[okl4-developer] openmoko, android, and "openness"

[Ben Leslie]

On Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 16:37:01 -0800, Christopher Carfi wrote:
>i saw the following message on another list to which i belong from a
>colleague (dan miller), and was hoping that folks here might have some
>insights as well.  dan's query:
>
>*"[With respect to] the prospects for an "open" wireless handset...for a
>while OpenMoko seemed to be in the spirit of a Linux OS based platform
>designed to appeal to a core group of developers. Then it became quasi
>private/commercial when the Neo was introduced by a specific manufacturer,
>First International Corp (FIC). They'll be at CES with a newly introduce GPS
>device (DASH) that conforms to the "open" design. *
>
>*So I'm looking for general comments on what the important qualitative
>differences are between Android and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) on the
>one hand(set) and OpenMoko on the other."*
>
>does anyone here on the OKL4 list have any thoughts, links or insight that i
>could pass along to dan?  benno?  anyone?

In terms of 'open'-ness, I think OpenMoko is clearly ahead at the moment -
they actually have the code to their entire stack open and available, in
stark contrast to the Android project.

As I understand it, a commitment has been made to release the full source
code to Android some time this year.

It has been said that the Android code base will be released under an
Apache style license, compared to OpenMoko, which is mostly (L)GPL.
I don't really want to get into the age-old debate over whether or not
reciprocal licenses are more or less open than non-reciprocal licenses.

Cheers,

Benno