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Communications Software Handhelds Linux Hardware

Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone and SDK Review 37

Posted by Hemos from the for-the-wee-little-ones dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Greenphone comes at a time when there are countless mobile Linux platforms, but not many of them are open for easy development. This little device aims to fill a niche for a community-oriented mobile development platform. How does it perform? Linuxlookup.com has the Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone and SDK review."
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Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone and SDK Review More

Trolltech Qtopia Greenphone and SDK Review

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  • Eeek (Score:5, Informative)

    by Yetihehe ( 971185 ) on Monday March 12, 2007 @06:10AM (#18314351)
    Yes, it IS open source. But from DULA (Device User License Agreement) "...This device may only be used with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of hardware and software that was delivered to you...". So no, it's not going to run (any) linux.

    • Re:Eeek (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GauteL ( 29207 ) on Monday March 12, 2007 @06:26AM (#18314431)
      Ridiculous License Agreement that is probably invalid in most countries in the world but still cause some legal problems due to some ridiculous laws in some countries (read: USA and the DMCA). If I purchase the phone, it is mine to do WTF I want to with.

      Being from an open source company, it really sticks out like a sore thumb and makes this device a non-starter for anyone who cares about software/hardware freedom. Excactly the type of people that Trolltech is trying to sell the device to! The sheer stupidity....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 )
      My guess is, this is just something the QT legal department pushed and it'll soon be retracted due to community criticism.
      Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time a legal department didn't "get" the whole open source concept.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by StarkRG ( 888216 )
      The phone is a development model, meant so that developers can write qtopia-based mobile operating systems which can then be put into mass production. The phone itself is not the product, not even a prototype, but a potential for a prototype. The developer writes the software using the greenphone as a testbed, and then builds the prototype hardware based on what the software needs, if the software doesn't have camera capabilities then there's no point in putting one in the phone.

      The greenphone has just abou

      • Riiiiight (Score:2)

        by Tony ( 765 ) *
        So, that's why the FIC Neo 1973 [openmoko.org] is so expensive, and doesn't allow installation of non-OpenMoko software.

        Oh, that's right. It isn't expensive, and they *do* allow you to install whatever software you want.

        No matter what their reasons for releasing the hardware early, it is hardly "capitalism" to restrict what you can do with the hardware you purchase.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by StarkRG ( 888216 )
          I wasn't talking about the Neo-whatever just the green phone. Granted they might (probably) have ulterior motives behind the restrictions, but that's their explanation, and it's not too far fetched. There's nothing stopping you from designing and building your own hardware, except maybe expertise.

          Yeah, it'd be great if there was blank phone hardware available at a cheap price, but there's not until you make it. Their explanation is pretty reasonable when you consider that they're selling it as a development
    • They said they made a mistake with the wording, and re-released the license with better wording.
      http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4872069549.html [linuxdevices.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cronius ( 813431 )
      From the comment section:

      Submitted by kyrvin on March 3, 2007 - 8:59am.

      Clause two in the Device User License Agreement states: ...
      You are not authorized to modify or to create
      derivative work on the Device, except as permitted
      in a separate license agreement that accompanies
      the Software's source code.       ...

      Qtopia is GPL-ed in the Community edition of Greenphone. Making synchronisation software, or combining other free software solution on Greenphone is explicitly alowed by GPL. Software with a GPL compliant licence is allowed. The site greenphone-wiki.org show how to put Python on the Greenphone. Python license is compatible with the GPL, according to the Free Software Foundation. Trolltech endorse such initiatives. Please visit: http://greenphone-wiki.org/ [greenphone-wiki.org]

      Some parts are not GPL-ed. This is because of telephone regulators and operators. Even if the science department at different operators says that they understand that open source is secure, Business people and lawyers don't understand that. Business people and lawyers seem to believe that open source is an open door. In almost all countries, operators and even regulators expect that some parts, especially the communication stack, is proprietary software. So the GSM stuff are closed downs. Trolltech has made the Safe eXecution Environment (SXE) to address this fear, allowing remote installation of software in a secure sandbox environment. For net installation without the SXE, iPKG is used.

      According to engineers in other companies trying to sell free software ready GSM devices, they struggle with exactly the same issues. They need to ship proprietary blobs because of regulators and/or operators. It's almost the same problem we know from the wifi-blobs we know on laptop chip. Trolltech are happy with everyone who address this blob issues with the right authorities. To even address this further, we recently joined the Free Software Foundation Europes Fellowship Raffle 2007 at FOSDEM, donating a Greenphone:

      http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/raffle_2007 [fsfe.org]

      I hope this clears things up.

      Best regards

      Knut Yrvin
      Community Manager Trolltech ASA

      I was at a demonstration of the greenphone held by Yrvin recently, and I asked him if I could compile my own custom kernel on it and stuff like that, and he said sure, in fact they want us to.

      The wording in the license is bad he admitted, but he basically said it was just politics.

  • Pricing (Score:3, Funny)

    by Romwell ( 873455 ) on Monday March 12, 2007 @06:10AM (#18314353)
    At that price you reaally regret that Greenphones do not yet grow on trees.

  • Huge potential, bad licensing (Score:4, Informative)

    by bonefry ( 979930 ) on Monday March 12, 2007 @06:18AM (#18314397)
    For more information on licensing, which is a real PITA for open-source developers, see here: Greenphone SDK [trolltech.com].

    On the bright side, with projects like OpenMoko [openmoko.org] and OLPC [laptop.org] I think the world will start to realize the power and potential of these little Internet-enabled devices when combined with open-source software.
    • As innumerous other people have pointed out, the hardware license has bad wording. Trolltech has corrected this. You CAN use OpenMoko if you want to. You can put any software on the hardware you want to. You buy the phone, it is YOUR phone. Trolltech WANTS you to fold, spindle, mutilate and experiment with the phone. That's the whole purpose.

      Stop repeating what other people incorrectly tell you.

  • That's Great... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jeevesbond ( 1066726 ) on Monday March 12, 2007 @06:32AM (#18314459) Homepage

    That's great, but can it run the OpenMoko software? From the license:

    ...This device may only be used with Trolltechs Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of hardware and software that was delivered to you...

    Oh, I suppose not. Sorry, but if I spent USD695 on a phone I'd want the freedom to do what I liked with it! That is a stupid restriction Trolltech cannot hope to enforce (although this does make me think of Trusted Computing).

    Also, someone should tell this chap to get hold of an OpenMoko [openmoko.org] to review. They hold far more promise, in my opinion, and seem much more 'community driven'.

    • Can I buy it NOW? (Score:3, Informative)

      by saikou ( 211301 )
      What really makes me mad is there's no big buttun "BUY" with a price next to it. I spent 5 minutes clicking everywhere on OpenMoko trying to find a way to buy it, simple and easy (I remember they used to say somewhere about how/when I can buy it but it's buried in their wiki with no hit on the word "buy" [openmoko.org]). If it can't be bought now it should be marked on the first page as "coming soon/preorder" or something. Same goes for Green phone thing, that doesn't even have a mentioning in the list of the devices.
      I th
    • Why would you want to do that? OpenMoko can't even make phone calls yet! The FIC Neo is currently not even available, either. Until last month, it was only photoshop mockups.

      Qtopia is a much more mature and stable platform, having been developed for the last _7_ years. Besides, Qt is a much better API to develop with, as well as being C++ which is much more suitable for GUI's as it is object oriented, much like the GUI itself.

      Qtopia is also GPL, which ensures your code is not going to be hijacked by some co

  • Not open enough for me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Monday March 12, 2007 @06:32AM (#18314461)
    What I want to see is a phone which has a baseband processor that does all the stuff like talking to the cell towers. Such processor would present a fully documented and open interface (GPIO lines, AT commands, data ports, whatever) which the applications processor can talk to. Everything on the AP side would be 100% open source (GPL or whatever) from the phone dial app down to the daemon that actually sends AT commands to the baseband side.

    So far the closest we have to that is the OpenEZX project for motorola EZX linux phones although a lot more work is needed in reverse engineering the proprietary AT commands sent by the proprietary tapisrv app before it can do everything the motorola software stack can do.

    • The only fully "open" method of adding gsm/gprs to a small device is to use one of the compact flash GSM/GPRS adaptors, such as those from Audiovox or Enfora; I'm not sure but I think the new 3G modules in USB form don't do audio; there have been PCMCIA gprs/gsm modules but I discount those because they're not particularly small.

      Long-time PalmOs enthusiasts might remember Handspring did a module (their modules being pcmcia in disguise) for mobile phone called VisorPhone and it worked well, but it needed

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jonwil ( 467024 )
        Hopefully the OpenMoko phone will be Open enough (certainly it looks like the core programs involved including the daemon sending AT commands to the baseband side and receiving results back are going to be Open Source)

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by queazocotal ( 915608 )
          It is.

          OpenMoko is the OS, there may be many phones.

          At the moment, on the Neo1973 - which is the phone that FIC is releasing first, you talk to the GSM modem via AT commands.

          The dialer app is at the moment broken, and you use minicom or something :)

          The only closed source bit of code that will ship with the phone is the code that takes the output from the very dumb GPS hardware, and 'cooks' it into an actual position. And there are moves to - when a working version of this is shipped, reverse engineer

    • Actually, the FIC neo's baseband processor and GSM is just as closed as the Greenphone. There are regulations for mobiles phones...
      • FWIW, the Neo's GSM module is using a dedicated CPU with its own (closed) GSM firmware. The interface (modem-style AT commands) OTOH is well documented. The only closed part will be the GPS plugin.
  • Why is it called the green phone? I thought it would be environmentally friendly.
  • Trolltech screwed up BIGTIME by going with the cheap controller that supports only GPRS instead of using the chip's big brother that supports EDGE (and possibly 3G) as well. Let's be real -- this phone's only real market consists of developers who want a cool phone they can play with and write extensions to show off to their friends. NOBODY, and I mean *NOBODY* in that market is going to buy a phone that only does GPRS. ISDN-like EDGE isn't really fast... but it's fast enough to be useful and generally tole
  • That would be the question I'd like to ask. Does it work well as a phone, have good reception, etc?

    If it is a great phone, I'd be more likely to buy it. . . and tinker with it. All these years, I've just wanted phone I could customize in a real way, and I'd pay money for that.

    Anyone out there know if these things work well?
  • If anyone is interested, I recently wrote an alternate review of the phone: http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/03/08/review-tr olltech-greenphone-developers-sdk/ [redhatmagazine.com]

  • Everthing you need to know: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jav1231 ( 539129 ) on Monday March 12, 2007 @10:38AM (#18317153)
    "As far as pricing is concerned the phone itself costs $695 USD"
    Like most Linux mobile devices, these are priced completely out of the market. Is there a conspiracy to keep Linux out of the mobile market? Could all of these efforts actually be funded by the big mobile makers? Okay, I know its not possible but you begin to wonder. I remember when the Zaurus came out. Let's see, a Palm or (shudder) WinCE device for $299 or a Zaurus for $599. Wow! How's a consumer to choose!?
    • This is not a consumer device. It is an SDK for developers. I don't know the exact number, but I seem to recall only one or two thousand were made. Manufacturing runs this small are expensive.

      Let me repeat: This is not a consumer device.
  • The Greenphone comes at a time when there are countless mobile Linux platforms"

    yet not a single one (at least here in the Netherlands) is available on phones you can get with your new contract, or renewal. There are hundreds of sites with hundreds of phones... and still... not 1.

  • Come on people. I kind of sense some disappointment, but this is NOT a phone intended for mainstream use (which I feel is too bad, it'd be incredibly cool to be able to show off uptime on cellphone devices).

    They've produced far too few of these to be able to push the price per unit way down, and they've also not bothered to optimize the power-savings options in the kernel all the way (which is kinda useless if it's going to be used seriously as a phone).

    All that crap aside, it's a really nifty developer

  • I'm curious - are there any other Linux phones that are actually available to buy in Europe (or can be shipped to Europe), and support:

    1. Open architecture, ability to at least install apps and build your own apps on another host

    2. UMTS 3G support - I don't want to buy yet another GPRS phone, my first one was over 5 years ago!

    3. WiFi support

    I know about OpenMoko and the Neo1973 - the software sounds fantastic but no UMTS, and WiFi would be nice too.
  • Doesn't say anything about the system software, which is probably the most interesting thing.
    Does it come with J2ME? Are there APIs that allow you write telephony applications?

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