When iPhone launched in late June, Newsweek snarked, "Not since Moses parted the Red Sea has anything his miraculous appeared on earth. Will it cure cancer?" Meanwhile, the OpenMoko project has been hard at work providing earth with a Linux-based cure for iPhone.
We've covered OpenMoko a number of times already, but all were before iPhone parted the seas of mainstream ink otherwise being spilled on war, politics and Paris Hilton coverage. So we interrupted the overbooked time of Sean Moss-Pultz, project manager of OpenMoko, to probe his thinking about OpenMoko in a post-iPhone world.
- Doc Searls
LJ: First, can you give us a point-by-point comparison of OpenMoko with iPhone?
SM-P: You can check this out: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/IPhone.
LJ: But really, OpenMoko is not an "open source alternative" to iPhone.
SM-P: No, not even close. We're in a totally different market. The last thing on earth I want to do is start copying the iPhone. No offense to Apple. They've built a beautiful product, but do we really need another closed, locked down phone?
Fundamentally we're totally different. End user Freedom is our passion. Apple is about giving you an incredibly polished experience. Exactly how you they want you to have it. The end user really has no freedom. They cannot change the device if they don't like the way Apple choose to make things. OpenMoko is the anti-iPhone.
LJ: So you're pro-FOSS.
SM-P: The entire OpenMoko system and application software are built using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).
On the system side, OpenMoko uses software with a tireless history of success and stability, such as the Linux kernel, the GNU C library, the X window system, and the GTK+ toolkit, to name only a few. OpenMoko is Mobile FOSS.
Apple won't even give you an SDK for the iPhone.
We give you everything for Free. Exactly the same tools that we use internally. We want you to change this device. Personally away to your hearts content.
I like to describe OpenMoko as a movement to create a open platform that empowers people to personalize their phone, much like a computer, in any way they see fit.
Apple makes sure their entire software stack stays closed. We chose to make the entire software stack open. From a control standpoint -- the things corporations love -- this borders on insanity. But I think by pushing these borders, we will let loose the possibility for immense innovation.
Innovation, in my opinion, is seldom found within the endless cubicles of a large corporation. Most commonly it manifests itself within the intense focus and concentration, that all individuals seem to have access to, when they stare at a single problem long enough.
Staying with a problem long after most would quit, is a luxury few companies can afford. Instead, I want to focus on the fundamentals — the framework — to use a more specific term. The include the following parts:
We believe that these are some of the key areas to solidify for innovation to form. And that this will benefit not just my company (FIC), but everyone who uses a mobile phone.
We really try to make things as easy as possible for developers. Software-wise, our platform is still in early stages. But things are moving fast. It's an incredibly exciting time for us now.
LJ: Does OpenMoko see verticals as the key to breaking open the twin silos of phone makers and carriers? If so, which ones? You mention "major corporations, Fortune 500's, hospitals, real estate, engineering, the arts..." Is OpenMoko downstream with any of those? How?
SM-P: Enterprise is a very interesting vertical market for us now. I can't mention exactly who we're talking with now but it's all the big names. If you think about this it makes total sense. They have huge IT budgets and the ability to put scores of people working on custom solutions. More and more they are also running GNU/Linux on the server. So having another client (besides cumbersome PCs) makes for quite a value proposition.
LJ: Here's why we ask. Steve Jobs said the iPhone is closed to developers at Cingular's (now AT&T's) request. Companies like AT&T generally don't like open phones. Yet we have evidence that phone makers and carriers will both open up and make exceptions for big vertical buys.
SM-P: Yeah I think this will be a huge market. I mean, most everyone I know in business uses company phones. What not let the company personalize the phone for their employees?
LJ: Who are the early developers, exactly?
SM-P: Hackers, developers, technologies, hobbies ... students ... really, we've seen so many people it's mind boggling. I'm totally blown away by the shear volume of interest we are getting now.
This is quite a pleasant surprise. Sure we thought an open phone would shake things up a bit. But this is more like an earthquake ;-)
LJ: What are we seeing in pick-up from different parts of the world?
SM-P: Well I would say it's still mainly a western thing. Europe and the US represent most of the emails. But South American, Africa, and Asia now are really stating to pick up pace. It's really getting global!
LJ: Jonathan Schwartz of Sun showed off an OpenMoko phone, no? What more is coming of that?
SM-P: Yeah that was our Neo already. I really can't make any more comments than that now. Sorry.
LJ: How do you see the open phone market developing? In what ways will it resemble and/or differ from the "white box" computer market in which Linux grew?
SM-P: Oh great question. I think the market will be different. In the embedded system world there is just a tighter level of integration between hardware and software.
LJ: What about other phone uses, such as camera, texting, audio (e.g. podcast) recording and music/video playback?
SM-P: We need to open the mobile ecosystem. A mobile phone has the potential to be a platform that can do anything that a small computer with broadband access can do.
For the people pushing this project, an open phone is not really even a product. It's the very embodiment of our vision of technology. We absolutely, passionately, believe that something as fundamental to our lives as the mobile phone must be open.