Open Mobile Handset
OpenMoko is a GNU / Linux based open software development platform. Developers have full access to OpenMoko source and they can tailor their implementations to underlying hardware platforms. -openmoko
Back in an old post about Mobile music & DRM I suggested that an open platform handset was a paradigm busting market opportunity.
OpenMoco seems to have gone there especially in their philosophy:
For the core team pushing this project, an open phone is not really even a product. It’s the very embodiment of their vision of technology. They absolutely, passionately, believe that something as fundamental to our lives as the mobile phone must be opened.
It seems like carrier-hopping, mesh-networking, flipt to SIP, P2P mobile apps that allow users persistent data access through dissemination networking are only a hop skip and a jump away. Especially the way the rate of change (delta) is increasing visions of ubiquitous computing loom large.
In the near term anything that helps with blurring the lines between carrier, ISP, peer, wifi access point, voice, VOIP, IM, and all of the other roles/participants in a networked conversation is welcome.
Of course all of this open opportunity means that it’s more important than every to focus on the metatheory. Whether you call them corporate constitutions or philosophy, more and more the purpose/goals of a company/platform/meme are as important if not more important than their current technological capabilities.
corporate constitutions based on theories of stakeholder justice {…} do what few strategic heuristics and frameworks are capable of in a world of growing hypercompetition, hyperimitation, and discontinuity: they unerringly guide decision makers towards defensible sources of value from which to craft revolutionary strategies. But more importantly, they define and shape purpose – which is, and always has been, the only mechanism for going beyond market advantage. – Umair Haque
It’s great to see what looks like a very serious player entering the market with a commitment FOSS type philosphies.
Viva La Revolucion!