Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
Craig Woodward wrote: I disagree for one simple reason: There has yet to be a stable kernel and interface for any GTA* phone from which to build. There are releases that are labeled stable, but most of them crash after a short time, or have major bugs that prevent the hardware from working like a normal phone for any length of time. This is the same concern I have had when developers talk about improvements and not doing anything FR specific because they want to concentrate effort on stuff that will improve the experience on the 03 I've got this horrible feeling we'll be left with an unsupported device that never really did the basics properly. I hope the FSO/OM2009 release next year will get us there, but I'm lacking in faith right now. I'd be pretty annoyed if I owned a 1973. -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/-Fwd%3A--openmoko-announce--Om-2008.12---Beyond--tp1680088p1694047.html Sent from the Openmoko Support mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
...at least the NEO 1973 will for sure be a collectors item! OpenMoko was and still is for developpers purpose. Let's see what round 03 will bring ;-) Cheers Am Dienstag 23 Dezember 2008 15:57:29 schrieb Gothnet: Craig Woodward wrote: I disagree for one simple reason: There has yet to be a stable kernel and interface for any GTA* phone from which to build. There are releases that are labeled stable, but most of them crash after a short time, or have major bugs that prevent the hardware from working like a normal phone for any length of time. This is the same concern I have had when developers talk about improvements and not doing anything FR specific because they want to concentrate effort on stuff that will improve the experience on the 03 I've got this horrible feeling we'll be left with an unsupported device that never really did the basics properly. I hope the FSO/OM2009 release next year will get us there, but I'm lacking in faith right now. I'd be pretty annoyed if I owned a 1973. ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:30 AM, Markus Fischer i...@flyingfischer.ch wrote: ...at least the NEO 1973 will for sure be a collectors item! Why? I got a drawer full of non functional hardware. How much do you think I could get for that? OpenMoko was and still is for developpers purpose. The Freerunner was marketed as the Consumer Ready Version with the software to complete the readiness soon to follow. The 1973 was marketed as the same way (Hence the developer's box). Point in case, Openmoko needs to stabilize the framework on ALL their devices. The community has provided awesome apps, Midori, Minimo, Tango, Navit, FBReader just to name a few that I use. FIC needs to fulfill their promise of creating a stable platform so the community doesn't die. -- Paul Email - pault...@gmail.com There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful. Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
Funny comment, as are too many of those from the OpenMoko camp :-( My Neo1973 was from one of the first, if not the first batch sent out to regular people and nobody was more excited about OpenMoko than I. Sean probably doesn't remember it, but if he has saved his mails, he'll have the mail trail. 1.The Neo1973, the GTA01, was promoted as the final developer's version of a platform that would be the open source version of iPhone. When it shipped, it couldn't even boot the image it was shipped with!?! 2.The follow up to the Neo1973, then just known as the GTA02 was supposed to be a general available phone for the masses, in September 2006. 3.Let me repeat that: The GTA02 was supposed to be a general available phone for the masses, in September 2006! 4.However, since then, the GTA01 and the GTA02 were rebranded as developer's versions of a platform that will be OK, real soon now! 5.The GTA01 was apparently orphaned and is now a 'collectors item'. So I paid $500USD for a potential collectors item? (item cost+handling +tax) for which I am not happy, as I appreciate it's potential huge value in the hardware it is made up of. 6.The OpenMoko camp failed miserably in many ways, of which the most obvious, as is unfortunately the usual scene, the management failed to understand their task. 7.If the GTA0? was to be a developer's platform, then why wasn't it developed as such? 7.A A developer's platform will contain elements as 'focus on making it easy to produce an environment to develop the kernel and platform software' 7.B A developer's platform will produce easy communication between *all* developers and not just the primadonnas that are good enough to make *something work, *but apparently not to talk with the lesser able in order to make a whole team work for the whole. 8.I am not a highly efficient core developer type, but more on the later wave, and as a tester. I can do module and system test very well with reports that will be useful for core system developers, see for example Openmoko Bug #1158. So, if the OpenMoko team at FIC is serious about supporting the community, please communicate it much more clearly, and don't think you have the backing the size of the Linux kernel! You see, apparently you haven't been able to after now several years, create an image on the Neo 1973 that will not run out of juice even when apparently shut off, after 12 hours. Colour me unimpressed! The calorie meter you have on the GTA02 should only be able to tell you better values to show on the display, but if you had better control of the actual electric consumption it should last better than 12hours, after apparently shutting off the device. Colour me unimpressed! Then, you are apparently trying to develop this device to the whole world, but aren't able to, after more than a year able to produce support for anything else than the US ASCII character set when writing SMS. And FIC being in a Chinese country that actually needs double byte character sets, I am amazed that it wasn't in the first image! Colour me unimpressed! So, the whole situation reeks of a top management problem to recognize the issues of making a platform that has the basic problems at issue, instead of letting everyone on the FIC/OpenMoko payroll know that producing a working platform for everyone else is important. Sean Moss-Pultz hasn't done his job. I work as a developer for Motorola, but with infrastructure not the mobile handset divisions, and there a number of people have also lately not done their job well, but we still sell multi-million handsets a year and have since 1973, so at least a history has been made. OpenMoko still has to. My Neo1973 looks more an more like a door stop, and my friends with iPhones, HTC Touch and such understands my original excitement less and less! Peter Markus Fischer wrote: ...at least the NEO 1973 will for sure be a collectors item! OpenMoko was and still is for developpers purpose. Let's see what round 03 will bring ;-) Cheers Am Dienstag 23 Dezember 2008 15:57:29 schrieb Gothnet: Craig Woodward wrote: I disagree for one simple reason: There has yet to be a stable kernel and interface for any GTA* phone from which to build. There are releases that are labeled stable, but most of them crash after a short time, or have major bugs that prevent the hardware from working like a normal phone for any length of time. This is the same concern I have had when developers talk about improvements and not doing anything FR specific because they want to concentrate effort on stuff that will improve the experience on the 03 I've got this horrible feeling we'll be left with an unsupported device that never really did the basics properly. I hope the FSO/OM2009 release next year will get us there, but I'm lacking in faith right now. I'd be pretty annoyed if I owned a 1973. ___
Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
Peter Rasmussen schrieb: My Neo1973 was from one of the first, if not the first batch sent out to regular people and nobody was more excited about OpenMoko than I. Sean probably doesn't remember it, but if he has saved his mails, he'll have the mail trail. 1.The Neo1973, the GTA01, was promoted as the final developer's version of a platform that would be the open source version of iPhone. When it shipped, it couldn't even boot the image it was shipped with!?! 2.The follow up to the Neo1973, then just known as the GTA02 was supposed to be a general available phone for the masses, in September 2006. 3.Let me repeat that: The GTA02 was supposed to be a general available phone for the masses, in September 2006! True! I second your impression, that this twist was not communicated in a upright manner. 6.The OpenMoko camp failed miserably in many ways, of which the most obvious, as is unfortunately the usual scene, the management failed to understand their task. 7.If the GTA0? was to be a developer's platform, then why wasn't it developed as such? 7.A A developer's platform will contain elements as 'focus on making it easy to produce an environment to develop the kernel and platform software' 7.B A developer's platform will produce easy communication between *all* developers and not just the primadonnas that are good enough to make *something work, *but apparently not to talk with the lesser able in order to make a whole team work for the whole. This is not fair. The number of developers of OM is marginal compared to those at proprietary vendors. So, if the OpenMoko team at FIC is serious about supporting the community, please communicate it much more clearly, and don't think you have the backing the size of the Linux kernel! You see, apparently you haven't been able to after now several years, create an image on the Neo 1973 that will not run out of juice even when apparently shut off, after 12 hours. True, but GTA01 was never advertised as anything else but a developers platform, even in Openmoko wording. Then, you are apparently trying to develop this device to the whole world, but aren't able to, after more than a year able to produce support for anything else than the US ASCII character set when writing SMS. And FIC being in a Chinese country that actually needs double byte character sets, I am amazed that it wasn't in the first image! I think I understand where you getting at. Currently the focus has to be reliability. But I believe those things will be a topic, as soon as there's is a basic default PIM suite for Openmoko, the concept of which has been changing so many times and will hopefully have a happy end in paroli. And, it is important for Openmoko to have that default PIM suite to be a fully functional basic phone stack. So many potential future killer applications need to base on a solid PIM software concept with all that goes along with it: Storage. Search, Synchronization. So, the whole situation reeks of a top management problem to recognize the issues of making a platform that has the basic problems at issue, instead of letting everyone on the FIC/OpenMoko payroll know that producing a working platform for everyone else is important. Sean Moss-Pultz hasn't done his job. That again is not fair. There have been decisions not quite transparent to the community and there have been communication flaws. But I am happy about the core decisions, because they preserve the open nature of the OM stack not forcing anybody into anything. There's X, there's Linux, there's GTK, there's EFL ... . My Neo1973 looks more an more like a door stop, and my friends with iPhones, HTC Touch and such understands my original excitement less and less! Fortunately I was aware of that option in the moment I bought my GTA01 (Mid 2007). Possibly it will give a decent touch screen gui for my heating control or something similar (When I find the time ;-) -Marc ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
Paul pault...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:30 AM, Markus Fischer i...@flyingfischer.ch wrote: OpenMoko was and still is for developpers purpose. The Freerunner was marketed as the Consumer Ready Version with the software to complete the readiness soon to follow. Bingo. Because FIC/OM haven't been able to produce a working core, they've instead re-defined what the GTA02 is supposed to be. The GTA01 was marketed as a base to start working from, and agreeably was never guaranteed to be a production level phone. The GTA02 was marketed as _consumer_ready_, or really close to it with only battery life being an issue. Yet the loadable cores can't sustain the phone as a phone, even if it's plugged into an outlet its whole life. And we're being told the focus is now shifting to an as yet un-produced GTA03? Who's going to buy it when it comes out? You've already hit most in the market that want an open source phone, and disappointed them. Most of them aren't going to buy a GTA03 when their previous version didn't get to a working point. And the current 2 models are already spoken of poorly in open source circles because of the lack of functionality and support. (Dropping GTA01 won't help that image, btw.) I have several linux-based chip solutions that I work with all the time, personally and professionally, all of which cost less for the dev kit than the GTA02 did. Most come with a CD or DVD that includes a *stable* base OS image and a snapshot of the source used to make that image. The better ones come with a VMWare image that has a pre-built environment (usually debian based), with tool chains and pre-targeted source control. Load up the environment, log in, setup a few variables and build. Most go from box to built in under an hour. I was shocked when the GTA02 arrived and there was NO software with it outside of the installed image, which was months old, and crashed within minutes because of suspend issues. It took me almost a week to figure out how to get a current snapshot of the source and properly setup the tool chain to do base development. Part of that was a learning curve on using the rather non-obvious source control system chosen. But as a developer that's worked on several open source projects, this one is hands down the hardest to get into even as a developer, yet alone as a newbie. I'm also amazed with all the current focus on suspend mode and saving battery. If the battery lasts all day, but I don't get my calls or SMS messages, or the phone crashes every 2 hours, how useful is that? Can we get an image that sucks energy, but can at least reliably make and receive dozens calls and SMS messages? Maybe one that can connect to more than one wifi point without a reboot? With time running out on the GTA02 I'd much rather have a functioning phone that eats it's battery in two hours than have a non-functional toy device that runs for days on a charge. ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
I disagree for one simple reason: There has yet to be a stable kernel and interface for any GTA* phone from which to build. There are releases that are labeled stable, but most of them crash after a short time, or have major bugs that prevent the hardware from working like a normal phone for any length of time. Saying you're better off than a commercial product going end of life is simply not true. A commercial product, even at end of life, is in a stable working condition. You slide a SIM in, turn it on, and it just works. It makes calls, it does SMS, probably GPRS, and maybe bluetooth and wifi. So if a commercial product goes end of life, you can still use it as a phone until you hit hardware failure or a major hardware level protocol change. Can you point me to a kernel and image set that I can load on my phone that can send and receive calls reliably. One that can also handle SMS incoming and out going reliably? And one that (even with a lot of manual tweaking) can get GPRS stable and running while doing the other two reliably? None that I've seen yet can do those 3 basic things for more than a few calls or a couple hours without crapping out at some level. Despite weeks of tweaking I still can't use my GTA02 as a stable everyday phone. My Nokia 6230i, which went end of life years ago, is still my primary phone and does all 3 things constantly for days on end without a crash or need to reboot. I agree with you that if a stable base were there to work from that this would be less of an issue. This is why I wanted a Neo in the first place, to have the freedom to hack my phone and add my own programs. But it worries me that OM is leaving GTA01 customers holding the bag without a stable base established to work from. It's great that the source is all out there, but if a team of people working on the code with full hardware specs and direct access to the manufacturer can't get the system stable in 2 years, what hope does anyone else have of getting it working, even with full source to everything? Is this what GTA02 customers have to look forward to if one of the many image sets (OM, FSO, SHM, Andrioid, Qt, Debian) doesn't become a stable development base before the GTA03 is released? Will I be left holding the bag in a year or two? And if so, what inspires me to buy a GTA03, knowing a year or so down the road the 04 will be out and I'll be left with another very expensive paper weight? It just seems like a crappy way to thank those that invested their time and money in the early hardware, software, and the idea of an open source phone when few were willing to do so. ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
Really? That's frightening to me. Six months after GTA02 is released, they totally stop support on GTA01? And now we're being told GTA03 is in the works? Did I spend a good chunk of change on an open-source phone that's barely functional and not going to be supported in nine months to a year? I can understand if we were talking about totally different machines here, but from what I know the only differences have been some minor hardware tweaks that focus mainly on gluing on the wifi and enhancing the flash system. The core systems remain pretty much the same. I'd be less concerned if this was a finished product that had a stable base system, since then one could always revert to that and use it as a phone. But there has yet to be a stable system for GTA02 that I've found, yet alone 01. (And by stable, I mean it works reliably as a phone, can text, and do limited networking on GPRS and/or Wifi without rebooting every 30 minutes.) If I owned a GTA01, I'd be pretty pissed right now. You help kick start a company by investing in early hardware and suffering through software testing, to get kicked to the curb after a year or so? Not a way to build loyalty. Rod Whitby r...@whitby.id.au wrote: = There are no new releases from downloads.openmoko.org which will work on the GTA01. You need to use FSO or Debian or perhaps Hacker:1 for the GTA01. Openmoko no longer supports the GTA01 with the Om200x images. -- Rod ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
Re: Not supporitng GTA01? [Was: [openmoko-announce] Om 2008.12 Beyond]
I don't want to comment on whether Openmoko should do more work on GTA01 or rather concentrate on 02 and 03, but I do want to state that you can't compare the usual end-of-support product to an Openmoko end-of-support product. Openmoko not releasing anymore images for 01 is _orders of magnitude_ less of a problem than any competitor no longer supporting a model. The reason being the paradigmatic openness of Openmoko. Everything is out there -- at your fingertips, so to speak -- you can still compile 2009.x for the 01 (yes, you need to remove some things) or work on exciting new software for it. U-Boot and the kernel may not receive many more updates, but that's about it. For the rest of it, you don't have to rely on Openmoko to get fresh software for your GTA01. Again, while I don't want to comment whether this is right or wrong from Openmoko Inc, I hope that it puts things into perspective. Yours, Mickey. ___ support mailing list support@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
