Text excerpts from Dr Shayne Flint's August 2007 presentation.

Open Source Alternative to the iPhone

Dr Shayne Flint

The Australian National University

August 2007

Outline

1. The Mobile Phone Market is closed
2. What is Open-Source?
3. OpenMoko and the Neo1973 Phone
4. Student Project idea
5. Demonstration
6. Links, Questions and Contact details

The mobile phone market is very closed

• Proprietary hardware
• Proprietary software
• Carrier lock-in
• Pay for everything (or at least what the vendors offer)
• Little, if any, community development
• Can’t upgrade your phone
• Need to buy a new one
• Very un-green

Some definitions

• “Open source is a set of principles and practices that promote access to the design and production of goods and knowledge.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open source)
• “Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.” (http://www.opensource.org)

What’s the big deal?

• Freedom to:
• use your hardware the way you want to use it
• install, modify and share software
• No need to worry about licenses
• Very rapid evolution and bug fixes
• Support available to all
• Well known examples:
• Linux
  
• Open Office
• Firefox and Thunderbird
• Apache
• PhP, Python, Ruby, Java
• LATEX
• Less stress, frustration, and trouble

What’s the big deal?

An explosion in the number of software applications available to all

• ubuntu GNU/Linux offers more than 21,000 software packages
• Applicable to sector, nation, culture and language
• apt-get install firefox

Can we do the same thing for mobile devices including phones?

• Beyond ring tones - Open source applications
• apt-get install book-a-cab

OpenMoko

• Open Mobile Kommunikations
• Open source software stack for mobile devices
• “We give you everything for free - exactly the same tools that we use internally. We want you to change this device. Personalize away, to your hearts content.” (Sean Moss-Pultz, architect of OpenMoko and product manager of the Mobile Communication Business Unit at FIC)
• Based on standard Linux platform and tools:
  
• Linux kernel
  
• X-Windows
• GNU C Library
• GTK+
• Software download and install like Linux
• apt-get install ...
• Installation manager

The Neo1973 Phone

• Neo1973 Phone supports OpenMoko
• Developed and manufactured by FIC, Taiwan
• 1973 - the year the mobile phone was invented
• Phase 0 phones released in March 07
• 50 samples • Phase 1 phones released in July 07
• developer release
• reached Canberra early August
• two packages - Basic Phone and Developer’s “Lunch Box”

Neo1973 and the One Laptop Per Child

Student Project Ideas

• Single click to book a cab • Location based alerts - tourism, meetings • Location based phone behaviour - sound off when in lecturer theatre • Responding to ambient noise • Games development platform • Porting armidale web app development platform • Model-Driven Development using Aspect-Oriented Thinking

Demo - What can it do?

• It really is Linux running X-Windows • GUI applications • Calculator • Contacts • Dates • Dialer • Shell • Playing Music • ssh from host computer • Host Applications displayed on the Neo • Image Viewer (Eye of Gnome) • An iPhone ?? • Firefox - mobile.anu.edu.au etc. • Document viewer - evince, acrobat • OpenOffice • Making a call?

More information

• http://www.OpenMoko.org
• http://www.OpenMoko.com
• http://OpenMoko.togaware.com/

Questions?

Dr Shayne Flint, MIEAust, CPEng Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, College of Engineering and Computer Science, The Australian National University shayne.flint(a)anu.edu.au Tel: +61-(0)2-6125-8183

Note: PDF of presentation is also available.