Hi, > I know this is all hardware that is closed which will make it muchmore > difficult than open hardware like OpenMoko's devices. However, getting > SHR to more hardware platforms will give it a boost in more users and > developers.
Absolutely. Speaking for the freesmartphone.org team (who provide some of the underlying middleware SHR bases on), we absolutely want to widen our scope in order to get more people on board -- to make our niche a big niche. > Do any plans exist to port SHR to smart phones with a QWERTY keyboard like: > - HTC Dream > - Motorola CLIQ > - LG KS360 > - Nokia N810 > - Nokia N900 > - Sony Ericsson X1 > and what would be the biggest hurdles to take? The biggest hurdle is the kernel and its drivers. On most smartphones, this is either not Linux at all or if it is, it's a Linux full with unacceptable (to mainline) special cases, ignoring Linux standard kernel/userland interfaces. The HTC-Linux project is working on kernels for the HTC-devices, including those which come with Windows Mobile, but it's a very time-consuming undertaking, since only few bits can be taken from the HTC dream without catching up with the subtile but important differences in the (closed source) baseband firmware. To add up on that, even the HTC Dream itself does not properly run GNU/Linux yet, since the kernels are optimized for one specific userland, which happens to be Android/Linux. Right now we believe in semiopen systems such as the Palm Pre, there has been a new project that tries to "free" it. I hope something similar will happen around the Nokia N900, which happens to run at least a Linux kernel as well. > Some of these devices also have an ARM processor and can run Android but > I have no idea if it would be possible at all to load another new OS on > them. Perhaps some of the manufacturers above are willing to release > some data to developers under an NDA. No way, manufacturers sit on their data (what they call 'IP'), no matter whether the devices are out of production, obsolete since centuries, or what not. The only way are anti-vendor ports, which -- again -- are very time consuming. In short, yes, we'd love to see FSO and SHR on more hardware platforms, but first the kernel developers need to do their share of the work. Cheers, :M: _______________________________________________ Shr-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shr-project.org/mailman/listinfo/shr-devel
