OpenMoko: Taking Open Source slightly too far?

[major_clanger]

During my discussion of mobile phone options I was pointed at OpenMoko, a project to create an open-source phone. It looks intriguing, but I have to say that I have concerns.

Firstly, my experiences with open-source make me rather wary of what using such a device will be like. A mobile phone is a consumer gadget, and one that it's easy to become very reliant on. If it crashes or misbehaves, I don't want to be told that there's a user forum where enthusiastic geeks can help me diagnose the problem. I want the phone to work, to stay working, and to be returnable to a dealer for replacement if it stops working.

Secondly, what about security? Not so much of the phone itself - I acknowledge that open-source systems can in fact be more secure than proprietary ones - but of the network. If the phone is open and hackable, how long before hacks start appearing that fiddle around with elements of its configuration that network providers are usually very keen stay set to predetermined states? In the short term, users might get better call quality, but how long will a cell network stay up if this sort of abuse becomes common?

Finally, what I know about the mobile phone industry suggests to me that it is an extremely technically sophisticated area. I don't doubt the enthusiasm of the OpenMoko developers, but are they biting off more than they can chew? Looking at the project wiki, some four months after development phones became available the latest news is as follows:

The Openmoko snapshot from 20071113, when employing a few steps, can sometimes (depending on the moon) make and receive calls but the dialer is in early alpha-testing state! Also note that there NO graphical frontend for handling SMS is included. Power management (suspend) is still flaky.

This for a product that is allegedly going to user release early next year!

Say what you will about the iPhone; you can at least use it to make calls with.

Comments

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

One Eric Raymond is an Eric Raymond too many. For all that he talks a good game about OSS, what has he ever actually contributed?

Man's a gunw*nk c*nt. I object to the way he runs|ran the Jargon File, even.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

As you may know, the original Jargon file can be found (search for Original Jargon File - the main site, dourish.com, seems to be down at the moment) before it was mutated by ESR. It is, for those of us who are middle aged and bitter and twisted, amusing that in the original things refer to LISP / Lisp Machines rather than C and UNIX, particularly because in general the complaints made by the Lisp / Lisp machine people about C / UNIX are almost identical to the complaints made by C / UNIX people about VB / Windows people.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

I have what I think is the last GLS version of the File. Much funnier, less political axes to grind, and, when it comes down to it, considerably more erudite. Raymond's wrecked it with heavyhanded open-source advocacy.

[miramon.livejournal.com]

Wasn't he responsible for fetchmail? At least it has his name all over it.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

IIRC ESR inherited an earlier POP client, hacked the "deliver to local SMTP port" onto it and tarted up the user interface.

I've still never found a major piece of systems work ESR has done that's found a wide user base. Fetchmail is something you could hack up in a weekend, not a serious piece of software engineering. He talks a good system... if you happen to think the 'bazaar' approach is anything other than contemptible ;P