**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Mon Jul 24 03:00:02 2017 Jul 24 15:00:42 http://www.vanille.de/openmoko-10-years-after-mickeys-story/ Jul 24 15:01:05 it's done. even if you guys already know all of that, you might enjoy one or the other previously unreleased photo Jul 24 15:08:01 mickeyl: "it looks like there is no business case anymore for a truly open platform based on custom-designed hardware, since people refuse to spend extra money for tweakability, freedom, and security" Jul 24 15:09:05 mickeyl: the problem is not that people refuse to spend extra money for phones with tweakability, freedom and security; the problem is that nobody is selling phones with tweakability, freedom and security Jul 24 15:09:32 perhaps I should qualify that Jul 24 15:09:44 mickeyl: the problem is not that people refuse to spend extra money for phones with tweakability, freedom and security; the problem is that nobody is selling working phones with tweakability, freedom and security Jul 24 15:11:06 if anything, I'd say the market now is much bigger than it was ten years ago Jul 24 15:11:28 but nobody is selling to that market Jul 24 15:12:56 nobody is interested in a hacker phone that can't be used as a phone, like the GTA04 Jul 24 15:15:19 rah: hmm, I understand that point of view. However, if it's true, I wonder why Nikolaus GTA04 does not get more interest then. The question is still business-wise how to compete with a 100 EUR Huawei phone that has great hardware. Jul 24 15:15:20 or a phone with a crappy attempt at a mass-market OS like Ubuntu Phone or Firefox OS, poorly executed on hardware designed for Android with proprietary blobs everywhere and no upstream support Jul 24 15:15:54 *nod* Jul 24 15:15:58 mickeyl: the GTA04 doesn't work Jul 24 15:16:36 you can't buy a GTA04 from Nicolaus, open the box, put a SIM card in and start making phone calls Jul 24 15:16:51 it comes with LXDE installed by default Jul 24 15:16:59 it's not phone, it's a development board Jul 24 15:18:47 ok. in that case, how to make a phone out of a development. work on drivers, work on a software stack. I'm afraid that's something Nikolaus can't do alone or with a small team consisting of volunteers... what then? Jul 24 15:18:54 s/development/development board/ Jul 24 15:18:55 mickeyl meant: ok. in that case, how to make a phone out of a development board. work on drivers, work on a software stack. I'm afraid that's something Nikolaus can't do alone or with a small team consisting of volunteers... what then? Jul 24 15:19:27 *shrug* Jul 24 15:19:40 that's a question we're asking ourselves for years now Jul 24 15:19:50 crowdfunding isn't it. Jul 24 15:19:52 there doesn't seem to be a technical or engineering problem here Jul 24 15:19:54 taking android isn't it either Jul 24 15:19:59 true Jul 24 15:20:02 there doesn't seem to be anything that isn't surmountable Jul 24 15:20:07 the problem seems to be business Jul 24 15:20:13 yep Jul 24 15:23:52 if a phone appeared on Crowd Supply or Kickstarter which (1) ran GNU/Linux, (2) had a free software UI, (3) had patches either already upstreamed or with the upstreaming process having begun from the start, then you'd find it would hit its target in no time Jul 24 15:24:17 and notice I didn't even say smart phone Jul 24 15:24:45 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-pda-android-linux-keyboard-mobile-device-phone#/ Jul 24 15:25:12 https://www.crowdsupply.com/arsenijs/zerophone Jul 24 15:31:50 thanks for the links, both pretty interesting approaches! Jul 24 15:49:29 mickeyl: thank you for the article indeed, and for your work over the years of course. Jul 24 15:50:42 mickeyl: tbh, I hoped to read more about the business relations side of the story. You do not even mention "dash" (or whatever the car navigation system name was) etc. Jul 24 15:52:49 PaulFertser: thanks. yes, I'm sure that would have make an interesting read as well, but while I learned about all these things, I don't remember enough of these by stories to be able to write about it without consulting Harald and Sean. And as I've written in the prologue, I'm not sure whether I would have received answers on that. It was 'dash', btw. Jul 24 15:53:39 there's also an interesting story about devices for Chinese police cars... Jul 24 15:54:30 there's definitely enough material for a follow up... I should really try to ask Harald and Sean whether they're interested to share these stries Jul 24 15:54:35 s/stries/stories/ Jul 24 15:54:36 mickeyl meant: there's definitely enough material for a follow up... I should really try to ask Harald and Sean whether they're interested to share these stories Jul 24 15:56:01 and little things like a big press-release about teaming up with Funambol to provide first-class PUSH mail, contacts, and PIM... where _nothing_ ever happened Jul 24 15:58:51 mickeyl: you mention teaching some foreign programmers how to use the tools you developed, but did they ever produced anything? Jul 24 16:02:18 PaulFertser: that's a very sad story, and one of the reasons why i went panic in 2007 and convinced Sean to hire OpenedHand. the code drop that I received after the shanghai team working for some weeks on what was supposed to be the first set of applications was completely unusable. They didn't use my libraries nor tools, but rather used glade to create ten thousands of line of code with UIs that didn't even look remotely like what we Jul 24 16:02:19 had specified. I later found out that they were payed by line of code... nothing more to say here. We threw all of that code away. Jul 24 16:04:36 mickeyl: that in itself is not really surprising to me. What I'd ask is why they had no competent team leader whom Sean trusted? Jul 24 16:08:22 PaulFertser: good question, I don't know. One part of it is that we got the Shanghai team almost "for free" (FIC heritage), but they were too inexperienced. To properly lead, train, reorganize would have taken very long. We powered whether one of us could lead them, but without a translator that would have been impossible. Besides, no-one of us wanted to stay in Shanghai for longer... Jul 24 16:08:30 dinner time... bbl or tomorrow. Jul 24 16:08:47 s/powered/pondered/ Jul 24 16:37:54 see.. the problem there was a business problem Jul 24 16:38:14 no competent team leader Jul 24 16:38:33 a management problem, to be more specific Jul 24 16:45:48 I'm still pretty convinced Openmoko didn't act anywhere nearly close to the maximum it technically could due to surprisingly bad business decisions, and not because of lack of sufficient interest from competent free software developers or bad luck or global 2008 crisis or pressure from the big players etc. Jul 24 16:51:37 This is mostly speculation on my side, not really supported by Harald's and Mickey's blogposts, but it really seems to me it would be a really different story if not for the grave business mistakes (probably "forced errors" in tennis-speak, I do not really know). Jul 24 16:59:58 I'm really surprised to read about this project as if it was a fair play story. As in "smart nice people worked hard, the idea proved to be not too market-appealing, well, bad luck." I'm sure way more happened behind the scenes, and it was a real fight but not against the conservative/stupid/you-name-it global market, rather it was a fight against FIC or its owners, and it's not really clear Jul 24 17:00:04 which side Sean was taking at different points of time and why. Jul 24 17:05:51 And Sean never explained himself publicly. Jul 24 17:10:25 This software shanghai team story would be nicely complemented by a story of their hardware team. But changing hardware is many time more expensive, heh. Jul 24 18:22:29 hey mickeyl! Thanks for mentioning Neo900 :-) and thanks for the nice post Jul 24 18:26:34 ((I wonder why Nikolaus GTA04 does not get more interest)) because complete lack of usable software aka OS, for the primary functions in a *phone* Jul 24 18:28:12 ((work on drivers, work on a software stack. I'm afraid that's something Nikolaus can't do alone or with a small team consisting of volunteers... what then?)) use an existing proven to work OS, like... hmm. maemo Jul 24 18:31:31 ((I should really try to ask Harald and Sean)) and maybe Werner, he at least has some details to share about dash Jul 24 18:34:41 ((no competent team leader)) for hw Sean tried to cope with thyt by hiring me - though I never was the "team leader" obviously also due to the translation issue and not staying in TPE for 6 months+ Jul 24 18:36:11 I just wish I could recall the reason for 3D7K name ;-) Jul 24 18:36:44 and I think the "80%" is arguable. In my book it more was like 90% Jul 24 18:38:04 at the time Sean kicked in re-specifying fundamental product properties Jul 24 18:39:10 like "iPhone has WLAN, so we don't want to" or the like, as if removing WLAN would help speed up things Jul 24 18:43:15 particularly when we got a WLAN+BT module, and device wants to keep BT which spells as "we need a whole new BT solution to get rid of (already implemented) WLAN" Jul 24 18:48:25 DocScrutinizer05: someone wrote it was a number plate of a random car passing by the office Jul 24 18:48:29 Hey DocScrutinizer05 :) Jul 24 18:48:39 :-) hey PaulFertser Jul 24 18:49:34 quite possible, and then insoired by R2D2 and 3CPO or what's the 'name' Jul 24 18:51:12 maybe only those who know the *true* history and meaning of GTA01 name can understand why picking a name like 3D7K Jul 24 18:51:50 * DocScrutinizer05 wonders if *anybody* knows Jul 24 18:55:40 ((nicely complemented by a story of their hardware team)) don't get me started. Or Werner ;-P Jul 24 18:57:05 re FIC you're right there's still a lot nobody except Sean and maybe 2 other people ever heard the complete story of Jul 24 18:57:34 e.g I never before heard that Sean worked for FIX as product designer before OM Jul 24 19:00:45 ((why Nikolaus GTA04 does not get more interest)) for sure also because of the butt ugly case and abysmal digitizer Jul 24 19:02:51 I just can say an estimated 50% of Neo900 customers came for the hw keyboard, for example. And they reject Pyra because of the too huge formwactor and the gaming console cruft Jul 24 19:08:37 anyway "differentiation by LACK of features" for sure was one of the concepts that didn't fly Jul 24 19:11:07 it for example never seemed conclusive to be that Bill Gates' "no buttons" was anything other than a technical optimization decision. I still think buttons have a damn good reason for existence. Compare to camera trigger for example Jul 24 19:11:39 s/to be/to me/ Jul 24 19:11:39 DocScrutinizer05 meant: it for example never seemed conclusive to me that Bill Gates' "no buttons" was anything other than a technical optimization decision. I still think buttons have a damn good reason for existence. Compare to camera trigger for example Jul 24 19:13:22 and I *really* want to change volume during call with a push of my thunb while keeping phone to ear. Not fiddle on a touchscreen I have to look at and thus interrupt communication Jul 24 19:15:45 there's also aabsolutely nothing wrong from a user perspective with multiple jacks. A mere engineering/technical consideration to avoid them as much as possible Jul 24 19:18:10 what you should avoid are ambiguities in jacks though. E.G. when there are multiple USB jacks, they need to be equivalent, not one for charging-only, one for headphone+HDMI and one for USB data Jul 24 19:20:10 and as I understand Apple's newest brainfart about headsets, it's just to make money from customers who need jet another "apple only" peripheral now Jul 24 19:20:57 their braindamaged AHS didn't pan out in the end, though addressed at exactly same concept **** ENDING LOGGING AT Tue Jul 25 03:00:01 2017