on the table we could start production tomorrow (well, we need 6-8 weeks to get the components) and 200 GTA04 boards would be available in November. We could also order 200 3D-printed cases, earpieces etc. to make complete phones. One issue is that we have just ~70 display modules, and they are out of production for a long time. But there may be some remaining stock in Asia, so it appears to be a solvable problem. Doing a redesign for a different display, different case (N900) is also possible, but takes more time (estimate 4-6 months). But it also needs 200 * 599 EUR on the table. Not to start design or production (that has become my hobby), but to buy components. I don't get this passage. Note I am not a hardware expert so it is not clear to me how 200 boards can be available in november if a redesign with a new display takes nearly half a year. The displays (Toppoly) are no longer in production but we have some in stock. And, the GTA04A5 board is designed to use them. So it is just about producing again based on the existing design. Changing the display to a model that we can buy in any quantity from running production needs to redesign the PCB and test and qualify that for production. Where are 130+ displays supposed to materialze until november? I Sometimes, companies buy components and after 2 or 3 years they end production of the devices using these components. And then, they try to sell their overstock. There are component brokers who are experienced in getting such old/obsolete components. understand your assumption that there is some stock somewhere and would love to see that proven with a reliable price tag. That has not been researched - and may change every day. I can't tell if it is easy or difficult before someone starts to really buy them. It may be just some Alibaba search or a search for a needle in a haystack. But *I* will not start this research before it is clear that we need them, because it would be waste of my lifetime... -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone
Hi Radek, Am 24.08.2013 um 14:22 schrieb Radek Polak: On Friday, August 23, 2013 10:21:33 PM arne anka wrote: the missing money is just the indicator for this project's failure to create sufficient public interest or even awareness. while the GTA01/2 was a nice idea, it was already slightly outdated when it appeared -- and since then nothing has changed, the gap between what's considered standard and what the GTAxx is prepared to deliver rather has widened. to get even close to standard (and thus being a realistic alternative for smartphone users), the project would need backing of a far more potent entity than this tiny community is -- both money- and publicitywise. since the GTA02 i spend about 2000€ on this project, maybe more (well, i can afford it and it was worth supporting the idea behind it), and in my very personal and subjective opinion, the GTA04 has been a huge disappointment. i wouldn't spend the equivalent of a highend, state-of-art smartphone or even tablet just to buy yet another even more outdated device, free or not. compared to the shortcomings of the GTA04, even complete freedom is not sufficient to justify that amount of money. whenever i told somebody who had heard of OpenMoko that there's a successor, they were surprised -- and when i told them the features and the price, i got an incredulous grin and the question if someone really believed that people would spend that amount for such a device. i am still undecided if i should admire or pity the thread starter, if he honestly believed that this community would be able to succeed where ubuntu failed -- and on top of that to jump from todays GTA04 to the device as imagined by ubuntu ... all things considered, the realistic path is imo to cater to a tiny niche of institutional customers -- like jörg(?) proposed. while i am personally rather fond of the original GTA01 case (and think that's almost the only tangible unique feature), i, too, would prefer it to pick up where the n900 left. maybe then it could even tap into the pool of still active n900 fans ... Very well written. I can add a few more points. For me GTA04 is not usable as daily phone. It's now collecting dust in shelf. Why? 1/ poor power management 2/ bugged reenumerating modem GTA04 is good enough only in some situations. E.g. ok if i carry it to work where i can anytime charge it. When i am on bike 150km from home i must have reliable phone in case that the bike breaks up or in case that i need map. I took GTA04 with 2 batteries and N900 on my bike trip this summer. I used N900 as a phone with SIM card. GTA04 was switched off - i just used it for GPS. But after 4 hours one battery was empty and second battery was 50% empty during one night in suspend. On the other hand N900 was working whole 4 days. I used it for calls, for wifi in camps and in the end even for GPS. That is something I still don't understand. From a power budget the modem is specified to have 3-10 mA in suspend while registered to a base station. I have even verified this with an ampere-meter. And there is only one potential deviation - if there is some attenuation (e.g. wall) there may be a situation where the modem receives the base station well and tries to answer/register. But since the base station does not receive it at all, it tries with high power. In this case the modem current increases to 50-100 mA. BTW: this is the same with almost all mobile devices. So it must be something in the OMAP system and that is IMHO the same as the N900 has... So pure kernel code. BTW: this would not change by redesigning the GTA04 into a spare N900 case... I though that self-made open source phone will have good power management. I though it will be easy or at least possible to identify where the power goes. I am even more dissapointed that noone except Neil Brown tried to improve the situation. Yes, that made me wonder as well. It appears that it needs some very special skills we don't have in our community. Or we have but those members have no time. Event GTA02 is s much better in this area. For me this is so important that GTA02 is now much more usable then GTA04. It's like having car that can go just 30km. And the reenumerating modem - i really dont understand why we havent tried newer firmware. For me missed calls is quite serious problem. Because the upgrade firmware did not run on the kernels for unknown reasons (failed with segfaults). And because we must make RMS believe that there is no way to upgrade the modem firmware from user space. I dont understand why produce more phones until these problems are fixed. I don't know how to fix these problems without producing more phones. Especially there is one issue in the IrDA/RS232 driver which prevents the kernel to power down both and the ITG3200 may also draw some mA. This all would be fixed in the GTA04A5 board design. And there would be a
Re: Reasons why people could be interested in this community
Am 24.08.2013 um 13:36 schrieb joerg Reisenweber: On Sat 24 August 2013 13:00:45 Bob Ham wrote: On Sat, 2013-08-24 at 09:56 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Why are you still a member of this community I want freedom. I want a phone that runs 100% free software, including any firmware for component devices and also including firmware running on the baseband processor. I want the same freedom for the hardware. The openmoko-community and openphoenux-community mailing lists are places where I expect like-minded people will congregate. and participating in this discussion? Even though I believe the GTA04 product from Golden Delicious is not viable, I don't expect it will be the last effort to produce a free phone. Indeed, if Golden Delicious release the source files for the board, the GTA04 design could form a base for the development of the next effort. I hope this will happen. You say gta04 is a fine basis to do further improvements but it's not worth getting the device itself. That's insane. HNS and his small crew invested substantial time and *money* into actually *producing* a working device and all you need to do is buy one. This would allow golddelico to continue their awesome work. Exactly. But what you are interested in seems not at all focused on joining efforts but to fork and try on your own if you could do any better than Nikolaus. If someone is not happy that Goldelico wants to continue and asks for payment, please DIY. But start on the green field (yes, as prepared by Openmoko) as we have done. And please do it cheaper. Maybe I can learn from you how you do that. I consider this rogue and silly. Plus you evidently have not the faintest idea of what's the real troubles in hw design and production, otherwise you'd not think you could do substantially better than goldelico. Every fool can draw up a nice (though most certainly not bug-free) schematics, and even creating a PCB layout is not that complicated, there are FOSS tools for that. The problems are somewhere else, and a project that considers PCB gerbers of GTA04 as an indispensable prerequisite for a new design, well such project is doomed to fail from beginning and I'd consider it detrimental to the actually existing and working GTA04 project since - even if not the manpower of those devels who focus on the new project due to lack of expertise and insight into where the major problems of any such project are - it however will deprive GTA04 project of possible customers that might contribute to GTA04 (and successors) with their money, if they weren't lured into waiting for another competing project started by a few guys who obviously think they can do better since they don't know sh*t about hw manufacturing. ++ my 2 ct about this weird arguing here. A word to Nikolaus: I'm a bit sad that you ignore the fact that openmoko *did* share gerbers, PADS project files, BOM, whatever, on request. We shared everything, sometimes under a NDA when we had to do that way. Sorry, but I didn't know that until now. I just knew about the PDF schematics and the BOM and the 3D CAD data and the component placement plan. This was enough to start the GTA04 project, so I did not research further into what else would have been available on request. And maybe you didn't know but Wolfgang pestered all EE pretty badly to allow community contribution, just we never really could come up with a workflow how to make such process work. The problem with that is the expertise of community contributions which take ten times the manpower of company EE staff to explain why it can't get done this way, than what company EE would need to come up with an own better draft for the same thing. Oh yes, many cooks spoil the soup. In my experience it needs a small team at one location (so that you can really meet for discussions). And a team that can work in stealth mode for some time to come up with a proposal. OM been a company with lots of money so we didn't worry too much about community competing projects, and eventually I even convinced Sean and Wolfgang and others that no commercial competitor will snatch away and copy- cat our product either. Bottom line: to claim OM never allowed community contribution and never shared PCB or project files is pretty incorrect. Ok, now I know. Thanks for clarification! But anyways, it was not necesssary to fork the project to develop a GTA04. Developing the GTA04 did need something else. The believe that it can be done, is useful for the community and being crazy enough to do it. Therefore, I see all requests to get the projects files as distracting from the real problems we have. Which are component and production cost being higher than everybody would like to see (me included). And nobody to find a solution. Which is either lowering the cost or increasing what people interested in a GTA04 want to pay
Re: Releasing GTA04 hardware source files (was: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3)
Am 24.08.2013 um 13:26 schrieb Bob Ham: There is a reason for stipulating this. Having to convert a work into a format suitable for making modifications represents a barrier. It's a barrier to freedom. It can be abused. I don't understand that. The reason of open source is that you can rebuild the system if the original designer decides not to continue and maintain the system. For that you need the sources in some open way. A different story is that FSF did start some collaborative projects based on the GPL which of course needs people to be able to work on a common system as a team. Back to the GTA04, you have all you need in PDF format, i.e. you can maintain your GTA04 in any way you like. You are absolutely free to start to rebuild it from scratch or modify it. Nobody is stopping you from doing it. The licence for the PDF documents permits you to do it. So what is missing? I only see the convenience aspect. And regarding barriers, I rather think that asking people to install and learn the same schematics capture system that we use is an increased barrier over the current situation. The current mode of collaboration is that every e-mail telling some change request in plain language is welcome and will be translated to the required data format to produce a new PDF. This work is done by us - but what is bad about that? Only that you can't do it. I don't consider that as a problem. Neither for you nor for me. And as written somewhere else, there have been several proposals from the community that were included in the GTA04A3, A4 and A5 designs. So I still don't get the goal you are arguing for and how it improves the acceptance of the GTA04. BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Releasing GTA04 hardware source files (was: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3)
Am 24.08.2013 um 17:27 schrieb Bob Ham: On Sat, 2013-08-24 at 11:26 +, Bob Ham wrote: Even disregarding this reasoning, let's assume that it *is* just about convenience. Why is that bad? Why would you not want to help people take the GTA04 design and create a derivative? Why would you want to make it more difficult? I answered your questions about why I am taking part in this discussion. Yes, this were indeed good answers and I think if you just tell them others they might jump in and subscribe here. I would appreciate it if you would answer my questions about helping others create derivatives of the GTA04. I think i have done this several times (spread over several mails) in the past hours. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Releasing GTA04 hardware source files (was: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3)
Am 24.08.2013 um 20:42 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-24 18:32, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 24.08.2013 um 13:26 schrieb Bob Ham: There is a reason for stipulating this. Having to convert a work into a format suitable for making modifications represents a barrier. It's a barrier to freedom. It can be abused. I only see the convenience aspect. You haven't addressed my question. I want to know why you want people to start PCB designs from scratch rather than making use of your work. Why do you think that convenience a bad thing? Community means that you get something in return for your contribution into the community. In other words: because convenience has a price tag. Only your mother is giving you convenience for free... Or shorter: I am not an 100% altruist. Are you? Then, please donate all the money you have and will have to this project. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Releasing GTA04 hardware source files (was: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3)
Am 24.08.2013 um 20:49 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-24 18:41, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 24.08.2013 um 17:27 schrieb Bob Ham: I would appreciate it if you would answer my questions about helping others create derivatives of the GTA04. I think i have done this several times (spread over several mails) in the past hours. I see plenty of reasoning about why you think people should avoid trying to create derivatives of the GTA04. I have never said that. I just say that you can do it based on the material (e.g. PDF) that is already available and I will *not* stop anybody from doing it. This is a completely different message, isn't it? ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Going outside - GTA04 website
Am 24.08.2013 um 18:11 schrieb Lukas Märdian: Am 24.08.2013 17:36, schrieb Sebastian Krzyszkowiak: I've also created quick draft by myself: http://dosowisko.net/gta04/ Wow, that looks good! Almost like a kickstarter project page :) BR, Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Releasing GTA04 hardware source files (was: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3)
Am 24.08.2013 um 22:08 schrieb Paul Wise: For the GTA04 adapter board you are already distributing the files that Bob Ham is asking for (AFAICT - not an EE). http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/downloads/42/ The adapter board license (CC-BY-SA) is more friendly than the GTA04 board license (CC-BY-NC-SA). So I'm wondering about the difference between the two. the idea is that anyone can even use the adaptor board blueprint even commercially to allow for the best widespread use. It will be dramatically modified anyways for a real product so there is no need to restrict it in any way. For the PDF the licence is NC. But note that this licence only includes the copyright of the document. Not the board. Like you can learn from a book and use the contents. NC because it requires any commercial use to contact us. Commercial use means that someone wants to copy parts e.g. into a textbook. This does not preclude any licence and use, but allows to think to ask for some charge for the benefit of the project. Hope this explains the reasons of the different licenses. Nikolaus ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone
Am 23.08.2013 um 12:08 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-23 09:38, joerg Reisenweber wrote: On Fri 23 August 2013 10:35:38 Bob Ham wrote: On 2013-08-23 07:26, openm...@pulster.de wrote: The GTA04 *is* out of production and no longer for sale. Says who? Says Golden Delicious: Note: we currently have no stock since we need to collect at least 200 orders so that we can produce in big enough batches. -- First sentence on https://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04 There are no other reasons why it isnt available, just damn investment $$ are missing. If money is the only problem then why is nobody running a fundraising campaign? I don't think money is the only problem. I think it's up to you to answer your own question, instead of implicitly accusing highly honored guys like Nikolaus and Christoph of not telling the truth. There seems to be a misunderstanding here. I'm not accusing anybody of hiding problems. I'm saying that there are problems other than money which are preventing the successful production of a free phone. Those other problems have been discussed openly on this list and others. To some extent you are right. There is a problem one would call a structural problem. Sort of an equation system with 0 solutions. everybody (even you) can start a fundraiser. Of course they *can*. But they're *not*. That's the point. We see from this discussion that everybody wants something else, but not what would be easily available. If 200 people agree to put 599 EUR on the table we could start production tomorrow (well, we need 6-8 weeks to get the components) and 200 GTA04 boards would be available in November. We could also order 200 3D-printed cases, earpieces etc. to make complete phones. One issue is that we have just ~70 display modules, and they are out of production for a long time. But there may be some remaining stock in Asia, so it appears to be a solvable problem. Doing a redesign for a different display, different case (N900) is also possible, but takes more time (estimate 4-6 months). But it also needs 200 * 599 EUR on the table. Not to start design or production (that has become my hobby), but to buy components. Now back to the everyone wants something different issue of the problem: * people want a different device (N900 keyboard) * people want an Überphone (Ubuntu Edge) * people want 100% freedom in WLAN, UMTS modem etc. (discussions on this list) * people want to have a device more innovative than Apple and Samsung together And of course - as Christoph points out - cheaper than anything else. I can completely understand all these wishes. Even that it should be cheaper than everythin else. But having the best at the lowest price is a contradiction in itself. It can be fulfilled better, the higher the production volume is. It is a basic law of economy that only #1 and #2 producers can get big margins, big enough to stay #1 and #2 by spending a lot of money for innovation. It is a law that nobody can break - like force of gravity... If you want to study this, please ask yourself why you get the high capacity memory chips you would like to see in a GTA0x only from Micron, Samsung these days and nobody else. At what position are we? We (with this I mean any team formed from the community) are probably #5000 in the smart phone or portable computer business... From this, I think nobody is doing fundraisers or developing a new GTA0x because they either know and see these economical implications or at least have a good gut feeling that they can only loose money they don't have. There are unsuccessful campaigns (Ubuntu edge) and successful ones. If you go deeper into successful campaigns, they offer something really new (wrist phones, wrist displays) which the big companies do not even have. So for a short time frame the early innovator is #1 (Pebble) and #2 (Meta-Watch). But as soon as Apple and Samsung will enter the game arena, things will change rapidly... There is only one factor I can see that would change the game: if more people see a real value in supporting what we all would like to see. And supporting by paying more (and not expecting less). -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3
Am 23.08.2013 um 12:10 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-23 10:02, openm...@pulster.de wrote: Its not out of Production, but production is stopped Err.. What's the difference between out of Production and production is stopped? Compare with a train: stopped: is at the railway station and waiting for a green light out of operation: is at the depot and nobody is caring about and knows if it is still operable If there is a better wording, please let me know and we can change it. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3
Am 23.08.2013 um 12:47 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-23 10:38, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Am 23.08.2013 um 12:10 schrieb Bob Ham: What's the difference between out of Production and production is stopped? Compare with a train: stopped: is at the railway station and waiting for a green light I don't understand. What is the green light with respect to the GTA04? green light: close to 200 preorders or wishlist entries in the shop. It is like a train (without fixed schedule) waiting at the station for enough paying passengers. Not people just visiting or looking or discussing that the train should run on a different track. Yes, a vintage train is perhaps a good comparison with our GTA04. It costs a lot of money and volunteer work to keep it in operation at a very irregular schedule. And it is more for fun than for real transportation so that passengers pay twice or three times a ticket would cost for the same distance in a modern and more comfortable train. And having a fixed schedule. But 99% of the world population would never see a benefit in riding a vintage train to go from A to B, e.g. for going to daily work. Which is similar to our situation that 99,99% of the world population doesn't see a benefit or an impulse to buy a 100% open device or a community built hardware or an Überphone (which is what the Ubuntu Edge campaign has clearly demonstrated). ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: community Digest, Vol 353, Issue 3
Am 23.08.2013 um 13:18 schrieb Bob Ham: On 2013-08-23 10:56, Paul Wise wrote: On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 12:47 PM, Bob Ham wrote: I don't understand. What is the green light with respect to the GTA04? That was already mentioned; money for components being available. The fact that there is *no* money was mentioned. Here you seem to be implying some kind of transition from there being no money to money being available. How is that transition going to happen? What's going to cause the green light to go on? People deciding to spend some money instead of complaining that it is too expensive. How would you change the mindset of people without brain-washing? ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Building a new totally free phone
However, can GSM really be a base for secure communication anyway? IMHO the need for the GSM stack being open sourced is largely overestimated. Security experts say that the question is how to secure communication over an unsecure communication medium. Depending on which level you want to work, you can try to make GSM more secure because it is communicating over an inherently unsecure/open medium (electro-magnetical wave broadcast). Or you can just use what others have built into a black box (i.e. a modem with some AT commands). They promise that it is secure enough. But if you want to be really secure, just wrap the potentially unsecure channel and encrypt the data sent over it. BTW: all the recent nsa/prism things have shown that it is not sufficient to make a fully transparent (aka open sourced) terminal - if it is easy enough to tap the network nodes. Or the servers you are communicating with. I.e. securing yourself is best done if you put yourself into eremitage... So in my view, spending additional work to get an open sourced GSM or even UMTS firmware stack is a nice excercise for embedded and real time communication protocol engineering, but does not make anything more safe or secure than using a black box module, because it just tries to increase security of one small hop instead of end-to-end. In other words: security measures must be done on the highest layers of the OSI reference model, not on the lowest ones. And that is the area of the application processor and OS. And of course documented schematics help to understand if there are potential backdoors to circumvent the OS or not. So we need a device where you have control over the OS, but not necessarily over the inner workings of all peripherals. -- hns ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community