On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 6:01 PM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
If any one was in doubt about closed formats and patents.
http://www.csamuel.org/2008/11/14/patent-trolls-attack-openmoko-project
Well, would you believe it? Openmoko have nobody but themselves to blame. First they went around sourcing hardware under NDAs, for an OPEN PHONE for humanity's sake! Then they incorporated risky codecs likes babes in the woods that did not know about enough such problems that have already occurred to others. To top it all, the software stacks all suck right now, even with huge community participation.
Each update tries to solve old problems and brings new ones. Hardware problems are solved, in the obvious developer glory, by trying software fixes. The main developers and the community wanted to make the Freerunner only a developer toy, and were rude to Users who wanted a working phone. Like they were giving the hardware away for free.
I have returned my FR after waiting for months to see it develop into a barely usable daily phone, and after my callers complaining about echoes and buzzing, not to speak about the other problems.
I have temporarily given in to the dark side and bought a Nokia E71 so that I can keep my job. I will return to FR in time for the GTA03 or GTA04, if they are launched and if they become usable phones on a daily basis.
Rant ends.