New Handheld Computer Is 100% Open Source

metasonix writes "While the rest of the industry has been babbling on about the iPad and imitations thereof, Qi Hardware is actually shipping a product that is completely open source and copyleft. Linux News reviews the Ben NanoNote (product page), a handheld computer apparently containing no proprietary technology. It uses a 366 MHz MIPS processor, 32MB RAM, 2 GB flash, a 320x240-pixel color display, and a Qwerty keyboard. No network is built in, though it is said to accept SD-card Wi-Fi or USB Ethernet adapters. Included is a very simple Linux OS based on the OpenWrt distro installed in Linksys routers, with Busybox GUI. It's apparently intended primarily for hardware and software hackers, not as a general-audience handheld. The price is right, though: $99."

No Proprietary Technologies?

[Revotron]

I thought the MIPS architecture was a licensed design... surely you can't call something 100% open source if even one component has to be licensed, can you?

Re:Open Pandora

[tepples]

Pandora's PowerVR GPU is proprietary.

OSS processor is here

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.opensparc.net/

Re:Open Pandora

[Dracker]

I know a lot about this device. I preordered one Sep. 30, 2008 and am about to receive it as they are finally shipping them.

There are a few problems with this device for thr purposes of a "100%" open source platform
-Philosophical: It's not 100% open. There are no blueprints available, and proprietary chips and interfaces (SD card reader, etc) inside. Furthermore, while the OS is open source, some drivers (wifi, analog nubs) are not.
-Practical: Even though they're finally in production, you'll probably have to wait a year to get yours if you order now. There are no large scale factories assembling them, it's done by the team behind the product (just a few guys) and any volunteers they can muster.

While an interesting device (and certainly one you can do a lot more with than the Qi) it's not really appropriate for a conversation about available 100% open devices.

Re:No Proprietary Technologies?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the official mips implementation designs are often not open source but rather proprietary licensed in a manner similar to ARM cores as you say, there are only four instructions the implementation of which are (or were - I think the relevant patent may have expired!) patent-monopoly-blocked in the mips instruction set. A cpu can get along just fine without them. While Loongson [wikipedia.org] is now a mips licensee anyway, it originally was making "mostly mips compatible" cpus, missing those four instructions.

There therefore also exist opencores implementations [opencores.org]of "most of the mips instruction set" cpus.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[dunkelfalke]

Get a used Toshiba E800, the device is very good for reading and quite cheap.

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[maitas]

SPARC T2 has is 100% GPL Verilog.

Re:Open Pandora

[psbrogna]

I disagree with the assumption that only commercial software can innovate. Like Walt Disney "borrowing" fairy tales, commercial software often "borrows" from open source code. For example: ftp, rcp and rsh in Windows originally were ported from BSD. And how about all the hot features from FOSS web browsers being imitated by commercial browsers? Or KDE 4 features finding their way to Vista & W7?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[evilviper]

Just yank the WinCE off and put on Android or your micro distro of choice and you'd have a MUCH better hackable device than these.

I think you've greatly underestimated just how difficult that step is...

Re:SD card?

[hedwards]

That's correct if you us an OMAP based chipset then TI would pick up the cost as part of their cost of production and pass the rest onto the customer.