Darwin's Theories - openmoko tag

Android on FreeRunner

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:26:00 GMT

Android or FreeRunner, that is the question for those who want a mostly-open-source cell phone. At least it used to be. Now that Openmoko have all but discontinued development on the Freerunner hardware, the future looks more and more like Android. And while I had hoped someday to be able to run OpenBSD on the Freerunner, it looks like that won't happen. Fortunately, there is a good implementation of Android for the FreeRunner, available for free download from this Android on Freerunner site at GoogleCode. I've been using this for a few weeks and, while it's not 100% rock solid, it is very close. I think I've had to do the battery-out-to-reset two or three times in three weeks (not counting the time I used the Android as an alarm clock and woke up from such a slumber that I couldn't remember how to shut it off).

OpenMoko and Android

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:35:00 GMT

A few people have asked me at various times for a comparison of the OpenMoko and Android cell phone projects. Given that I advocate for the former, and also for Java which is (and is not) the base language of the latter, I am expected to be able to say something intelligible by way of comparison. So here goes.

Android is a project spearheaded by Google to make an open-source phone. It uses Linux and its own Dalvik virtual machine, and applications are written in Java against the Android API and compiled down to Dalvik bytecode. Android does not expose the rest of the Linux services and does not support other programming languages. Android phones are available from a few carriers.

Openmoko, funded by Openmoko.com, is at the other end of the spectrum: it also uses Linux, but exposes all of it to the developer. The "main" stack of phone apps has been re-written several times, using various X-based toolkits. The "official" OM2009 stack is in large part written in Python. C/C++, Java and Perl are all available. Openmoko phones are available from Openmoko.com. However, because it is all open source:

you can run Android on Openmoko hardware;
you could (people have) run Openmoko software on other devices, including Palm PDAs, other Linux phones, and software emulators;
you can probably run Openmoko software on Android hardware;
you can run QTopia on Openmoko hardware;
you can run one of half a dozen Linux distributions on your Openmoko hardware;
you can (eventually) run other OSes such as OpenBSD on Openmoko hardware;
etc.

From one point of view, they are not enemies. Both support the open source model. But as Openmoko developers have pointed out some time back, Android sits on top of Linux, abandoning most of the open source world and reinventing its own universe. Openmoko embraces all existing open source projects and any new open source comers. As a single example, communicating to your Openmoko phone from a desktop/laptop computer consists merly of running the industry-standard ssh and scp programs, included with every *Nix and readily available for those other OSes that need them. Talking to your Android phone requires finding, installing, and figuring out how to use an ad-hoc program called "adb" (at least the third use of this name, after Unix' Algol/Another DeBugger and Apple's Desktop Bus).

From another point of view, of course, they are competing. Competing for market share (neither has made much inroads in the consumer space). Competing for developer mindshare. Android tends to get a lot more press, partly because of the "big G" lineage.

People sometimes ask if I think Openmoko should just fold up and go on to something different, given how far ahead Android has moved? I've never been a fan of quitting while you're behind. Imagine if Linus Torvalds had quit while Unix was ahead; his then-little school project would never have seen the light of day, and we'd all be running BSD and System V. Nothing wrong with those - BSD was already on its way to becoming a full open source *Nix, as represented today by OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD - but things would be rather different in what is now the Linux community, to say the least. Or if Bill Gates had quit while IBM was ahead. Or if Steve Jobs had quit while MS-Windows was ahead. Or if the U.S. had quit the space race when the Russians launched Sputnik. You get the idea. Don't quit while you're behind, nor when you're ahead. As Nathaniel Branden once put it, "a beating heart is a living heart" - so keep on pumping!

And, at any rate, the "real" release of Openmoko software, OM.2009, is almost upon us; I am running a beta of it on my Freerunner (GTA02), and it's actually usable as a cell phone. Butt-ugly compared to some of the earlier releases, but it "just works". Formal release is expected this summer.

iPhone catching up to OpenMoko

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:21:00 GMT

People who know I'm involved with Openmoko ask me how the new iPhone will affect the Openmoko project. But as we've seen, the reverse is already happening. Openmoko pioneered having a completely-accessible GPS in the GTA01, and have maintained this in the GTA02 FreeRunner. Apple have seen the light and have included some kind of GPS in the iPhone 2 (I'm assuming, subject to counter-information, that when you you paying a ~~carrier tax~~ access fee for using it, as you do with most carrier-beholden smart phones such as the RIM Blackberry). But Openmoko remains a customer-beholden smart phone, one of the very few.

In fact, there really is little point in comparing the phones directly. The most obvious difference is price: the iPhone costs ($199 plus 24 months of contracted tenure at maybe $50), for a minimum TCO of about $1400, whereas the FreeRunner costs about $299 with no contract so you can use it on any of the very-economical pay-as-go plans that you have to look around for, say $10/month for a light user, for a total TCO of $540; so the TCO for this user would be about 3:1 in favor of Openmoko :-) (late note: my iPhone guesses are low; see this Yahoo Blog analysis for better figures). But that is not why people buy the iPhone or the Openmoko. People buy the iPhone for the glitz, for being cool, for being able to show off.

No, really. A week after the iPhone was released in the US and people were smuggling them into Canada, I was buying a coffee at a Starbucks in Toronto. Some dork dressed up as a Hollywood director left his shiny new iPhone right in the way where he knew anybody who wanted to get at the cream dispenser would either risk splattering on the iPhone, or have to move it. I very gently picked it up with the respect due such a device and moved it out of the way, whereupon he tried to launch into a tirade about how much he'd (over)paid for it. I wasn't in the mood to discuss it so I just said "if it's that valuable, keep it closer to you" and left (Seriously, I do have friends with iPhones, and they are reasonable people...).

Yes, really, the iPhone is sleek, and sexy. It is also almost completely a closed environment. People keep trying to open it up, because that's a challenge. People buy Openmoko not because it is sleek (the current hardware is, but the current software is not, yet; far from it) but because it is open. Open hardware. Open software. An open process company. The iPhone is a thing to give joy those who don't care how a thing works and have no care that they have paid $1400 to surrender control of "their" device to Apple and to the carrier. The Openmoko Freerunner is a thing to give joy to those who love to tinker, who want to be able to (even if they never get around to) write their own applications in any of half a dozen programming languages. To make it do whatever they want, without regard for what the hardware supplier or the carrier wants. Openmoko.com encourages you do go "higher up and further in". Apple tries to prevent you. And that, I think, makes all the difference.

My talk at OnLinux (October 2007)

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:21:00 GMT

It's confirmed - I will be speaking on OpenMoko at OnLinux in Toronto in October, 2007. OnLinux promises to be a large gathering of local open-source talent as well as project leaders from around the world.