Promises and deadlines for an open phone – openmoko

OpenMoko. I don’t know what that stands for but I know what it means. People on freenode have guessed that Moko is an acronym for Mobile Kommunicator but these same people know that it means complete control over your own phone.

Interest has piqued ever since Jobs announced that users won’t be able to put just any application onto their phone, and that developers will have a walled garden. OpenMoko will be entirely open save for the GPS software. Developers will be able to add to even the basic applications such as the dialer, although much more work will be done on other applications. Details surrounding OpenMoko have been sparse but last night the OpenMoko team released their roadmap.

2007-02-11 Phase 0: Developer Preview
We will give away free phones to selected members of the developer
community. At this point, the full source code to the OpenMoko Linux
Distribution will become publicly available. We are committed to
cooperating with the community in the interest of making the
official developer launch a smooth experience.

…

2007-03-11 Phase 1: Official Developer Launch
We will sell the Neo1973 direct from openmoko.com for US$350 plus
shipping. Sales and orders will be worldwide. We are specifically
targeting open source community developers.

2007-09-11 Phase 2: Mass Market Sale
Online sales will continue. We will also be available in a retail
stores and selected carriers around the world. At this point, we
hope your mom and dad will want to buy a Neo1973, too.

The 2nd generation OpenMoko device will also be introduced at this
time. We have something special in the works, but again, you will
help shape this device.

The first generation phone looks sleek and has all the features I want except for WiFi, which appears to be doable as an addon. Since the phone is so cheap for a smartphone I’m tempted to buy it anyways. I just wish GSM providers in Canada had better data plans.