John Whelan is Off Portal and Off Net!

The open source handset is here ... almost

Thanks to Jan-san from Mobiliser for telling me about the forthcoming open source handset from the Openmoko project. The device as shown below is being manufactured in Taiwan and will cost around USD350. To quote from Jan-san's blog The "OpenMoko really is about Free Software from the bottom to the top of the software stack (no binary-only kernel modules, no binary-only GSM communication libraries, no proprietary libraries, no pre-installed proprietary userspace applications)".


So essentially it is a linux based 2.5G phone where developers can start to develop innovative apps that can utilise freely at will any of the phone's functionality. Contrast this to the closed approach from Herr Jobs and his nouvelle iPhone.

A question will this handset have a valid IMEI that will allow it to register on a GSM network?

posted by alatto @ 6:02 PM