Re: GTA04 openness/freedom (was GTA04 Group Buy - Status)
Hi Michael Well I for one would like a smartphone with completely open software - if an open implementation of baseband code also led to an improvement in user experience on the freerunner, that would be a bonus. Like you, I'm not too concerned about rules imposed on us by large corporations, if the code is good, they will not know their rules are being broken. I can understand that the calypso currently is the best chance to achieve this; it is nice to imagine this will be done and then act like a trojan to open the gates wide for other projects. I've no knowledge of how to code directly to hardware, so I'm never going to be more than a bystander, at least not until the stage was reached where testing could be done. I have no clue whether what you say, about people in the free software camp witholding code/information from you is a fact. As I bystander, if it were true it is dissappointing, although I think you have gone about this in a very sub-optimal way and that you should step back and consider how to approach people who may (or indeed may not) be able to help you. Best wishes -- David Matthews m...@dmatthews.org ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04 openness/freedom (was GTA04 Group Buy - Status)
On Friday 02 December 2011 05:26:16 msoko...@ivan.harhan.org wrote:
But seriously, swapping PCBAs between GTA02 and GTA04 is a zero-sum
game. The number of existing {case + LCM + GSM antenna + other bits}
sets is finite, and it stays the same whether you leave the original
GTA02 PCBAs in those cases or replace them with GTA04s.
With my wooden case i had fully working phone - only single part that was from
GTA02 was the speaker + microphone. I really dont think this is big problem.
Regards
Radek
___
Openmoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04 openness/freedom (was GTA04 Group Buy - Status)
Radek Polak pson...@seznam.cz wrote: With my wooden case i had fully working phone - only single part that was from GTA02 was the speaker + microphone. I really dont think this is big problem. Yes, and if I wanted to do the same thing (use a self-made wooden case), I could have done it just as well with my own APH01 PCBA (quad-band Calypso based on the liberated Leonardo+ schematics) rather than GTA04. So I still disagree with your reasoning chain of (shortage of existing GTA02 units) - (GTA04 is the only solution) MS ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04 openness/freedom (was GTA04 Group Buy - Status)
On Friday 02 of December 2011 17:53:15 msoko...@ivan.harhan.org wrote: So I still disagree with your reasoning chain of (shortage of existing GTA02 units) - (GTA04 is the only solution) i am rather saying: (shortage of existing GTA02 units) - (GTA04 is the solution) Also pool graphics performace of GTA02 make the user experience very bad - hardly acceptable for normal users and this is fixed in GTA04 and that's one more reason to upgrade. I am not saying that everyone should upgrade. I would personally wait a bit until i knew that the power management in GTA04 will be working - without that the it's not much usable as phone (i.e. charging twice a day is not comfortabe and will kill your battery soon). But it's up to anyone to collect objective information and decide. Regards Radek ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04 openness/freedom (was GTA04 Group Buy - Status)
Radek Polak pson...@seznam.cz wrote: i am rather saying: (shortage of existing GTA02 units) - (GTA04 is the solution) It is *a* solution for some classes of users. It is not *the* solution for all use cases. Also pool graphics performace of GTA02 make the user experience very bad - hardly acceptable for normal users and this is fixed in GTA04 and that's one more reason to upgrade. Fancy graphics is something I couldn't care less about. I would be quite happy with the most bare-bones UI which should be implementable just fine on the GTA02, producing responsiveness no worse than my ancient Mot V66. Instead what I want is an everyday cellphone that does voice calls, SMS and CSD, and does so using software and firmware for which I have access to inspectable and recompilable source, be it legal or illegal. I'm currently in the process of trying to acquire a TSM30: that may be the right phone for me, given that my GTA02 is currently a paperweight due to the lack of an army capable of invading Germany and prying the Closedmoko fw semi-src from its hoarders. I should be able to acquire at least one TSM30, but I'm hoping to be able to find at least two: since no TSM30 schematics are available (I don't know whether it's because they've never been released in the first place, or if they are available in some obscure location and those who know that location are selfishly refusing to point me to it), I will probably have to reconstruct them by taking an actual TSM30 PCBA and sending it to a professional PCB/PCBA reverse engineering lab where they would remove all components, separate and image the layers of the PCB or whatever they do to reconstruct the netlist and the layout of inner layers. Unfortunately that process requires destroying at least one PCBA. :-( Of course hiring a professional PCB/PCBA reverse eng lab is devilishly expensive, but it should still be less expensive than hiring the kind of people who could help me recover the semi-src I'm looking for by some brute-force means... Not to mention the cost of restructuring my life to avoid ever visiting any country that does extradition... What would I do if someone was willing to release an anonymous copy of the GTA0x (or Leonardo baseline) Calypso fw semi-src, so that instead of expending 100% of my life-force to recover that jewel I could actually do something productive? Well, in that case I would start by taking my GTA02 out of the box in which it came, and putting my own very simple distro on the Samsung application processor. I would then bring up the Calypso, using the knowledge of its code to understand the process better. Maybe even find and fix a bug or two in that Calypso fw in the process. After bringing up my own distro on the GTA02 that uses built-from-src code for both the AP and the BP, I would quite seriously consider building my own replacement PCBA just like Dr. HNS did. If he and his team could do it, why can't I? Expect that my hw design goals and target audience would be quite different. I would keep the Calypso, no UMTS, but possibly make it quad-band, copying the quad-band GSM RF front-end from the Leonardo+ schematics - if I can find a place to get that little passive component. While I have no problem with the Samsung AP on the GTA02, I realize that the component is most likely unobtainable. But since I would be targeting a user base for which the part that really matters is the BP rather than the AP, I don't really care which AP to use. Perhaps I would borrow the OMAP AP from the GTA04, or maybe find some significantly cheaper really basic AP that can do the absolutely minimal functions I expect from it. And I would most certainly omit the features/components/complexity that is of no interest to me: WiFi, BT and the accelerometer/etc sensors. The result would be a device meant to be a *phone*, not something else. But I'm not going to put any more serious thought into that project until and unless I can obtain the source or semi-src for the Calypso fw, i.e., either a GTA0x/Leonardo/other non-TSM30 version or some docs for the TSM30 which would make that already-available source version a more viable starting point. I am not saying that everyone should upgrade. I would personally wait a bit until i knew that the power management in GTA04 will be working - without that the it's not much usable as phone (i.e. charging twice a day is not comfortabe and will kill your battery soon). But it's up to anyone to collect objective information and decide. PM issues are one of the major reasons why the absence of src/semi-src for the Calypso fw is making my GTA02 serve as a paperweight. From what I understand, the engineers at Openmoko-Inc took the Leonardo baseline code and made their own adaptations to it. One of the latter was the addition of the GPIO signal by way of which the BP wakes up the AP on certain conditions - an incoming call being the prime example, one would hope. I've heard that they
Re: GTA04 openness/freedom (was GTA04 Group Buy - Status)
On Thursday 01 of December 2011 20:09:02 msoko...@ivan.harhan.org wrote: Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller h...@goldelico.com wrote: it is obvious why the open and free software community needs a device where every individual has control over the software. But isn't the GTM601 GSM/UMTS modem in the GTA04 just as closed as any other? How is then GTA04 an improvement over GTA02 in terms of openness/freedom? If anything, it's a step backward from the GTA02 in terms of openness/freedom: at least for the GTA02's Calypso the free world already has free physical access (legalities aside, please) to full hw documentation for all guts of that chipset and to the fw source for a different Calypso phone (TSM30) which may some day be back-ported to Leonardo/GTA02. For the GTM601/GTA04 we don't have even that. What's the point in investing time into device that is no longer manufactured and the number of users is decreasing to zero? Did you realize that very soon you will loose the freedom to buy GTA02? This freedom is much more important than some leaked docs for modem firmware. Regards Radek ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04 openness/freedom (was GTA04 Group Buy - Status)
Radek Polak pson...@seznam.cz wrote:
What's the point in investing time into device that is no longer manufactured
and the number of users is decreasing to zero?
If it is so worthless in your eyes, why are you (not Radek personally,
but some others in this community) guarding that moko fw src/object
code so zealously? Why are you so unwilling to brighten up at least
one person's life by having some anonymous account upload a copy from
some public WiFi hotspot?
Did you realize that very soon you will loose the freedom to buy GTA02?
Well, I've already got mine. :-)
But seriously, swapping PCBAs between GTA02 and GTA04 is a zero-sum
game. The number of existing {case + LCM + GSM antenna + other bits}
sets is finite, and it stays the same whether you leave the original
GTA02 PCBAs in those cases or replace them with GTA04s.
And if someone solves the problem of existing case shortage by making
a new case and starts selling full GTA04s with cases, perhaps I'll
make my own Calypso-based PCBA to stuff into those new cases. I've
been thinking about using Leonardo+ schematics (quad-band Calypso
reference board) as my starting point, including the quad-band GSM RF
front-end, and slapping some simple application processor in front of
it, whatever is most readily available. Maybe even the same OMAP
which Dr. HNS has used in the GTA04 - I don't really care what the AP
is as long as it can run Linux with full source, but I want the GSM
part to be Calypso, because it's the best-understood cellular baseband
chipset from the hacking standpoint.
MS
___
Openmoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
