Re: Free phone: smart or not?
On 17-3-2015 2:49, Stefan Monnier wrote: But the FR's hardware is too limited for that in my experience (e.g. the screen is too small for a resistive touchscreen), and the software is not reliable enough. I think, with the constraints of the FR case, a resistive touchscreen is the best option. The touch-resolving resolution of a capacitive screen would be much lower, and an inductive (what generic category would you give Wacom?) screen would not permit you to use a finger(nail) or a pencil laying around. I got a phone from my employer (besides my GTA04) now, which has a large capacitive screen. It can show more information at once, but I hate typing or making selections on it. To stay a bit on topic: my FR was my only phone until it was reborn as an OpenPhoenux. Both are in my top 2 of favourite phones :-) The smartness of the phone is important. If I were to take a silly phone with me, I'd wish it to be about as big as a bluetooth earpart, smart enough to understand most of the commands I speak to it and dial the number from the address book when I say so. In that case it wouldn't even need a screen or numeric buttons. Best regards, Boudewijn ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Free phone: smart or not?
Quoth Spacefalcon the Outlaw: But I just can't help but wonder: are you using your FR because it's free or because it's a smartphone? I'm using it because it's free, plus I don't like replacing electronics which are still working. For me the FR is just an incredibly inefficient and somewhat hard to use dumbphone. That said, I do like the idea of having access to strong encryption for SMS type messages and voice, but the way to do that which is compatible with what other people use is to use android apps that communicate over the internet. Which would require a much more complex device than a dumbphone, sadly. Nick ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Free phone: smart or not?
On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 3:50 PM, Nick wrote: That said, I do like the idea of having access to strong encryption for SMS type messages and voice, but the way to do that which is compatible with what other people use is to use android apps that communicate over the internet. Which would require a much more complex device than a dumbphone, sadly. I'm guessing you are talking about the software from Open Whisper Systems (and WhatsApp)? There is a python port of axolotl, the encryption system behind Signal/TextSecure (and WhatsApp). I don't know of any code to fully support Signal/TextSecure on Linux but there is yowsup for folks who want to interface with the WhatsApp network, it now supports the axolotl encryption. I expect it wouldn't take much to get that working on the FR, especially since there are already Debian packages of both of those. You would need a UI though, yowsup is command-line. https://github.com/tgalal/python-axolotl https://github.com/tgalal/yowsup -- bye, pabs http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/User:PaulWise ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Free phone: smart or not?
are you using your FR because it's free or because it's a smartphone? I don't really use my FR for the following reasons: - I don't use its phone part because it's not Free (I guess by now I could try to use your firmware to fix that part) and because I don't like the idea of being actively tracked by my cell phone provider (and I hate the providers here, who all force you to sign contracts because they suck so much that all users would otherwise run away), so I'd want to turn the cell-phone part OFF most of the time. - I do want to use the smartphone side, such as GPS, book reader, email reader, Jabber client, web browser. I want this more than a cell-phone, really. But the FR's hardware is too limited for that in my experience (e.g. the screen is too small for a resistive touchscreen), and the software is not reliable enough. Stefan ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Free phone: smart or not?
El día Monday, March 16, 2015 a las 07:31:52PM +, Spacefalcon the Outlaw escribió: g...@unixarea.de wrote: I'm using since 2008 the FR as my one and only cellphone. This is not lying, it is just a fact. And I do not know any other person from this list who is doing so. Nick openmoko-commun...@njw.me.uk followed: I am too. The only thing that makes me tempted to switch phones is=20 redphone or chatsecure, basically. The GTA02 sucks, in some ways,=20 but I have no plans to buy a less free phone than it, so I'll stay=20 where I am for now. I am very glad to see a couple of people using their Freerunners and not switching to anything less free. But I just can't help but wonder: are you using your FR because it's free or because it's a smartphone? In other words, ... I do not exactly know what a 'smartphone' is. I use the FR because it is a Linux 'server' in pocket size, I can do with it what I want and I can phone or send SMS with it. And I have OpenStreet maps on it, after some time the FR knows where I am with GPS. More I do not need. I accept that the FR is not fully 'free' due to some low level binary blobs, but even with them it is more free then my microwave at home. I only see dying my FR: sometimes it does not receive SM, soemtimes it does not wakeup from suspend (both are SHR bugs, I think, but nobody fixes them); and someday something of the hardware will break for ever... and then, what I should do? I love my FR, even if it looks like a brick (which it is not) and I love this FR project for having something else in my hands, something which all the stupid folks do not have while they say about their phone it does not import me when it is spying me and phoning home ... stupid people will use smartphones, I will not 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: Free phone: smart or not?
Hey, I don't talk on phone. I just don't talk. I chat. I email. That's why I don't need a dumbphone. I need a device with a full operating system so I can compile my preferred applications for it. If I need a gsm then I need it to get an Internet connection. Then I can use ssl/tor for chatting, browsing, whatever. On Mon, 16 Mar 2015, Spacefalcon the Outlaw wrote: g...@unixarea.de wrote: I'm using since 2008 the FR as my one and only cellphone. This is not lying, it is just a fact. And I do not know any other person from this list who is doing so. Nick openmoko-commun...@njw.me.uk followed: I am too. The only thing that makes me tempted to switch phones is=20 redphone or chatsecure, basically. The GTA02 sucks, in some ways,=20 but I have no plans to buy a less free phone than it, so I'll stay=20 where I am for now. I am very glad to see a couple of people using their Freerunners and not switching to anything less free. But I just can't help but wonder: are you using your FR because it's free or because it's a smartphone? In other words, if there were a phone just as free as the FR, i.e., full source code for everything (including the GSM radio interface) without any binary blobs, full hardware schematics, free bootloader w/o any locks etc, but a dumbphone instead of a smartphone - a small, non-touch-sensitive LCD, a traditional numeric button pad for dialing and T9 texting, a processor with just enough horsepower to make/receive calls and send/receive SMS and not one iota more, and an OS-less firmware architecture optimized specifically for those functions - would you wish to use such a phone? What I find almost tragic about the history of this community is that someone effectively jumped the gun on evolution: produced a free smartphone (Openmoko) without producing a free dumbphone first. Some of us are life-long dumbphone users, but are very unhappy about the fact that all existing dumbphones are 100% closed and proprietary, with no ability for an end user to fix functional bugs herself or to make her own changes to the user interface code in the firmware. I currently use my Freerunner as a development platform and nothing more: I use its modem block as a BUV (bring-up vehicle) to run my experimental FreeCalypso firmware before porting the latter to dumbphone hardware targets. But I don't use it as my personal phone with an end user hat on. I don't do the latter because I have too much intrinsic personal revulsion against the idea of using an entire second processor running a full-blown GNU/Linux OS just to make a phone call - when I know full well that this functionality has been very successfully implemented on a tiny ARM7TDMI processor @ 52 MHz with a total of 4 MiB of flash, 256 KiB of fast SRAM and 512 KiB of slow SRAM (specific numbers from Mot C139) running a real-time firmware environment without any full-blown OS. So I wonder how other Freerunner users feel about this issue: do you actually *like* the fact that it is a smartphone, or would you rather use a dumbphone, but are using the FR and tolerating its smart aspects because no free dumbphone currently exists? VLR, SF ___ 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: Free phone: smart or not?
Matthias Apitz g...@unixarea.de wrote: I do not exactly know what a 'smartphone' is. Harald Welte gave a clear technical definition in one of his presentations: a smartphone is a phone that has two separate processors for the application and baseband functions. It's a clear technical definition independent of any marketing terms, and by this definition all GTA0x devices are smartphones. I use the FR because it is a Linux 'server' in pocket size, I can do with it what I want and I can phone or send SMS with it. And I have OpenStreet maps on it, after some time the FR knows where I am with GPS. OK, so you *are* using smartphone functions which are beyond the capabilities of the much simpler dumbphone hardware/software architecture and thus require the much more complex hw/sw architecture of a smartphone. I accept that the FR is not fully 'free' due to some low level binary blobs, If you flash the leo2moko GSM firmware I produced a year and a half ago, your FR won't have any opaque blobs at all - at least as far as GSM goes; I know nothing about GPS or WiFi or BT. Well, OK, leo2moko fw includes some binary libs in its build, but: (1) These blobs are translucent in a way in that we can see exactly what is in them, thanks to them being linkable objects with full symbolic information, and (2) We know there is another TI firmware source version which is full source and which can be used to replace these binary parts - and a port of that full-source version to the Freerunner's modem will happen some day as a side fallout from my project seeking to run the same on dumbphone hardware. I only see dying my FR: sometimes it does not receive SM, soemtimes it does not wakeup from suspend (both are SHR bugs, I think, but nobody fixes them); The software architecture of a smartphone is much, much more complex than that of a dumbphone. If you want the additional capabilities which a dumbphone can't have, you have to pay for the extra complexity - and if you also want this much-more-complex device to be reliable for everyday use as a phone, you have to pay even more... and someday something of the hardware will break for ever... and then, what I should do? To all those for whom the FR hardware is the best thing there is and the best there can ever be - how much money do you have, or how much would extending the life of your FRs be worth to you? It would certainly be possible to restart production of new FRs that are verbatim-identical to the Openmoko-made ones - but it would be very, very expensive. I was given an estimate of 16 kUSD to reverse-engineer a sacrificial GTA02 PCB all the way to a set of gerber files that can then be used to produce new PCBs that are identical in form, fit and function. Or a slightly lower price tag of 5.5 kUSD to get aligned, calibrated, high-resolution images of all copper layers, both outer and inner. I plan on paying for the cheaper option some time in mid to late 2016, unless we get lucky and someone manages to dig up a surviving copy of Om's original PCB layout files. (I was told the files exist on a defect HDD - ouch.) But the 5.5 kUSD option which I'm prepared to pay for will only be sufficient for my needs in the FreeCalypso project, and not for making new verbatim clones of the Freerunner. If someone wants the latter, we would need the 16 kUSD option - and I am *not* covering that one with my own personal funds. Then add the cost of procuring all of components used by Openmoko to produce a new GTA02. All chips and other components in the Calypso modem block are no problem, I already got all of them - but I dunno about all of the chips in the application processor subsystem. If someone wishes to build new GTA02s that are strictly identical to Openmoko-made ones, so they can run all of the software without any changes, the infamous Glamo would have to be a part of it too. Anyone feel like scavenging the surplus markets for those cursed Glamo chips in order to build new FRs? Then throw in the cost of hiring some LCD manufacturer to design and build a new LCD module that matches Om's in form, fit and function - I would expect a mid-6-digit USD amount at least. And the cost of new injection moulds for the plastics to make new cases identical to Om's, and so on. I love my FR, even if it looks like a brick (which it is not) and I love this FR project for having something else in my hands, something which all the stupid folks do not have while they say about their phone it does not import me when it is spying me and phoning home You are comparing the FR to the store-bought mainstream crap that the masses use, and that is not an interesting comparison at all. You are NOT comparing the FR to the hypothetical Free Dumb Phone, which is what I asked in my original post. ... stupid people will use smartphones, I will not Well, whether you like it or not, you ARE using a smartphone, in the strictest technical sense of that
Free phone: smart or not?
g...@unixarea.de wrote: I'm using since 2008 the FR as my one and only cellphone. This is not lying, it is just a fact. And I do not know any other person from this list who is doing so. Nick openmoko-commun...@njw.me.uk followed: I am too. The only thing that makes me tempted to switch phones is=20 redphone or chatsecure, basically. The GTA02 sucks, in some ways,=20 but I have no plans to buy a less free phone than it, so I'll stay=20 where I am for now. I am very glad to see a couple of people using their Freerunners and not switching to anything less free. But I just can't help but wonder: are you using your FR because it's free or because it's a smartphone? In other words, if there were a phone just as free as the FR, i.e., full source code for everything (including the GSM radio interface) without any binary blobs, full hardware schematics, free bootloader w/o any locks etc, but a dumbphone instead of a smartphone - a small, non-touch-sensitive LCD, a traditional numeric button pad for dialing and T9 texting, a processor with just enough horsepower to make/receive calls and send/receive SMS and not one iota more, and an OS-less firmware architecture optimized specifically for those functions - would you wish to use such a phone? What I find almost tragic about the history of this community is that someone effectively jumped the gun on evolution: produced a free smartphone (Openmoko) without producing a free dumbphone first. Some of us are life-long dumbphone users, but are very unhappy about the fact that all existing dumbphones are 100% closed and proprietary, with no ability for an end user to fix functional bugs herself or to make her own changes to the user interface code in the firmware. I currently use my Freerunner as a development platform and nothing more: I use its modem block as a BUV (bring-up vehicle) to run my experimental FreeCalypso firmware before porting the latter to dumbphone hardware targets. But I don't use it as my personal phone with an end user hat on. I don't do the latter because I have too much intrinsic personal revulsion against the idea of using an entire second processor running a full-blown GNU/Linux OS just to make a phone call - when I know full well that this functionality has been very successfully implemented on a tiny ARM7TDMI processor @ 52 MHz with a total of 4 MiB of flash, 256 KiB of fast SRAM and 512 KiB of slow SRAM (specific numbers from Mot C139) running a real-time firmware environment without any full-blown OS. So I wonder how other Freerunner users feel about this issue: do you actually *like* the fact that it is a smartphone, or would you rather use a dumbphone, but are using the FR and tolerating its smart aspects because no free dumbphone currently exists? VLR, SF ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
