Nexus One First Phone Linus Torvalds "Doesn't Hate" 308
SpuriousLogic writes "Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, has an absolute disdain for mobile phones. All of the ones he has purchased in the past, the man writes on his personal blog, ended up being 'mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights' even though they were naturally all phones run on open source operating systems. Things have changed now, he adds, now that he has caved and bought Google's Nexus One a couple of days ago."
Original blog post (Score:5, Informative)
Re:He bought one? (Score:5, Informative)
Linus appears to have less hysterical take on the Android Linux fork [blogspot.com] than most people:
I don't worry about out-of-tree development for odd devices too much. I wish we could merge android, but I also accept it likely being a few years away. We had similar out-of-tree issues with the SGI extreme scalability stuff, and it took quite a while before the standard kernel merged all of that.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:3, Informative)
How is using the Nexus One as a GPS any different than a dedicated GPS unit? It has voice input and turn-by-turn voice prompts just like a "real" GPS so there's no need to touch it once you set it in the car dock. The experience of these post-2.0 Android phones is a lot different than the lousy Google Maps feature you'd find in lesser phones like an iPhone.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He hates mobile phones?! (Score:4, Informative)
Dude, as a phone the N900 lacks a LOT. I was able to sell mine on Ebay to buy a unlocked Nexus One.
I tried to love the N900, as I loved my N710. but it's clunky.
This is coming from a guy that has been die-hard Nokia forever. I tried like heck to love my Nokia 5800 xpressmusic phone. it had a great idea, but was only half there. They almost made it, but not close enough for me to suffer using it day in and day out.
Re:He bought one? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it's not technically Linux these phones use, as it's now an incompatible Linux fork. So, I guess like the authors of this article, the company told Linus to go fork himself.
Well, what you're saying is not technically true either.
These phones absolutely do run the Linux kernel and anyone who says otherwise is misleading at best and trolling at worst. Period. Just because a single device driver was recently removed from the official source tree does not suddenly make the kernel any less Linux. To suggest that's the case is ignorance or stupidity.
The reality is, Android uses their own driver for power management. Their design stinks. They've refused to maintain it in the official source tree. The stinking, unmaintained driver was removed. Despite no longer being maintained in the official source tree, Google continues to maintain it in their own kernel tree - which is freely accessible to all. This was all previously covered here on /. Having said all that, it is extremely common for external drivers to be maintained outside of the official source tree for a variety of reasons. This is one of the primary reasons the dkms project exists.
Furthermore, since the source portion of Android's framework which accesses the power management driver is freely available, if someone wanted to, they could easily change the internal implementation to use Linux's official power management interface rather than Google's driver. Battery life is likely to only slightly suffer. And with small improvements to Linux's existing power management infrastructure, to bring it more in line with Google's implementation goals, battery life parity can be achieved while maintaining full Android compatibility.
At the end of the day, removal of the driver from the official source tree changes nothing for anyone.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:4, Informative)
Obligatory Ass Pennies [funnyordie.com]
Re:Same thing happened to me this weekend (Score:3, Informative)
The N900 was the phone I was hell bent on getting before purchasing the Nexus One. The whole reason I changed my mind was all the in-depth reviews of it and the stories about how there are so many things that should be standard in it that are all marked as something like "Community Fix" meaning, let the developer community fix it rather than Nokia fixing it.
That just seems like a bad way to view one of your high end products. I liked that the Nexus One had a larger screen and was much thinner than the N900. Of course, tight integration with all of Google's services makes just that much better.
Re:Mislabelled (Score:3, Informative)
I call fake!
RMS has never combed his beard.
Actually one of RMS's most obvious behavioral tics is a habit of combing his beard with his fingers. It may not actually make much difference, but he spends an awful lot of time doing it...
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:3, Informative)
They do, but only because it helps perpetuate the telco's control over you. They list the phone at $600, and you can pay $200... or even $100... that pricing is pretty plastic (I paid $100 for my DROID, out of pocket). They make it really easy to get a nice pocket computer, but they also know that schlepping these things around, they're lucky to last two years (in the case of an iPhone, the non-replaceable battery doesn't last two years except for casual users). So they'll get you next time.
Meanwhile, you're locked into a contract. You can break it, sure, but they not only have the termination penalty, but you have to pay off that expensive phone.
The bottom line: this prices are a total fiction. You can track this by looking at the devices. Entry level "free" phones these days cost about $20-25 to manufacture, soup to nuts. They list price is usually about $200. Any normal CE product would be around $50. Or take the iPhone... lists at $500-$600. But go to Best Buy.. they have the iPod Touch starting at around $200-$225... same device with about $40 in parts chucked out (cellular modem ~$30, bluetooth chip ~$3, microphone ~$1, etc.)
All the rumors were that Google was going to change this. They didn't.
Obviously, beyond the USA, where telco bundles are not always the rule, things may vary somewhat. Of course, elsewhere it's worse... Canadians have to deal with 3 year contracts as the standard, even given that the industry is only building devices with a 2-year life expectancy.