I just got the Free Your Phone announcement from the OpenMoKo announce list. Looks like they'll have preview versions of the new Linux-based, Open Source phone platform available Feb 11, generally available March 11, and ready for public distribution September 11 (!).
FIC is under a lot of pressure to make this product the Open Source answer to the iPhone, and I think they have a very good story. At this point I think the success of the platform is going to depend on three things. First, FIC's execution in getting developer versions out the door and ready to use. If the OpenMoKo platform stays vapourware for much past the first part of 2007, it won't be able to capitalize on the iPhone hype and current excitement.
Second, FIC is going to have to resist the temptation to hold back parts of the OS or the application stack as proprietary software. Credibility in the Free Software fanatic community is going to be key for its first wave of usage, and "free enough" isn't going to be good enough for this product. A good cautionary case would be Trolltech's Qtopia. Trolltech's reputation for holding back parts of its stack has probably been the main reason this platform hasn't been taken up by Linux aficionados.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, support from more hardware vendors. "Open Source" is sometimes a synonym for "second source" -- it gives customers and developers the security of knowing that the success of a platform is not tied to the success of a particular company. OpenMoKo can take the Free Software niche in the smartphone OS market -- making a place among Symbian, Pocket PC, and Palm OS that appeals to hackers. I think if they can get the hackers, they can get the kind of UI quality and application availability that will get the rest of the population interested. Firefox is an example of an Open Source project that has done this recently.
All in all, I think FIC has a lot of challenges ahead -- mostly internal. But I also think that if this is played right, OpenMoKo or something like it could change smartphones the way Linux and the *BSD family have changed servers.
tags: openmoko greenphone qtopia neo1973 phones mobile
Hillary's In
News bulletin: Hillary's In. She's in to win. She's in to win the Big Spin. She's in up to her chin. She's in and so is her twin. She's in with a grin and a tin of aspirin. Hillary's in by the skin of her shin. She's in with the thin fin of an elfin dolphin.
So it begins.