Open Source Phone on the Way 66
prostoalex writes "Dr. Dobb's Journal reports on GPE Palmtop Environment's aim to create a full stack of open source software for mobile phones. Mobile operator Orange and France Telecom are contributing to the project. The goal is to have a fully featured mobile handset with applications like instant messaging and email, with only a portion of the price."
Re:Interesting thought (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm sure the NSA has nothing better to do but listen to your phone calls.
Seriously, I had no idea that half the population works for the NSA. They must because it would literally take half (or more) of the population to watch the other half. When do we get the half time show and switch sides?
No not everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
i.e. who just happens to run a company competing with some company in some powerful senators state.
Re:No opensource mobile phone (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully, Open software for phones will fall a "build it, and they will come" path. Coming from the US, I hate how every phone is branded to a particular company. You have to jump through hoops to unlock it to use with another provider, if it's even possible at all. The phones are almost always crippled, too - Verizon disables a lot of the Bluetooth functions on their phones unless you pay to unlock them. If you want a new software Feature X on your phone, you pretty much have to throw it out and buy a new one with Feature X on it. Buying a phone is a game where you have to choose between what you want and what you can live without. Choose carefully, because you're going to be stuck with the phone for two years unless you want to pay $500 for it to go month to month. It's total bullcrap.
It'd be really nice if companies would start rolling out phones designed to work on an open platform, like what FIC did with the Neo1973 [openmoko.com].
A phone ? No. (Score:2, Insightful)
the fact that it uses free software is irrelevant. But it is the big trend with some free software projects (gnome, GPE being some of them) to just copy, add no innovation but just say "hey we're free". A free copy of a bad idea will still be a bad idea.