Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Gabriel Ambuehl]

On Tuesday 28 August 2007 17:05:20 Attila Csipa wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 August 2007 16:39:54 Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> > No they didn't. But TT employees keep pushing the idea at the very least.
> > This is their good right, but I reserve mine to call them on it ;)
> Can you give some references on this (just out of curiosity) ?

Look around, there's TT employees in this very thread (not overly pushing it, 
but at the very least, TT seems interested in OM)... And occasionally some 
remark spills onto PlanetKDE.


> an end-user device, for which they apparently hope to get commercial
> interest from mobile phone vendors (in which they admittedly haven't been
> all that successful as of yet).

Exactly, but partly because of a chicken&egg issue which they could perhaps 
tackle with an OpenMoko port of Qtopia...


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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Wednesday 29 August 2007 17:52:44 Ian Stirling wrote:
> So 'true GPL' systems should discourage users installing commercial
> software?

Closed source (proprietary) software, yes. Note that OSS _can_ be commercial, 
and I don't have a problem with that. OSS is ok and proprietary software is 
OK, but proprietary riding on OSS momentum for personal benefit without 
returning anything to the community is the thing I don't like. The word 
discourage is actually very good here - the users SHOULD have the freedom 
making that choice, but also should know the drawbacks and implications (do 
you want to chroot it ? how will you manage package upgrades and 
dependencies ?) that it has on their machines AND the community as a whole. 
Take the case of a small scale closed source app done in a one-man-show 
fashion. If it does a decent job at a small cost, and we embrace it, it 
brings the actual OSS/GNU developer (like members of the OpenMoko team whom 
we cherish, right ?) in a bad position - he suddenly becomes the bad guy who 
is robbing the fair coder of his income, makes it hard to return the money 
invested in the unit (especially gets nasty if the closed source programmer 
actually IS a nice guy). On the other hand, if there IS a properly made close 
source app it will eliminate the 'itch' which most of the times result in 
the 'scratch' - a really free, community application. This might sound good 
at first, but gets bad quick, but let's not get into a Cathedral vs Bazaar 
discussion. An example of such a free-project-gone-bad which comes first to 
my mind was perhaps Sveasoft and their Linksys WRT54G firmware, which on one 
side was great bc it allowed many owners to get extra features not available 
in the factory firmware (and thus was the reason for many to buy the unit in 
the first place), but on the other hand did nothing for the community, and so 
delayed the transition for many users to the from-scratch OpenWRT effort 
which, in the end, did prove a technically more advanced solution which is 
available to everybody for free in all senses, but that transition ended in a 
LOT of bad blood and many many very heated license debates (for which, IMO, 
the WRT54G communities are unfortunately quite reknowned). 

> If there is no open-source alternative, and I choose to sell commercial
> software that users can install on their phone, how is this wrong?

Not wrong, but (IMO, but I understand many will disagree) not in the spirit of 
free software either. That's why I didn't say it's illegal, just that it has 
nothing to do with the freedom GPL actually gives to the end-user (rights to 
(re)distribute, rights to get the source and tinker, right to give code to 
the community to be continually improved, that - at least in theory - can't 
by just resold for a profit). I must stress you already HAD the choice of 
what sort of software you install on most phones, or to develop software for 
minimal/no cost for J2ME, Symbian, there is no additional freedom there 
(what's barring me from making a GPL Symbian or J2ME project ?). The 
non-existence of certain apps bc of non-feasibility or lack of interest is 
NOT a limitation of freedom (the fact that I can't pay for a 
Neo1973+shipping+taxes doesn't mean that I'm not free to buy one) ! If you 
only use Linux and GPL as a vehicle for closed applications, then you are in 
effect doing what Motorola is doing - hiding the system behind the JVM for 
the proprietary parts (which is roughly what a chroot would do, too).

In any case, I'm finished with this thread. I've said how it looks from my 
viewpoint of an OSS supporter (I'm really not a GPL zealot, I just feel that 
in many areas a consistent OSS approach gives superior results to traditional 
business models), feel free to disagree, nothing wrong with opposing 
opinions. 

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Ian Stirling]

Attila Csipa wrote:

On Monday 27 August 2007 17:24, Giles Jones wrote:


It means a heck of a lot if you can't earn back the outlay. Mobile



If you _can_ earn it back directly through selling proprietary software for 
it, OpenMoko is a mockery of the GPL. In that case you are not creating a 
truly free platform, but a low-cost platform for closed source vendors who 
are unable or unwilling to pay SDK and/or license fees. This is getting 


So 'true GPL' systems should discourage users installing commercial 
software?


If there is no open-source alternative, and I choose to sell commercial 
software that users can install on their phone, how is this wrong?


Or as a user, if I choose to buy?

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Tuesday 28 August 2007 17:51:23 Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> > > No they didn't. But TT employees keep pushing the idea at the very
> > > least. This is their good right, but I reserve mine to call them on it
> > Can you give some references on this (just out of curiosity) ?
>
> Look around, there's TT employees in this very thread (not overly pushing
> it, but at the very least, TT seems interested in OM)... And occasionally
> some remark spills onto PlanetKDE.

I don't follow PlanetKDE, but here I've seen only Lorn Potter with a 
@trolltech address who wasn't like agitating something MUST be done (but I do 
agree with him that writing a phone stack is uncomparably easier than doing 
the full framework from scratch), and I have not gotten the impression that 
his message was a sort of an official TT standpoint which you can call 
upon... though he did say an interesting announcement will be made in the 
next few feeks, we'll see what that means I guess :) In any case, if there IS 
a GPL qtopia + GSM stack for the Neo1973 around the corner, things will get 
really interesting in OpenMoko land.

> > an end-user device, for which they apparently hope to get commercial
> > interest from mobile phone vendors (in which they admittedly haven't been
> > all that successful as of yet).
> Exactly, but partly because of a chicken&egg issue which they could perhaps
> tackle with an OpenMoko port of Qtopia...

You mean Neo1973 port of Qtopia ? That is what I don't get here - in my view 
OpenMoko as a platform doesn't really have an interest in running qtopia on 
the Neo1973 which it should have been a vehicle to spread OpenMoko to the 
masses and instead gets to be a more accessible greenphone replacement with 
GPS.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Michael Shiloh]

Attila Csipa wrote:

On Tuesday 28 August 2007 16:39:54 Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:

No they didn't. But TT employees keep pushing the idea at the very least.
This is their good right, but I reserve mine to call them on it ;)


Can you give some references on this (just out of curiosity) ?


it). I don't think the installed base of Greenphones is ever gonna be big,
whereas GTA02 might get a few (tens of?) thousands devices shipped...


The greenphone is never meant to be a mass-market device - it is the 
counterpart of the GTA01, but AFAIK unlike the FIC-OpenMoko connection, TT 
never wanted to be a Phone manufacturer so for them the greenphone is simply 
a tech demonstrator and development platform, not the first stage of an 
end-user device, for which they apparently hope to get commercial interest 
from mobile phone vendors (in which they admittedly haven't been all that 
successful as of yet).


Which raises an interesting opportunity for them: If they want to get 
out of the hardware business, they could port Qtopia to the Neo (or 
subsequent OpenMoko-ready hardware) and either resell the Neo 
pre-programmed on their website, or point people to us.


I guess it depends on how much of a hassle it is for them to be making 
hardware, and how important it is for them to have hardware with their 
name on it.


Michael

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Tuesday 28 August 2007 16:39:54 Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> No they didn't. But TT employees keep pushing the idea at the very least.
> This is their good right, but I reserve mine to call them on it ;)

Can you give some references on this (just out of curiosity) ?

> it). I don't think the installed base of Greenphones is ever gonna be big,
> whereas GTA02 might get a few (tens of?) thousands devices shipped...

The greenphone is never meant to be a mass-market device - it is the 
counterpart of the GTA01, but AFAIK unlike the FIC-OpenMoko connection, TT 
never wanted to be a Phone manufacturer so for them the greenphone is simply 
a tech demonstrator and development platform, not the first stage of an 
end-user device, for which they apparently hope to get commercial interest 
from mobile phone vendors (in which they admittedly haven't been all that 
successful as of yet).

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Gabriel Ambuehl]

On Monday 27 August 2007 19:23:26 Attila Csipa wrote:
> On Monday 27 August 2007 15:32, Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> > No it's more like MS telling Intel to port Windows to the new processor
> > for them. You want to sell something on a platform? Well if nobody wants
> > to port it there, you should do it yourself or don't do it, but then you
> > don't get to bug others how they should use it there.
>
> A slight logic error is that, to my knowledge, Trolltech never expressed
> that me, you, the OpenMoko team or anybody else MUST port Qtopia to the
> Neo1973 (TT must be chuckling quite a bit by now).

No they didn't. But TT employees keep pushing the idea at the very least. This 
is their good right, but I reserve mine to call them on it ;)

> The difference is, that 
> since there IS a GPL version of Qtopia (as opposed to a GPL version of
> Windows) anybody, me, you, Joe GNU Coder, anybody interested could
> potentially do it EVEN if there is no commercial interest for Trolltech to
> do so (which was the original claim - since TT developed Qtopia 'they'
> should port it to the Neo, 'we' should stick to GTK and the original
> framework).

That's true. But I actually think it could make sense for TT to do so (it's 
sort of why Sun always had a X86 port of Solaris laying around, partly so 
people could try it on hardware they already have and get familiar with it). 
I don't think the installed base of Greenphones is ever gonna be big, whereas 
GTA02 might get a few (tens of?) thousands devices shipped...


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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Monday 27 August 2007 15:32, Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> No it's more like MS telling Intel to port Windows to the new processor for
> them. You want to sell something on a platform? Well if nobody wants to
> port it there, you should do it yourself or don't do it, but then you don't
> get to bug others how they should use it there.

A slight logic error is that, to my knowledge, Trolltech never expressed that 
me, you, the OpenMoko team or anybody else MUST port Qtopia to the Neo1973 
(TT must be chuckling quite a bit by now). The difference is, that since 
there IS a GPL version of Qtopia (as opposed to a GPL version of Windows) 
anybody, me, you, Joe GNU Coder, anybody interested could potentially do it 
EVEN if there is no commercial interest for Trolltech to do so (which was the 
original claim - since TT developed Qtopia 'they' should port it to the 
Neo, 'we' should stick to GTK and the original framework).

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Monday 27 August 2007 17:24, Giles Jones wrote:
> It means a heck of a lot if you can't earn back the outlay. Mobile

If you _can_ earn it back directly through selling proprietary software for 
it, OpenMoko is a mockery of the GPL. In that case you are not creating a 
truly free platform, but a low-cost platform for closed source vendors who 
are unable or unwilling to pay SDK and/or license fees. This is getting 
pointless - in one part of the post you criticise Qtopia to have a too 
restrictive license that does not allow you to write proprietary software 
(being GPL), and in the other of not being being in the spirit of OSS/free 
software (having _additional_ commercial modules). 

> Plus what if you get the SDK and then find the platform unworkable
> simply because you don't get the available APIs you need?

What APIs are you referring to ? You DO get the binaries and you DO get the 
headers, so no API difference there, it's just that you do NOT get the code 
to proprietary parts (which, BTW, is the way NVidia, ATI, and surprise, the 
Neo1973 with regard to the GPS code works, too). If you are still unsure, you 
can actually download the SDK and check what's inside, but it's very clearly 
marked, explained and listed in the FAQs and documentation (I really really 
wish most other OSS projects had at least half as good docs as Qt has). 

> > That's a precisely 100 Euros of difference, which is hardly twice
> > the cost...
> You're not comparing like with like, since Openmoko gives you all the
> source and freedom. You would need full commercial licence of the
> greenphone to get similar freedom.

You initally clearly referred to financial values when you said 'twice the 
cost', there is no such thing as 'twice the freedom'. As for freedoms, I 
already addressed this above, you being free to financially exploit anybody 
elses code without any approval or compensations is NOT my idea of 'Free your 
phone'.

The 'freedoms' you are talking about are covered roughly by the Lite license. 
The full commercial license means something else, like paid support, personal 
accounts, program partnerships, etc.

> Not to mention the OpenMoko has some better components, plus GPS. The
> cost of the greenphone isn't justified, its hardware is like average
> HTC (but with touch screen).

OpenMoko is not hardware, but yes, the Neo1973 is cheaper (in part to the 
generous offer to have Phase1 devices sold cheaper than initially planned) 
and a good year older. As a consumer, I hope this will make a competitive 
market which will result in a lower price for ALL enthusiast developer 
phones.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Giles Jones]

On 27 Aug 2007, at 16:05, Attila Csipa wrote:




Again, if you're a business and developing commercial software, the  
cost of a

SDK means nothing to you - quite the contrary of the case if you are a
tinkerer-open phone enthusiast. If you look closely at the  
licenses, you'll
see that you only really need to pay for licenses and SDKs if you  
plan on
developing proprietary, NON-GPL phone applications or you need  
professional

support - nothing wrong with that either, IMO.


It means a heck of a lot if you can't earn back the outlay. Mobile  
software isn't always that lucrative and there's pretty much no  
installed userbase for the greenphone at present and probably won't  
ever be a huge market. It's a take it or leave it colour, not a brand  
people know and if the consumer pricing is like the developer version  
it will cost too much.


GPS software is probably the killer application and the engines plus  
map data cost even more.


Plus what if you get the SDK and then find the platform unworkable  
simply because you don't get the available APIs you need?




That's a precisely 100 Euros of difference, which is hardly twice  
the cost...



You're not comparing like with like, since Openmoko gives you all the  
source and freedom. You would need full commercial licence of the  
greenphone to get similar freedom.


Not to mention the OpenMoko has some better components, plus GPS. The  
cost of the greenphone isn't justified, its hardware is like average  
HTC (but with touch screen).


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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Monday 27 August 2007 15:38, Giles Jones wrote:
> I'm in Europe and the greenphone is about twice the cost. You have to
> add in the price of the SDK and licences too. It's a really
> unimpressive deal.

Again, if you're a business and developing commercial software, the cost of a 
SDK means nothing to you - quite the contrary of the case if you are a 
tinkerer-open phone enthusiast. If you look closely at the licenses, you'll 
see that you only really need to pay for licenses and SDKs if you plan on 
developing proprietary, NON-GPL phone applications or you need professional 
support - nothing wrong with that either, IMO.

Apparently, costwise some parts of Europe are quite a bit farther than others 
(which is obviously not OpenMoko's fault but UPS's and the lack of an EU 
dealership). I would have liked to compare the prices for Antarctica (just 
for kicks), but the ordering script dies for most of the more 'exotic' 
countries.

Greenphone Community SDK
* Development device: $695 USD
* License fee (GNU GPL v2.0): $0 USD
* Total cost: $695 USD + shipping/handling ($25 in my case) and applicable 
taxes ($0 in my case) = $720 USD

OpenMoko GTA01-phase1
* Development device: $300 USD
* License fee (GNU GPL v2.0): $0 USD
* Total cost: $300 USD + shipping/handling ($140 in my case) and 
applicable taxes ($145 in my case) = $585 USD

That's a precisely 100 Euros of difference, which is hardly twice the cost...

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Gabriel Ambuehl]

On Monday 27 August 2007 14:56:14 Attila Csipa wrote:
> > How about Trolltech ports Qtopia GPL to the Neo *themselves*? That would
> > prove that it's easy enough (heck you could count the hours of work
> > included and write up some whitepaper touting how portable it is) and
>
> I don't really see the logic here. It's like Intel making a new processor
> and saying now Debian should make a port to their brand new processor so
> they would prove Debian is portable... 

No it's more like MS telling Intel to port Windows to the new processor for 
them. You want to sell something on a platform? Well if nobody wants to port 
it there, you should do it yourself or don't do it, but then you don't get to 
bug others how they should use it there.






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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Giles Jones]

On 27 Aug 2007, at 13:56, Attila Csipa wrote:

e!


Actually, considering the postage and customs costs of OpenMoko, it  
is roughly
the same for my location which not Antarctica but practically the  
center of

Europe :(



I'm in Europe and the greenphone is about twice the cost. You have to  
add in the price of the SDK and licences too. It's a really  
unimpressive deal.



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Sunday 26 August 2007 16:32, Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> Largely because you don't get any useable open source licensed GPL maps.

The GPL has no real meaning in map terms since it does not have the 
source/binary relation an application has - unless of course you mean GPL = 
download for free, which is not the point of GPL. Maps are much, much 
trickier due to question of authority (so somebody accidentally doesn't 
change the map so you get lost), privacy concerns, national regulations and 
bodies, etc.

> How about Trolltech ports Qtopia GPL to the Neo *themselves*? That would
> prove that it's easy enough (heck you could count the hours of work
> included and write up some whitepaper touting how portable it is) and

I don't really see the logic here. It's like Intel making a new processor and 
saying now Debian should make a port to their brand new processor so they 
would prove Debian is portable... If they deem the Neo1973 to be a sufficent 
part of the market they will port it, no doubt, but until then, it would be 
like admitting greenphone is a failure, so I expect an official release of 
qtopia for the Neo1973 no more than an official OpenMoko release for the 
greenphone. It would, however, really be surprising if sooner or later some 
enthusiast wouldn't port qtopia to the Neo1973.

> people could chose themselves.  It would also mean that people get to try
> Qtopia on a reasonably priced phone!

Actually, considering the postage and customs costs of OpenMoko, it is roughly 
the same for my location which not Antarctica but practically the center of 
Europe :(

> very good toolkit, so I'm not at all opposed to Qt, quite the opposite
> really and I also understand why Qt can't be LGPL.

I think that dual licensing is actually a much bigger benefit for the OSS 
community than LGPL is.


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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Gabriel Ambuehl]

On Sunday 26 August 2007 00:54:48 Lorn Potter wrote:

> OpenMoko Neo is a 'free' phone, why would you want to put commercial
> proprietary software on it? I thought the point of it was to get away from
> closed source/commercial/proprietary apps.  If I minded that, I would just
> use a Symbian or Windows Mobile phone as apps for those abound.

Largely because you don't get any useable open source licensed GPL maps. 
Furthermore, the whole point of being open means to have the freedom to run 
whatever you want... 

> > To get
> > phone functionality of Qtopia
>
> well, who knows.. if enough people email Trolltech... that could change.
>
> > OpenMoko company would have to pay for
> > commercial Qtopia Phone or wrote whole phone subsystem from scratch as
> > there is no phone functionality in Qtopia4/GPL.
>
> Better than writing the whole shebang from scratch. Why not start with
> something that is 95% finished, mature, stable and tested.
>

How about Trolltech ports Qtopia GPL to the Neo *themselves*? That would prove 
that it's easy enough (heck you could count the hours of work included and 
write up some whitepaper touting how portable it is) and people could chose 
themselves.  It would also mean that people get to try Qtopia on a reasonably 
priced phone!


Disclaimer: I use KDE everyday and I think it's by far the best desktop 
environment out there and a lot of that is closely related to Qt being a very 
good toolkit, so I'm not at all opposed to Qt, quite the opposite really and 
I also understand why Qt can't be LGPL.


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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Saturday 25 August 2007 23:10:48 Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:
> commercial Qtopia Phone or wrote whole phone subsystem from scratch as
> there is no phone functionality in Qtopia4/GPL.

Ahem, they DID write the phone subsystem from scratch anyway AFAIK :) I'm a 
bit surprised that nobody mentioned the SINGLE reason NOT to use qtopia. 
Forget all the stories that it's a dirty commercial piece of software from an 
exploitative company in some conspirational way wants to take your freedom 
away... GPL is designed to prevent that and it pretty much does. Really. The 
SOLE reason for not choosing qtopia is that, in order to really and 
officially contribute to the project, you should in effect transfer copyright 
to Trolltech (since qtopia could not be available under the dual licensing 
unless the contributors agreed to it). So you have all your freedoms that you 
have had with GPL, but Trolltech can also make a buck (krone, that is) 
through it's own support and sales channels to manufacturers/programmers. 
That's it. No non-free doubletalk, 'its commercial isnt it', 'no apps for 
it', etc, there is no practical difference form any other run-of-the-mill GPL 
project apart from that. I can understand that for being an issue, especially 
for large companies as FIC (or OpenMoko), and thus the choice is 
understandable, but the talk of Qt(opia) being 'too much work to adapt', 
non-GPL/non-free spirited, hard to use, C++ only, nerdy, whatever, they are 
all excuses. It comes down to this - do you want to deal with Trolltech, 
which BTW has a competitive product, or keep all the strings and start from 
scratch, literally making the whole framework and applications with a 
recognizable brand ? That choice was made in the form of GTK and OpenMoko as 
a platform, but let's not FUD all over the place that it was a technical 
issue of not wanting 'writing the phone subsystem from scratch' - it's like 
saying instead of a replacing a missing door we thought it was easier to 
build a new house...

> For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write free
> applications which will use any license (all those hackers which you

No need to go into deep licensing issues, but LGPL is the thing that should be 
avoided, isn't it ? I mean, why go through all the trouble of making a free, 
open phone if you're planning or running proprietary/closed source software 
on it ? In that case, even a Qt-like dual license is better since at least it 
brings some income to the core developers.




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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Ben Burdette]

For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write free
applications which will use any license (all those hackers which you
listed) AND it allows to write commercial stuff. 



But after you add closed source software, the phone is not totally free 
anymore. Don't you see the conflict there?


  


Aren't GTK+ and the openmoko libs under the LGPL?  According to the wiki 
openmoko supports development of commercial software.  I'm for an open 
OS, and I think that's a good place for the GPL.  That way no one 
develops a closed source version of openmoko with AT&T specific 
binaries, or whatever.  But I'm planning on running skype on my GTA02 
one day, so I don't really take the 100% open source position. 




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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Paul Eggleton]

Before I start, I will state that I am absolutely *not* suggesting that 
OpenMoko move to Qtopia 4 - I simply wish to respond to some of your points.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007, Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:
> There was "lot" of stuff for old Qtopia versions (1.5->2.2) but none of
> them can be "just built" for Qtopia4 version

No, you're right, they can't. But I would counter that with the fact that you 
can't just recompile desktop apps for the phone and expect them to be usable. 
I know this is not the point you were making but it is something that is 
quite often touted as a reason for using X on handheld devices.

> (and you do not really want to play with Qtopia <4.x - trust me - I 
> spent over two years with OPIE hacking).  

OK, it's not the best for future development, but some of us are still working 
with Opie and it's not all that bad.

> Forget about syncing PIM data to something other
> then Qtopia4 Desktop (if it exists), 

That's just not true. Do we have a fully working syncing solution for the PIM 
applications we have now in OpenMoko? Is there any reason why an OpenSync 
plugin could not be written for a Qtopia 4 based platform?

> forget about many X11 based applications/games (I know that most of them
> needs to be adapted to small screen but many of them can be just used). 

About the only full applications that can be "just used" are games, and for 
those, if they are SDL based (as many of them are) they will work fine even 
without X. It's important not to forget also that many such games will be 
problematic on the Neo1973 because there are no buttons to speak of.

> For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write free
> applications which will use any license (all those hackers which you
> listed) AND it allows to write commercial stuff. 

But after you add closed source software, the phone is not totally free 
anymore. Don't you see the conflict there?

> We have GPS on device - how many Linux applications you know which can show
> you maps and route you from one place to another? I know few:
>
> - TomTom Navigator (commercial)
> - Garmin something (commercial)
> - Maemo Mapper (can be un-Hildoned, require network connection for routes)

You could make the same argument about entire mobile phone platforms - there 
hasn't been a fully open one yet so there never will be? If anyone here 
believed that then this project wouldn't have even been started.

Cheers,
Paul

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Marcin Juszkiewicz]

Dnia niedziela, 26 sierpnia 2007, Lorn Potter napisał:
> On Sun, 26 Aug 2007, Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:

> > The problem with QTopia is that you will get GPL version (so no
> > commercial applications for it) or will force OpenMoko into license
> > payments.
>
> OpenMoko Neo is a 'free' phone, why would you want to put commercial
> proprietary software on it? I thought the point of it was to get away
> from closed source/commercial/proprietary apps. 

OpenMoko Neo gives me possibility to use Free Software which I can hack. 
But I live in a world where some functionality does not exists in Free 
Software yet. An example of it is good navigation software - I can accept 
paying for working commercial one. If I will prefer I will run it in 
chroot and limited privileges but will get something which will use GPS 
to something more advanced then just switching profiles based on 
location.

> If I minded that, I would just use a Symbian or Windows Mobile phone as
> apps for those abound.

I like to have control over system which I use - thats why I switched from 
PalmOS into Linux on PDA.

> > To get phone functionality of Qtopia

> well, who knows.. if enough people email Trolltech... that could
> change.

if.. if.. if..

> > OpenMoko company would have to pay for commercial Qtopia Phone or
> > wrote whole phone subsystem from scratch as there is no phone
> > functionality in Qtopia4/GPL. 
>
> Better than writing the whole shebang from scratch. Why not start with
> something that is 95% finished, mature, stable and tested.
>
> /me shrugs

Ask OpenMoko core team why they decided to go into GTK instead of Qt or 
Qtopia.

> > And if you go into Qtopia world you will get small amount of
> > applications. There was "lot" of stuff for old Qtopia versions
> > (1.5->2.2) but none of them can be "just built" for Qtopia4 version
> > (and you do not really want to play with Qtopia <4.x - trust me - I
> > spent over two years with OPIE hacking).
>
> Nothing wrong with qtopia 2 and Opie...

Except that qt2 is fscking old now. I know that qt/e 2.3.13 (or even 
newer) was released in 2006/2007 but it does not change that it has 7 
years now. It is like writing for GTK 1.x - no one normal wants to start 
with it.

> > For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write
> > free applications which will use any license (all those hackers which
> > you listed) AND it allows to write commercial stuff.
>
> OpenMoko is touted as a FREE phone with FREE software, not closed
> source commercial software. Which do you want more of??

As I wrote - Free Software but with possibilities to use closed software 
too.

> > We have GPS on device - how many Linux applications you know which can
> > show you maps and route you from one place to another? I know few:

> well, the neo is currently a developer only phone, so someone could
> easily write such a best, for whatever gui library.

And one day pigs will fly...

-- 
JID: hrw-jabber.org
OpenEmbedded developer/consultant

   Q:  What's a light-year?
   A:  One-third less calories than a regular year.



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Lorn Potter]

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007, Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:
> Dnia piątek, 24 sierpnia 2007, wim delvaux napisał:
> > Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the
> > overall stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still
> > long perhaps too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better
> > solution to put things like QTopia on the phone.
>
> The problem with QTopia is that you will get GPL version (so no commercial
> applications for it) or will force OpenMoko into license payments. 

OpenMoko Neo is a 'free' phone, why would you want to put commercial 
proprietary software on it? I thought the point of it was to get away from 
closed source/commercial/proprietary apps.  If I minded that, I would just 
use a Symbian or Windows Mobile phone as apps for those abound.

> To get 
> phone functionality of Qtopia

well, who knows.. if enough people email Trolltech... that could change.

> OpenMoko company would have to pay for 
> commercial Qtopia Phone or wrote whole phone subsystem from scratch as
> there is no phone functionality in Qtopia4/GPL.

Better than writing the whole shebang from scratch. Why not start with 
something that is 95% finished, mature, stable and tested.

/me shrugs

>
> And if you go into Qtopia world you will get small amount of applications.
> There was "lot" of stuff for old Qtopia versions (1.5->2.2) but none of
> them can be "just built" for Qtopia4 version (and you do not really want
> to play with Qtopia <4.x - trust me - I spent over two years with OPIE
> hacking). 

Nothing wrong with qtopia 2 and Opie...

> So at start all you get is Qtopia4 stuff which is done for 
> devices which have atleast few keys (but probably can be used with
> touchscreen only too). Forget about syncing PIM data to something other
> then Qtopia4 Desktop (if it exists), forget about many X11 based
> applications/games (I know that most of them needs to be adapted to small
> screen but many of them can be just used).

as can qt4 apps...

>
> > For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.
> > It needs a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured
> > device available so that we hackers can release our creativity and
> > write apps that users like and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to
> > start all over again.  And for what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...

Well, that license does behoove free software...

>
> For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write free
> applications which will use any license (all those hackers which you
> listed) AND it allows to write commercial stuff. 

OpenMoko is touted as a FREE phone with FREE software, not closed source 
commercial software. Which do you want more of??

> We have GPS on device - 
> how many Linux applications you know which can show you maps and route
> you from one place to another? I know few:

well, the neo is currently a developer only phone, so someone could easily 
write such a best, for whatever gui library.


-- 
Lorn 'ljp' Potter
Software Engineer, Systems Group, MES, Trolltech

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Marcin Juszkiewicz]

Dnia piątek, 24 sierpnia 2007, wim delvaux napisał:

> Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the
> overall stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still
> long perhaps too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better
> solution to put things like QTopia on the phone.

The problem with QTopia is that you will get GPL version (so no commercial 
applications for it) or will force OpenMoko into license payments. To get 
phone functionality of Qtopia OpenMoko company would have to pay for 
commercial Qtopia Phone or wrote whole phone subsystem from scratch as 
there is no phone functionality in Qtopia4/GPL.

And if you go into Qtopia world you will get small amount of applications. 
There was "lot" of stuff for old Qtopia versions (1.5->2.2) but none of 
them can be "just built" for Qtopia4 version (and you do not really want 
to play with Qtopia <4.x - trust me - I spent over two years with OPIE 
hacking). So at start all you get is Qtopia4 stuff which is done for 
devices which have atleast few keys (but probably can be used with 
touchscreen only too). Forget about syncing PIM data to something other 
then Qtopia4 Desktop (if it exists), forget about many X11 based 
applications/games (I know that most of them needs to be adapted to small 
screen but many of them can be just used).

> For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library. 
> It needs a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured
> device available so that we hackers can release our creativity and
> write apps that users like and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to
> start all over again.  And for what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...

For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write free 
applications which will use any license (all those hackers which you 
listed) AND it allows to write commercial stuff. We have GPS on device - 
how many Linux applications you know which can show you maps and route 
you from one place to another? I know few:

- TomTom Navigator (commercial)
- Garmin something (commercial)
- Maemo Mapper (can be un-Hildoned, require network connection for routes)

I used TomTom on PocketPC device. If there will be version for Neo1973 
available I will buy it and will use it. I do not want GPS navigation 
application which will use OpenStreetMaps or scanned bitmap maps because 
it lack routing so paper road map is much more handy. If only such apps 
will exists I will buy PocketPC + TomTom and use Neo as BT-GPS.

> So what about porting QTopia to the NEO as backup scenario ?

Feel free to start. After few days of work you will get Qtopia4 working on 
Neo1973. Then you will spend lot of time writing Dialer, SMS application 
and other phone functionality. If you will make it working then someone 
will follow you. But I do not think that there will be many of them.

-- 
JID: hrw-jabber.org
OpenEmbedded developer/consultant

 I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
-- Isaac Asimov



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Saturday 25 August 2007 00:07:30 Tilman Baumann wrote:
> The limitation is that you have to use it. If you like it or not.
> Or in other words, you don't code for the project unless you are a QT
> nerd.

? Don't really see a difference with regard to GTK+ here - while you may 
prefer one of the two, that doesn't free you from having to learn how to use 
your GUI (if you already know GTK+, that's not QTs fault, and that goes the 
other way round, too). As for c++, it's all c++ on the inside, but nobody is 
beating you with a stick to use it from c++, there are bindings for quite a 
lot of non-nerd languages out there (just like GTK, what a coincidence :).

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Misleading title: Re: Greenphone is not GPL (was RE: At the risk of being flamed :State of software)

[Attila Csipa]

On Friday 24 August 2007 23:08:59 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> doesn't contain any actual applications. Qtopia Platform is a set of
> applications built on Qtopia Core, which are not all licenced under the
> GPL. Looking at the Trolltech website, there is "Qtopia Open Source
> Edition" however, which "is a near-complete package of the Qtopia Phone
> Edition and Qtopia Platform source code. It includes an extensive source
> code for Qtopia applications and libraries.".

I don't work for Trolltech nor do I want to turn this into a qtopia-interest 
list, but please read a bit more carefully:

Q: What does the package contain?
A: Qtopia Open Source Edition contains everything that is in the commercial 
source version, except Safe eXecution Environment (SXE) – the security 
benefits of a “sandbox” on the device with the benefits of a native 
application approach – digital rights management (DRM) and telephony 
components.

If you want check on the exact components, see:

http://doc.trolltech.com/qtopia4.2/qtopia-components.html

The bottom line is the previous subject is completely false - please, let's 
not try to diminish any other OpenSource effort by spreading FUD no matter 
how much we _all_ like Openmoko, Neo1973 and the teams who made it possible.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Lorn Potter]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007, Tilman Baumann wrote:
> Am 24.08.2007 um 21:03 schrieb Lorn Potter:
> > Tilman Baumann wrote:
> >> I like Qtopie too. Especially considering how well they could
> >> handle embedded guis for years.
> >> But in reallity. qt and c++ is a limitation. Look how far Opie was
> >> evolved during the last years and how god id was from the
> >> beginning. But it still was more or less insignificant.
> >
> > Opie is but a fork of Qtopia. Using Qt and c++ is hardly a
> > limitation. Take a look at KDE.
>
> The limitation is that you have to use it. If you like it or not.
> Or in other words, you don't code for the project unless you are a QT
> nerd.

Likewise any project/language.

>
> >> Then look how far Nokia got with theyr maemo gtk modell. Within
> >> half a year they had a big community and lots of great programms
> >> ported.
> >
> > Thats more because they had some cool hardware. Meamo is not all
> > that free - it contains proprietary parts, which is a consequence
> > of using LGPL, which is why Amgstrom does not build flash images
> > for these devices.
>
> I'm not talking bout freedom.
>
> I'm talking about easy porting and giving a community the tools they
> are used to use. Sure QT is cool, kde is cool and qtopia is cool.
> But you limit yourself to the fraction of delopers who care about QT.
>
> Openmoko (and maemo) it is more or less, take one of millions of gtk
> programms kick it through the compiler and run it. 

Millions is a bit far fetched. But the same holds true for Qt apps.

> And if you like it 
> usable, replce some gtk widgets.

That's more like it. Desktop usability does not translate to mobile phones so 
even if there were millions of desktop apps to choose from, work has to be 
done making it for a small screen/touchscreen/ mobile phone.

>
> As i said. Give me qtopia on the Neo, i would like it.
> But i can certainly see why his was not choosen as default. And i'm
> happy with that decision.

Personally, I don't. but I am biased.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Tilman Baumann]

Am 24.08.2007 um 21:03 schrieb Lorn Potter:




Tilman Baumann wrote:
I like Qtopie too. Especially considering how well they could  
handle embedded guis for years.
But in reallity. qt and c++ is a limitation. Look how far Opie was  
evolved during the last years and how god id was from the  
beginning. But it still was more or less insignificant.


Opie is but a fork of Qtopia. Using Qt and c++ is hardly a  
limitation. Take a look at KDE.


The limitation is that you have to use it. If you like it or not.
Or in other words, you don't code for the project unless you are a QT  
nerd.




Then look how far Nokia got with theyr maemo gtk modell. Within  
half a year they had a big community and lots of great programms  
ported.


Thats more because they had some cool hardware. Meamo is not all  
that free - it contains proprietary parts, which is a consequence  
of using LGPL, which is why Amgstrom does not build flash images  
for these devices.


I'm not talking bout freedom.

I'm talking about easy porting and giving a community the tools they  
are used to use. Sure QT is cool, kde is cool and qtopia is cool.

But you limit yourself to the fraction of delopers who care about QT.

Openmoko (and maemo) it is more or less, take one of millions of gtk  
programms kick it through the compiler and run it. And if you like it  
usable, replce some gtk widgets.


As i said. Give me qtopia on the Neo, i would like it.
But i can certainly see why his was not choosen as default. And i'm  
happy with that decision.


Gtk is no bad desicion at all. Even though i agee, qtopia is relly sexy.

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RE: Greenphone is not GPL (was RE: At the risk of being flamed :State of software)

[thomas.cooksey]

> Be careful that you look at exactly what is covered under that GPL
> licensing.  In order to gain access to the phone stack for the Greenphone
> (a must for my purposes) you have to pay them almost $5K for a commercial
> license.

I think Qtopia Core is what's covered under the GPL. Qtopia core is the 
complete framework for application including all the windowing & rendering 
stuff plus all the nice QT widgets for stuff like networking etc. It doesn't 
contain any actual applications. Qtopia Platform is a set of applications built 
on Qtopia Core, which are not all licenced under the GPL. Looking at the 
Trolltech website, there is "Qtopia Open Source Edition" however, which "is a 
near-complete package of the Qtopia Phone Edition and Qtopia Platform source 
code. It includes an extensive source code for Qtopia applications and 
libraries.".

I really need to get the LCD up and running on my phone and start trying these 
things out! :-) I may just wait for a GTA02 and try it out on that, assuming it 
will come with OpenGL ES libraries. (Anyone?)


Cheers,

Tom

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Friday 24 August 2007 18:59:23 Jeremy G wrote:
> I'm not sure just how open the Trolltech software is, but is the OS
> open enough to port GTK/Gnome over to the Greenphone?  Just curious.

The OS is Linux, you get a framebuffer and glibc, I see no problem there 
(sources available), with a slight problem of the Greenphone having a lower 
resolution screen and being oriented a bit more toward stylus usage. What is 
likely to fail is the camera and the GSM functionality which will have to be 
adapted to the given hardware.

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RE: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[thomas.cooksey]

>One big question out there regarding the viability of other platforms
>on neo remains: how much effort is FIC putting into pushing changes
>upstream? There's a lot of reinvention required if they don't. (Even
>reinvention within FIC having to forward port patches endlessly)

In terms or wheel re-inventing, this is happening a staggering amount at the 
moment. Currently, the following projects have a user interface based on a  
modified (to varying degrees) GTK+: OpenMoko, GPE Palmtop Environment, GPE 
Phone Edition, Hiker (Access Linux Platform), Sato (Opened Hand), Hildon 
(Maemo), Sugar (OLPC). And these are just the ones I've come across. This is 
why the Gnome Mobile & Embedded project was started, to try and bring some of 
these projects together and stop duplicating so much effort. It was great to 
see that OpenMoko was involved in the Gnome Mobile project, I really hope 
projects & resource start to be pulled together.


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Re: Greenphone is not GPL (was RE: At the risk of being flamed : State of software)

[Attila Csipa]

On Friday 24 August 2007 21:29:15 John Seghers wrote:
> Be careful that you look at exactly what is covered under that GPL
> licensing.  In order to gain access to the phone stack for the Greenphone
> (a must for my purposes) you have to pay them almost $5K for a commercial
> license.

A valid point here, but not really relevant. The phone stack is probably one 
of the things that is very chipset specific - I played around with embedded 
GSM modules from various manufacturers, and while generally they had the same 
AT commands, they required separate handling routines because of different 
extensions, timing specifics or simply implementation bugs. My guess is that 
the stack is a developed on commercial SDK-s for specific GSM chipsets and 
might include non-GPL code which might be a no-go for having these licensed 
as GPL by Trolltech (having roughly the same status as does the GPS daemon 
code in OpenMoko, but I'm guessing here). So in any case, I think that it is 
by far easier to write a GSM phone stack (especially having already written a 
couple :) ) than a complete GUI framework.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Lorn Potter]

Brad Midgley wrote:

Lorn


Just between you and me... there will be some great announcements in the
next few weeks.


I think you just said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud (a
simpsons reference :)


doh!



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Brad Midgley]

Lorn

> Just between you and me... there will be some great announcements in the
> next few weeks.

I think you just said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud (a
simpsons reference :)

One big question out there regarding the viability of other platforms
on neo remains: how much effort is FIC putting into pushing changes
upstream? There's a lot of reinvention required if they don't. (Even
reinvention within FIC having to forward port patches endlessly)

Brad

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Thomas Wood]

On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 17:49 +0200, wim delvaux wrote:
> On Friday 24 August 2007 17:14:54 Thomas Wood wrote:
> > On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 16:59 +0200, wim delvaux wrote:
> > > HI all,
[...]
> > To be honest, I think we are quite close already but you really need to
> > be more specific about what you mean.
> 
> Well I just flashed with the latest 0813 release and beside looking great, 
> there is not much yet that is ready : no bluetooth, no gprs, no contacts, 
> phone working a bit, no mail, suspend resume not OK yet, crashes etc etc.

I think you must have missed something - the dialer and contacts is
definitely working fairly well. You should make sure you update your
software (ipkg update && ipkg upgrade) as we have made even more
significant progress in fixing bugs in the last week.

Bluetooth and mail I can't comment on since I'm not involved in those
areas.

[...]
> > The primary aim of the OpenMoko project and the Neo1973 is to create a
> > software platform and a device that are entirely Free in the spirit of
> > the Free Software movement. See
> >  for a definition of this. I
> > don't think we need "just another phone", we need one that embraces the
> > ideals of the Free Software movement. This way we will be creating
> > something truly unique and valuable.
> 
> But wat IS free ? Personally the 'free' as defined by Trolltech : free for 
> free soft, payed for soft that will be sold, sounds more 'reasonable' then 
> free and you cannot make money out of your application.  For me freedom means 
> I have the possibility to do what I want with it providing I do not harm the 
> rights of others.  I think the freedom of QTopia (compare it to KDE) is good 
> enough.  It gives me lots of freedom and If I make a buck out of what I do 
> with their work I need to pay them a buck too ...

Maybe good enough for you, but why should we compromise? We can't start
a revolution based on compromises!

Regards,

Thomas


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Greenphone is not GPL (was RE: At the risk of being flamed : State of software)

[John Seghers]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Licensing
> =
> As mentioned, Qtopia is avaliable under the GPL. Strictly speaking it is
> "more" open than GTK+ which is distributed under the LGPL (Lesser GPL).
...
> On the other hand, Qtopia is avaliable under the GPL (The full on GPL, not
> a "GPL-like" license, the GPL itself).

Be careful that you look at exactly what is covered under that GPL
licensing.  In order to gain access to the phone stack for the Greenphone (a
must for my purposes) you have to pay them almost $5K for a commercial
license.

See the top line of the table on this page:
http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone/greenphonesdk

- John


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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Lorn Potter]

off list.

Just between you and me... there will be some great announcements in the 
next few weeks.



wim delvaux wrote:

HI all,

Champion of open source and user of familiar on Ipaq when time was new, i 
wonder if it was such a good idea to rewrite from scratch an entire GUI 
system.


Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the overall 
stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still long perhaps 
too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better solution to put 
things like QTopia on the phone. I mean, how long will it still take to get 
things to this level 
(http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/learnmore/screenshots4/?searchterm=screenshots) ?


about one week.



Perhaps with a different style or something but at least QTopia has been 
around for quite a few years, sporting a nice portfolio of apps, having a 
nice ,portable and powerfull GUI library.


I know that the software is not fully GPL and FREE but what REALLY is Fully 
free ? AFAIK you can mess around with qtopia ad lib (hey, look at opie's 
fork), sources are available, support is great (KDE ...) and for FIC's sake, 
they can focus there entire resource of a great phone.


For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.  It needs 
a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured device available 
so that we hackers can release our creativity and write apps that users like 
and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to start all over again.  And for 
what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...


So what about porting QTopia to the NEO as backup scenario ? I.e. how much 
more delays can we afford ?




--
Lorn 'ljp' Potter
Software Engineer, Systems Group, MES, Trolltech

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Lorn Potter]

Tilman Baumann wrote:
I like Qtopie too. Especially considering how well they could handle 
embedded guis for years.


But in reallity. qt and c++ is a limitation. Look how far Opie was 
evolved during the last years and how god id was from the beginning. But 
it still was more or less insignificant.


Opie is but a fork of Qtopia. Using Qt and c++ is hardly a limitation. 
Take a look at KDE.





Then look how far Nokia got with theyr maemo gtk modell. Within half a 
year they had a big community and lots of great programms ported.


Thats more because they had some cool hardware. Meamo is not all that 
free - it contains proprietary parts, which is a consequence of using 
LGPL, which is why Amgstrom does not build flash images for these devices.



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Ted Lemon]

On Aug 24, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Carlo E. Prelz wrote:

WxWidgets never crossed my path. Qt is out of the question since I
don't do C++. I tried a handful of times to get familiar with it, and
was fiercely rejected every time.


That's strange - I have tried a variety of widget libraries,  
including Gtk, and the one that I found easiest to work with, by a  
wide margine, was Qt 4.   I never tried programming Qt 3, and from  
what I've seen of it it looks a lot less straightforward.   So if  
that's the one you tried, and you're curious, you might give Qt 4 a  
shot.   The best way to learn is to start with someone else's working  
code and modify it, so that you get a feel for the system, rather  
than trying to start from scratch.


Personally, I think that the 2007.2 UI looks *fantastic*, despite the  
color scheme, and I love the flick-scrolling. But I am depressed at  
how easily the applications crash.   This is the problem with coding  
UIs in C or C++.


Anyway, if you like Qtopia, please don't sit on the sidelines and  
kibbitz - try to get it running.   There's absolutely no harm in  
people investing effort in trying other stuff.   If you look at how  
many people bought one of these phones, and how many people are  
actively hacking, you can see that there's a lot of thrashing going  
on.   Which is perfectly find - if you thrash enough, sometimes you  
get butter.   So go try Qtopia!



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Kalle Kärkkäinen]

Hi,

This is OpenGL ES stuff what I was (intending to atleast) talking about, 
the inherent ability in the core gui to use the new features for devices 
like mobile phones. Real interfacing with 3d that far surpasses the 
current expectation is something I'm looking for in a phone like this. 
That being pricey high tech phone that it is.


Yes, it's REALLY nice that I could be able to hack into it. Totally 
exciting prospect, sweet even.


But as the gui stands now, I hope there are plans brewing in FIC to beef 
it up before the launch. Call me vain, but the other phones in same 
price category are just somewhat much better looking (iPhone, LGPrada, 
having a design of their own other than just orange-black...). And there 
are some people for whom that kind of things mean a lot. Maybe it should 
be a priority to include them too, rather than exclude?


Of course some people might think, that once we get the ball rolling, 
the community will get this phone in the air. Personally I don't mind, 
apt-getting and fixing the setup is a second nature. But I'd hazard a 
guess that it'd be just the thing that would drive people away from 
openmoko.


Basically a single question should clear this up. Is GTA02 a ..?
  a) geek phone
  b) community phone

If the answer is b, I guess this sort of things should get some 
consideration time also on the community board. It should be nice from 
the get-go. The community should be able to help with that.


And since I've heard so many people in here saying 'why dont you do the 
feature XX yourself', I've got to comment on it: Empowerment over the 
device is a nice thing, only that not everybody has the skills required 
or especially the time required to do all those things. Bottom line is 
that organizations like Novell, Redhat or Ximian with paid people have 
done a great deal of focused work for the benefit of all. Most of the 
core features in the phone should come from same kind of businesses 
(say, FIC for instance ( I really appreciate your hard efforts )).


This holds true atleast for the first few iterations of the phones, 
while the community builds up and the phone starts to shape our culture.


It's great that I can change everything in the phone if need be. Even 
better is that I should not need to change anything, maybe if I just 
could get more stuff done, Stuff-That-Matters-To-Me. With style, with 
ease of use.


We just should not aim too low. We'll hit the nut sacks that way. ;)

--
Kalle.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Tilman Baumann]

I like Qtopie too. Especially considering how well they could handle 
embedded guis for years.


But in reallity. qt and c++ is a limitation. Look how far Opie was 
evolved during the last years and how god id was from the beginning. But 
it still was more or less insignificant.


Then look how far Nokia got with theyr maemo gtk modell. Within half a 
year they had a big community and lots of great programms ported.


Sure, gtk and x is not as clean as qt is. But what does it help?

I'm quite happy with the choice. But i would enjoy trieung out qtopia on 
my neo if anyone ports it. But where the real stuff goes on is the 
pragmatic way.


wim delvaux wrote:

HI all,

Champion of open source and user of familiar on Ipaq when time was new, i 
wonder if it was such a good idea to rewrite from scratch an entire GUI 
system.


Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the overall 
stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still long perhaps 
too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better solution to put 
things like QTopia on the phone. I mean, how long will it still take to get 
things to this level 
(http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/learnmore/screenshots4/?searchterm=screenshots) ?


Perhaps with a different style or something but at least QTopia has been 
around for quite a few years, sporting a nice portfolio of apps, having a 
nice ,portable and powerfull GUI library.


I know that the software is not fully GPL and FREE but what REALLY is Fully 
free ? AFAIK you can mess around with qtopia ad lib (hey, look at opie's 
fork), sources are available, support is great (KDE ...) and for FIC's sake, 
they can focus there entire resource of a great phone.


For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.  It needs 
a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured device available 
so that we hackers can release our creativity and write apps that users like 
and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to start all over again.  And for 
what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...


So what about porting QTopia to the NEO as backup scenario ? I.e. how much 
more delays can we afford ?


W

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RE: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[thomas.cooksey]

Hi all,

Personally, I intend to use Qtopia for my homebrew phone (because of lots of 
reasons, but mostly  because of the OpenGL ES acceleration). I'm certain 
OpenMoko will never switch to Qtopia as so much effort has been put in already. 
I suspect, however that Qtopia may one day find itself running on the GTA02 as 
a separate project, as already mentioned. Considering how easy it was for the 
Gumstix guys to get Qtopia working (It took about 5 minutes, just a recompile) 
I think a Qtopia based OS on the GTA02 will quickly overtake a GTK+ based OS in 
speed, reliability and functionality. That is my own, personal opinion, but 
this is a subject I have researched very heavily over the last 12-months. A 
fair bit of my research is published on the elinux website, if anyone's 
interested in reading more: http://www.elinux.org/User_Interfaces.


Technical Stuff
===
Qtopia is in a far more stable state and runs _quickly_, it has to, Trolltech 
sell it as commercial product! What's more importent is that it can take 
advantage of the OpenGL ES hardware acceleration, which will be avaliable on 
the GTA02 (see http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3-snapshot/qtopiacore-ahigl.html on 
how to do this). Getting OpenGL ES acceleration working under GTK+ _will_ be a 
huge task, requiring massive chunks of Cairo to be rewritten. Remember, the 
only OpenGL acceleration Cairo has is Glitz, which I believe is unmaintained 
and only accelerates image composition tasks anyway. Plus, it's OpenGL, not 
OpenGL ES and will require work to port it. From what I've read, the OpenGL ES 
stuff currently in Qtopia provides window transition effects similar to Beryl 
on desktop systems. I guess this can probably be extended easily to get a 
"cube" desktop on the GTA02. Plus, it all done in hardware so will be _fast_.


Licensing
=
As mentioned, Qtopia is avaliable under the GPL. Strictly speaking it is "more" 
open than GTK+ which is distributed under the LGPL (Lesser GPL).

I.e. Open source developers put in time and effort to develop GTK+ code. A big 
company can come along and say, yes, I like that, I think I'll use it. So they 
do and write closed-source software using the freely avaliable GTK+ code. They 
sell it and make lots of money out of other people's work, without contributing 
a thing back to the community, not even source code. This is all perfectly 
legal under the LGPL and has been done in the past by companies like VMWare, 
real networks (real player), adobe and many others.

On the other hand, Qtopia is avaliable under the GPL (The full on GPL, not a 
"GPL-like" license, the GPL itself). As far as I understand it, there is 
nothing stopping anyone forking Qtopia (if deemed necessary) so long as they 
always publish their changes for everyone to see (As specified under the GPL). 
Anyone using Qtopia is obliged to publish the source code of their application, 
not just the changes they have made to Qtopia itself. So, IMO, all this talk of 
using GTK+ as it's developed by the "community" is a little redundant. Why not 
just take Qtopia, as long as you publish any changes, the community can develop 
it as much as they want.

Finally, I feel I should remind people what's happening with Hildon. Nokia 
spend a lot of money hiring developers to develop Hildon, the GTK+ based 
framework on the N770 and N800. Now, Intel has come along and decided to take 
all the work Nokia has done and make it run on their own devices. How would FIC 
look if say HTC came along and took OpenMoko and put it onto their own phones?


Cheers,

Tom


PS: Just read a few other posts... As mentioned on elinux, unlike desktop 
systems, it is _not_ possible to run both Qtopia and GTK+ applications 
simultaniously. It's one or the other (although it might be possible to get a 
hack working using DirectFB).

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Jeremy G]

> But OpenMoko developers should have the right to choose the
> development tools they prefer. It is they who have a lot at stake in
> this project. The worse that can happen to you or me is that we won't
> be able to play with a new gizmo. Sean, Mickey, and the rest of the
> paid OpenMoko team are defining their future, while they put ideas to
> test. Let them work the way they prefer.

++

If you really like the idea of using WxWidgets or Qt, that's great.
Feel free to port it over to OpenMoko.  You certainly have the freedom
to do that.

I'm not sure just how open the Trolltech software is, but is the OS
open enough to port GTK/Gnome over to the Greenphone?  Just curious.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Carlo E. Prelz]

Subject: Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software
Date: ven 24 ago 07 06:43:22 +0200

Quoting wim delvaux ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

> have you ever tried using WxWidgets or Qt ?

WxWidgets never crossed my path. Qt is out of the question since I
don't do C++. I tried a handful of times to get familiar with it, and
was fiercely rejected every time. 

But this all is quite personal stuff, that is probably of limited
interest to list readers...

Carlo

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Attila Csipa]

On Friday 24 August 2007 16:59, wim delvaux wrote:
> Perhaps with a different style or something but at least QTopia has been
> around for quite a few years, sporting a nice portfolio of apps, having a
> nice ,portable and powerfull GUI library.
> I know that the software is not fully GPL and FREE but what REALLY is Fully

No such thing as 'not fully' GPL. Either you are GPL compliant or aren't. 
According to the Trolltech website:

The Qtopia Open Source Edition is provided under the GNU General Public 
License v2.0. This specifies that you may freely use the Qtopia Open Source 
Edition for:

* Development of open source/non-proprietary software that is also 
released under the GPL license.
* Compiling and running GPL software developed by others.
* Devices built with the Qtopia Open Source Edition may be freely 
distributed, provided the source code is supplied along with the device. 
Modified versions of the Qtopia Open Source Edition can also be copied, put 
on FTP sites and CD-ROMs, etc. 

So it is pointless to discuss whether QTopia is non-free (if you do that, you 
could start saying Linux is not free since RedHat is selling commercial Linux 
licenses). That being said, the OpenMoko team is free to use or make whatever 
ui, library or application it wishes. With Open Source you don't have a 
single right or wrong choice. The dev team can make their own, they can use 
Qtopia, they can fork Qtopia, it's only up to them, you could even have 
parallel solutions like you have on the desktop, you can use both Gnome and 
KDE on the same hardware and OS.

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[wim delvaux]

On Friday 24 August 2007 18:31:47 Carlo E. Prelz wrote:
>   Subject: Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software
>   Date: ven 24 ago 07 05:53:43 +0200
>
> Quoting wim delvaux ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> > GTK ? GTK is a graphics library on top of which you desperately need a
> > higher level of abstraction (e.g. WxWidgets).
>
> I used GTK, either directly from C or from its Ruby interface, so many
> times now, without feeling any specific need for a further level of
> abstraction. The Ruby interface defines objects for the various GTK
> classes, but then it has almost a 1-to-1 correspondence between
> function calls and methods. Flexibility is not negative: it offers
> more opportunities.
>
> > Comparing with QTopia, if you look at all what has been acchieved with
> > KDE : K3B, Amarok etc etc all great apps using a 'non free' but freely
> > available high quality library...
>
> I believe you are welcome, even encouraged, to do your own port of
> Qtopia for the OpenMoko phone, and distribute it. If you do it, and
> you do a good job, many people who buy their phone could follow
> appropriate instructions and be able to enjoy a Qtopia interface from
> day one. Maybe someone might even provide the phones with Qtopia
> pre-installed (I do not know about licensing though).
>
> But OpenMoko developers should have the right to choose the
> development tools they prefer. It is they who have a lot at stake in
> this project. The worse that can happen to you or me is that we won't
> be able to play with a new gizmo. Sean, Mickey, and the rest of the
> paid OpenMoko team are defining their future, while they put ideas to
> test. Let them work the way they prefer.
>
> Carlo
>
> PS I see that the Greenphone is on sale at $695. Any direct
> experience? Is it possible to have OpenMoko running on the Greenphone?

We contacted Qt about this phone before we switched to the NEO.  It is a phone 
you can buy from some chinese manufacturer.



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[wim delvaux]

On Friday 24 August 2007 18:31:47 Carlo E. Prelz wrote:
>   Subject: Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software
>   Date: ven 24 ago 07 05:53:43 +0200
>
> Quoting wim delvaux ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> > GTK ? GTK is a graphics library on top of which you desperately need a
> > higher level of abstraction (e.g. WxWidgets).
>
> I used GTK, either directly from C or from its Ruby interface, so many
> times now, without feeling any specific need for a further level of
> abstraction. The Ruby interface defines objects for the various GTK
> classes, but then it has almost a 1-to-1 correspondence between
> function calls and methods. Flexibility is not negative: it offers
> more opportunities.

have you ever tried using WxWidgets or Qt ?

>
> > Comparing with QTopia, if you look at all what has been acchieved with
> > KDE : K3B, Amarok etc etc all great apps using a 'non free' but freely
> > available high quality library...
>
> I believe you are welcome, even encouraged, to do your own port of
> Qtopia for the OpenMoko phone, and distribute it. If you do it, and
> you do a good job, many people who buy their phone could follow
> appropriate instructions and be able to enjoy a Qtopia interface from
> day one. Maybe someone might even provide the phones with Qtopia
> pre-installed (I do not know about licensing though).
>
> But OpenMoko developers should have the right to choose the
> development tools they prefer. It is they who have a lot at stake in
> this project. The worse that can happen to you or me is that we won't
> be able to play with a new gizmo. Sean, Mickey, and the rest of the
> paid OpenMoko team are defining their future, while they put ideas to
> test. Let them work the way they prefer.
>
> Carlo
>
> PS I see that the Greenphone is on sale at $695. Any direct
> experience? Is it possible to have OpenMoko running on the Greenphone?



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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Carlo E. Prelz]

Subject: Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software
Date: ven 24 ago 07 05:53:43 +0200

Quoting wim delvaux ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):

> GTK ? GTK is a graphics library on top of which you desperately need a higher 
> level of abstraction (e.g. WxWidgets).

I used GTK, either directly from C or from its Ruby interface, so many
times now, without feeling any specific need for a further level of
abstraction. The Ruby interface defines objects for the various GTK
classes, but then it has almost a 1-to-1 correspondence between
function calls and methods. Flexibility is not negative: it offers
more opportunities.

> Comparing with QTopia, if you look at all what has been acchieved with KDE : 
> K3B, Amarok etc etc all great apps using a 'non free' but freely available 
> high quality library...

I believe you are welcome, even encouraged, to do your own port of
Qtopia for the OpenMoko phone, and distribute it. If you do it, and
you do a good job, many people who buy their phone could follow
appropriate instructions and be able to enjoy a Qtopia interface from
day one. Maybe someone might even provide the phones with Qtopia
pre-installed (I do not know about licensing though).

But OpenMoko developers should have the right to choose the
development tools they prefer. It is they who have a lot at stake in
this project. The worse that can happen to you or me is that we won't
be able to play with a new gizmo. Sean, Mickey, and the rest of the
paid OpenMoko team are defining their future, while they put ideas to
test. Let them work the way they prefer.

Carlo

PS I see that the Greenphone is on sale at $695. Any direct
experience? Is it possible to have OpenMoko running on the Greenphone?

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[wim delvaux]

On Friday 24 August 2007 17:26:28 Tim Shannon wrote:
> They aren't reinventing the wheel, it's GTK.  And as far as GPL not being
> important, I think you miss the point of the entire project.  Open source
> isn't just about free software, it's about a free community.

GTK ? GTK is a graphics library on top of which you desperately need a higher 
level of abstraction (e.g. WxWidgets).  Also GTK AFAIK does not really define 
a style guide.  Look at OpenMoko and look at Gnome or at WxWidgets : same GTK 
lib but completely different programming model.

Also what is a 'free community' ? I think it means that anybody can do what he 
wants without limitations.  Well, guess what, there are ALWAYS limitations 
perhaps not of the software kind but perhaps on (percieved) stability 
side ...

Comparing with QTopia, if you look at all what has been acchieved with KDE : 
K3B, Amarok etc etc all great apps using a 'non free' but freely available 
high quality library...

CU
W

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Amy Stephen]

A free community is ensured by the GPL and other free software licenses. :-)

On 8/24/07, Tim Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> They aren't reinventing the wheel, it's GTK.  And as far as GPL not being
> important, I think you miss the point of the entire project.  Open source
> isn't just about free software, it's about a free community.
>
> On 8/24/07, wim delvaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > HI all,
> >
> > Champion of open source and user of familiar on Ipaq when time was new,
> > i
> > wonder if it was such a good idea to rewrite from scratch an entire GUI
> > system.
> >
> > Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the
> > overall
> > stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still long
> > perhaps
> > too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better solution to put
> > things like QTopia on the phone. I mean, how long will it still take to
> > get
> > things to this level
> > (
> > http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/learnmore/screenshots4/?searchterm=screenshots)
> > ?
> >
> > Perhaps with a different style or something but at least QTopia has been
> > around for quite a few years, sporting a nice portfolio of apps, having
> > a
> > nice ,portable and powerfull GUI library.
> >
> > I know that the software is not fully GPL and FREE but what REALLY is
> > Fully
> > free ? AFAIK you can mess around with qtopia ad lib (hey, look at opie's
> > fork), sources are available, support is great (KDE ...) and for FIC's
> > sake,
> > they can focus there entire resource of a great phone.
> >
> > For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.  It
> > needs
> > a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured device
> > available
> > so that we hackers can release our creativity and write apps that users
> > like
> > and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to start all over again.  And
> > for
> > what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...
> >
> > So what about porting QTopia to the NEO as backup scenario ? I.e. how
> > much
> > more delays can we afford ?
> >
> > W
> >
> > ___
> > OpenMoko community mailing list
> > community@lists.openmoko.org
> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> >
>
>
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>


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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[wim delvaux]

On Friday 24 August 2007 17:14:54 Thomas Wood wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 16:59 +0200, wim delvaux wrote:
> > HI all,
> >
> > Champion of open source and user of familiar on Ipaq when time was new, i
> > wonder if it was such a good idea to rewrite from scratch an entire GUI
> > system.
> >
> > Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the
> > overall stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still
> > long perhaps too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better
> > solution to put things like QTopia on the phone. I mean, how long will it
> > still take to get things to this level
> > (http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/learnmore/screenshots4/?searchterm=
> >screenshots) ?
>
> To be honest, I think we are quite close already but you really need to
> be more specific about what you mean.

Well I just flashed with the latest 0813 release and beside looking great, 
there is not much yet that is ready : no bluetooth, no gprs, no contacts, 
phone working a bit, no mail, suspend resume not OK yet, crashes etc etc.

>
> [...]
>
> > For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.  It
> > needs a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured device
> > available so that we hackers can release our creativity and write apps
> > that users like and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to start all
> > over again.  And for what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...
>
> The primary aim of the OpenMoko project and the Neo1973 is to create a
> software platform and a device that are entirely Free in the spirit of
> the Free Software movement. See
>  for a definition of this. I
> don't think we need "just another phone", we need one that embraces the
> ideals of the Free Software movement. This way we will be creating
> something truly unique and valuable.

But wat IS free ? Personally the 'free' as defined by Trolltech : free for 
free soft, payed for soft that will be sold, sounds more 'reasonable' then 
free and you cannot make money out of your application.  For me freedom means 
I have the possibility to do what I want with it providing I do not harm the 
rights of others.  I think the freedom of QTopia (compare it to KDE) is good 
enough.  It gives me lots of freedom and If I make a buck out of what I do 
with their work I need to pay them a buck too ...

CU
W

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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Tim Shannon]

They aren't reinventing the wheel, it's GTK.  And as far as GPL not being
important, I think you miss the point of the entire project.  Open source
isn't just about free software, it's about a free community.

On 8/24/07, wim delvaux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> HI all,
>
> Champion of open source and user of familiar on Ipaq when time was new, i
> wonder if it was such a good idea to rewrite from scratch an entire GUI
> system.
>
> Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the
> overall
> stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still long
> perhaps
> too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better solution to put
> things like QTopia on the phone. I mean, how long will it still take to
> get
> things to this level
> (
> http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/learnmore/screenshots4/?searchterm=screenshots)
> ?
>
> Perhaps with a different style or something but at least QTopia has been
> around for quite a few years, sporting a nice portfolio of apps, having a
> nice ,portable and powerfull GUI library.
>
> I know that the software is not fully GPL and FREE but what REALLY is
> Fully
> free ? AFAIK you can mess around with qtopia ad lib (hey, look at opie's
> fork), sources are available, support is great (KDE ...) and for FIC's
> sake,
> they can focus there entire resource of a great phone.
>
> For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.  It
> needs
> a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured device
> available
> so that we hackers can release our creativity and write apps that users
> like
> and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to start all over again.  And
> for
> what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...
>
> So what about porting QTopia to the NEO as backup scenario ? I.e. how much
> more delays can we afford ?
>
> W
>
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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Thomas Wood]

On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 16:59 +0200, wim delvaux wrote:
> HI all,
> 
> Champion of open source and user of familiar on Ipaq when time was new, i 
> wonder if it was such a good idea to rewrite from scratch an entire GUI 
> system.
> 
> Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the overall 
> stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still long perhaps 
> too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better solution to put 
> things like QTopia on the phone. I mean, how long will it still take to get 
> things to this level 
> (http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/learnmore/screenshots4/?searchterm=screenshots)
>  ?

To be honest, I think we are quite close already but you really need to
be more specific about what you mean.

[...]
> 
> For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.  It 
> needs 
> a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured device available 
> so that we hackers can release our creativity and write apps that users like 
> and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to start all over again.  And for 
> what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...


The primary aim of the OpenMoko project and the Neo1973 is to create a
software platform and a device that are entirely Free in the spirit of
the Free Software movement. See
 for a definition of this. I
don't think we need "just another phone", we need one that embraces the
ideals of the Free Software movement. This way we will be creating
something truly unique and valuable.

Regards,

Thomas


-- 
OpenedHand Ltd.

Unit R Homesdale Business Center / 216-218 Homesdale Road /
Bromley / BR1 2QZ / UK Tel: +44 (0)20 8819 6559

Expert Open Source For Consumer Devices - http://o-hand.com/



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At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[wim delvaux]

HI all,

Champion of open source and user of familiar on Ipaq when time was new, i 
wonder if it was such a good idea to rewrite from scratch an entire GUI 
system.

Knowing that the device is now about 6 months late and looking at the overall 
stability and completeness of the GUI (List of issues is still long perhaps 
too long ?) I wonder if it would not have been a better solution to put 
things like QTopia on the phone. I mean, how long will it still take to get 
things to this level 
(http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/learnmore/screenshots4/?searchterm=screenshots)
 ?

Perhaps with a different style or something but at least QTopia has been 
around for quite a few years, sporting a nice portfolio of apps, having a 
nice ,portable and powerfull GUI library.

I know that the software is not fully GPL and FREE but what REALLY is Fully 
free ? AFAIK you can mess around with qtopia ad lib (hey, look at opie's 
fork), sources are available, support is great (KDE ...) and for FIC's sake, 
they can focus there entire resource of a great phone.

For me, the free community does not need (really) a new GUI library.  It needs 
a good phone ! Our interest lies in having a nicely featured device available 
so that we hackers can release our creativity and write apps that users like 
and not - yet again - re-invent the wheel to start all over again.  And for 
what ? For a theme ? For true GPL ? ...

So what about porting QTopia to the NEO as backup scenario ? I.e. how much 
more delays can we afford ?

W

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