Truly Free phones?

[kitepilot at kitepilot.com]

http://openmoko.com/
Even the CAD drawings and the circuit board blueprints are on the WEB.
I'm getting one soon!   :)
ET 


Ryan Rix writes: 

> Hey guys, 
> 
> Summer approaches and I need a new phone :) 
> 
> My wonderful flip phone (http://www.pantechusa.com/web/guest/pn210) has
> about a four hour battery life nowadays and does nothing that I want it to
> do (like send SMS reliably, have decent voice quality) and I'm ready to
> upgrade. 
> 
> I want to tear all non-Free software out of my life this summer (getting an
> EEE1000HE and putting Kubuntu onto it) and this includes my phone.  Everyone
> knows about the "googlephone," aka the T-Mobile G1, but the question i have
> is: is it really Free? Can I run applications on it without going through
> the Android apps store? Can I put my own version of Android on it, or is it
> a "you can read the source code, but you can weep when you can't flash it (
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/opposing-drm.html) To what level is it truly
> Free Software?
> Google has nothing on this that I can find, really... A somewhat unrelated
> question: Can applications on it run as a daemon? Can I run f.e. python on
> it? See question all the way below for the reasoning*. What APIs does it
> contain to allow applications to interface with hardware or other
> applications? dbus? can I run Qt or Gtk on it, or is it a custom widget
> system?
> Is it unlocked by default, if I purchase it from craigslist or ebay from
> someone currently on a T-Mobile plan? I will probably put it on the cheapest
> plan that I can that has unlimited data (not necessary for unlimited SMS or
> voice, as I will not talk enough ever to run out of minutes, and I will
> probably write a GPS-email gateway to cut down on SMS, since the majority of
> my SMS are between the girlfriend and I) 
> 
> Then there's the Freerunner, which is a truly Free phone by the looks of it
> (runs openmoko, or Qtopia depending on what you are wanting) runs whatever
> software that you want it to, basically (gtk, qtopia, x11) but it seems to
> be pretty unstable and according to the site has a one day battery life with
> a 1200mAh battery. 
> 
> Basically what I want for the phone to is send SMS, place voice, run GPS,
> connect to instant messenger networks (I use meebo, in browser right now,
> but this is not a requirement), allow for bluetooth/usb tethering between a
> computer for dialup.
> *More importantly, I want to be able to set up a python or similar daemon on
> both the cell phone and the soon-to-be-mine EEE1000HE, that will allow me to
> send and recieve SMS from the laptop, pull gps data, etc from the phone, and
> other stuff as I get the phone and find out just what I can do with it.
> MOST importantly, I want it to be Free, though. 
> 
> Best,
> Ryan
> -- 
> Thanks and best regards,
> Ryan Rix
> TamsPalm - The PalmOS Blog
> (623)-239-1103 <-- Grand Central, baby! 
> 
> Jasmine Bowden - Class of 2009, Marc Rasmussen - Class of 2008, Erica
> Sheffey - Class of 2009, Rest in peace.