Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

If I want to buy complete device (not motherboard), will it be possible to assemble my Neo900 with national keyboard (namely russian) ?

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Yes, sure.

You can put your own (localized) keyboard to the N/eo900. There is no HW difference between English, Czech or Russian keyboard :)
Only (SW) keymap must be changed - maybe there is an package for that.

#lexik

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

please use http://m2m.gemalto.com/products/requ...l?product=phs8 to get the info you asked for, or use google ;-)
/j

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I think he means if any national keyboards (that is, keyboards with e.g. Russian letters printed on) would be available. I am also slightly curious about that, the only after-market keyboards I've seen on eBay are English and Chinese.

Slightly off-topic but I bought a second-hand N900 with a Dutch keyboard and it always switches to a Dutch layout after a reflash. My other N900 with an English keyboard flashed with the same image switches to the English layout. How does it know which keyboard is used if there is no HW difference?

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

@all: we're also depending on what's available from aftermarket
@pichlo: see CAL. It's not the kbd, it's the device (but that goes OT now)

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

For what is CAL see: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=20465
No easy finding ... should that have its own wiki page?

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I would be interested to know what the FSF thinks of these differences. FSF approval could boost this project and I think it would be a good idea to work together with them. Saying that your concept for user privacy is better than the FSF's won't do you any favours in getting FSF approval. Remember that user privacy is one of their main goals too.

With regards to modifiable modem firmware, I agree with you that the user should have control and be able to upgrade it. Given the nature of closed firmware, it would be difficult to tell if there is anything in there already that would allow an OTA update by an external source. Perhaps we could have a daemon or cron job that periodically reads firmware ROM to check to see if it has been modified.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

So what's the question? You answered it yourself. And actually there IS NO hardware concept to have a modem with firmware that's not modifiable, the chip manufacturers won't use fuse ROM to store their firmware, and as soon as it's flash it CAN get modified. And you can't make sure that what you "read out from ROM" is the actual content and not some fake that the malware delivers to you. Regarding FSF approval: we are not interested in getting THAT approval, we take pride in our own concept being better than what FSF defines. The idea of immutable firmware is based on a flawed concept, it doesn't help for anything.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

How about the software side? Has the porting work been done theoretically or, we'd need the hardware first? :D

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I love this idea and this concept, but the mere thought of $40 shy of $1000 for the device made me cringe. I know these aren't finalized prices and they are subject to change, but wow.

I hope this project succeeds and turns into a full-blown, affordable manufactured phone. I still have my N900 and this would certain breathe new life into my little device's casing!

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

"In other news, we're happy to announce that Neo900 hardware is going to support dual-touch gestures[4] like rotating and pinching, without replacing the original, resistive screen from N900!"

Does it mean that there is a chance to backport the dual touch to N900?

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Unfortunately, no - unless you do some crazy hw modding. We're not replacing the digitizer itself, but we're replacing the controller to which it's connected. Please refer to post from few last pages of this thread for more details. You may also want to read the issue on our tracker linked from the news - it has some discussion about the implementation in its comments.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

The FSF has quite a large following and their endorsement and publicity could help this project a lot. I'm not asking you to change anything to comply with the FSF. As I see it, you both strive for user privacy and that's why I'm interested in their opinion of the differences. Maybe it's a lack of understanding on their part or maybe they're just being stubborn. Do they realise that the Neo900 is the best we are going to get in terms of user privacy? Maybe they can be swayed - even RMS used computers before the existense of the computer that meets all of his criteria.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

That's exactly what that article will be for. Long story short - we believe that strict monitoring of what modem does and raising user awareness that it's in fact a blackbox is the only sensible approach and blocking firmware upgrade is in fact violating user freedom without giving anything in return (FSF believes it's better for privacy, but we're not really convinced - it could be easily workarounded by modem manufacturer with malicious intents).

I hope that it will raise the discussion and awareness of the topic. We don't want to point out "haha FSF is wrong, don't listen to them", that would be pointless and mad. Instead we want to say "hey, FSF, we think some of your recommendations need some adjustments, and here's why". It's nothing new, we were saying that all the time in some IRC discussions etc. - so we felt like it should be written in some way, so it can reach more interested people and will enable us to stop repeating ourselves over and over again :D

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Isn't what FSF proposing essentially tivoization?

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

They want to differentiate software and hardware. When user is not supposed to install the software at all, they threat such device as "a circuit" and not as a general purpose computing device.

I understand it as an attempt to draw a line somewhere on where the software ends and the hardware starts. Not very successful one IMO and I think our project is a good example where it doesn't apply very well.

However, there's also a privacy aspect in their argumentation that they're embracing, and I don't understand at all how forbidding firmware updates is protecting anyone's privacy, since the backdoor may be there from the very beginning.

(BTW. "tivoization" will be there anyway unfortunately, as almost any GSM modem has signed firmware - those that don't are few generations old and there's still not a plenty of them...)

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I think that article (written by someone with enough technical experience to dodge false informations, but with enough "common speech" sense, to make it understandable without EE entry courses) about this matter is great idea.

I agree that FSF seems to be terribly wrong on this one, and such document/discussion spawned could help fix it in their "upstream". After all, FSF is also done by normal people, and their policy isn't set in stone - may contain "bugs", or even wrong conceptions.

Unless they're stubborn over-the-line, this could be a Neo900's way of contributing to FSF, as added value.

/Estel

// Edit

Don't underestimate possible FSF impact on reaching Phase VI (1000 ordered devices) and theoretical Phase VII (1000 devices a month) goals. Pride in good concept is nice, but pride alone won't help reaching that milestones

Of course, I agree that we shouldn't change things to comply with wrong concept, but as said, they're Free project like us, and could be convinced to re-evaluate. If not - well, "pity", and lets move on. Still, throwing FSF approval without even trying doesn't sound like good idea for Neo900 cause.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I have a decent, fully-functioning N900 I could potentially part with for the cause. If I do, can I get a discount on a NeoN900?
:-)

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Wicket,
Mr Stallman mailed me, asking about all the FSF rules and if they are satisfied by Neo900. I answered that all are met but the modem firmware update that we will offer (according to what the modem module can do: update firmware via USB), that we can't change that since we can't evaluate the hardware internals to make sure whatever we do will reliably forbid manipulations to the firmware (write-enable pins may not have the expected effect, even if they existed), and that I think the firmware must be considered "rogue" by definition (you never know what's in there, even on genuine firmware) and thus we follow another approach of tight monitoring of the modem's activities from very beginning, which will tell us when the modem misbehaves even with genuine firmware.
I received no answer to that from Mr Stallman yet, after one week.

So that's what you might assume is what FSF and Mr Stallman think about Neo900:
They like our project since it's striving for freedom and openness, but they don't want to further care about it and answer to us, when we can't fulfill their requirements, even when those requirements are impossible to fulfill.

Here a complete quote of my 2 original answers to first and second mail from Mr Stallman (I received and answered 2nd mail first, thus my answer to 1st mail refers to my answer to 2nd):
And here as an example a complete quote of my answer to another mail I received at 2013-12-07 03:58 from "anon" user [color and bold added by me for this post]:

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Wouldn't the simplest way to satisfty the paranoid be to have a hardware switch for gsm modem (and maybe gps chip/antenna also)?

The appeal of such a unique feature might result in extra sales also..

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Please read all the past posts regarding that, or my mails to RMS as quoted in prev post, or wait for our paper to get published one of the next few days. That's basically exactly what we will do. And more

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I'm interested in this too. If I donate my N900, would I be able to get a discount on full device Neo900 that's >= just selling my N900?

Another note, what's the solution for the display connector at the moment. Are you guys planning on designing your own? Can people who plan on manually upgrading their old N900s use the display connector that's already there? What's up?

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

We are not planning to accept "donations" of hardware for refund. What we probably will offer is a mounting service where you send in the N900, purchase a GTA04-NeoN motherboard and mounting service, and we mount the new motherboard to your N900 and send it back to you.

Regarding display connector we are still searching suppliers and checking our options. We won't "design our own connector" since that wouldn't fit to the display. Makes no sense. The whole concept is based on N900 display half aka the ribbon cable end plugging in to Neo900 motherboard - for that we need the matching connector.

BR
jOERG

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

The multi-touch is a nice add on, I recall reading somewhere about a design like the N900 that used a capacitive touch sensor under the keyboard. This allowed the keyboard to be used as a touch pad. It has to be said there would be serious usability questions with this if focus moves as you type.

Another idea for the feature list?

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Richard Stallman got back to me with permission to quote our email. so read below:

ME:
I frequent the Neo900 discussion over at maemo.org. I was thinking
that including an old style one way paging network receiver into
mobile phone designs as a way of receiving incoming contact and
with a bit of software making fast callbacks very possible even
user friendly while keeping anonymity in position and movement as
well as saving battery by leaving the GSM radio turned off most
of the time. This seems to be in line with your privacy
principles.Being a community project it is more open to influence than a large
company.
I thought you would like this.

"Richard Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>:
What a good idea! I am delighted. This might even result in making
portable phones acceptable for me to use.

Can you point me at a page describing the proposal?

What is the Neo900? Is it trying to develop a cell phone
that treats its users ethically? If so, I'd like to see how close
it comes to satisfying these criteria.

* The radio modem should be on a separate chip.

* The main computer should be able to turn the radio modem on and off.

* The microphone and the GPS should be connected to the main computer,
not to the radio modem.

* The software on the main computer should be free -- all of it.

* The radio modem should not be able to control the main computer
or alter its memory.

* It should be designed so that the nothing can alter the radio
modem's own software. This program must not be updatable.

Ideally you should be able to locate cell towers with a directional
antenna and use that antenna to talk with just one tower, so that the
phone network cannot triangulate to find you. But I don't know
whether this is really feasible at all.

in a later email asking form premission to quote..
RMS:
Also please tell them I think the idea of having a one-way pager
system so you know when to make it connect is a very very good idea.
/quote

I will send him the Neo900 update email where he was mentioned.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

For the reference: all those criterias are satisfied except one: "It should be designed so that the nothing can alter the radio
modem's own software. This program must not be updatable."

It is upgradable and we fail to see any reason why it shouldn't. Every possible threat about backdooring the device will be still present even if upgrading is somehow blocked. What's more, if the modem manufacturer would give us some way to block flashing the ROM, how would we know that he's didn't put any backdoor there as well?

We believe that it's better for user freedom to give him/her the ability to upgrade the firmware. We're convinced that any effort to make sure that "nothing can alter the radio modem's own software" is futile, because it would need us to trust the manufacturer anyway - and if we would trust the manufacturer, we wouldn't have to block it at all. We're proposing tight monitoring of what modem does instead. More about that in the article :)

(there's also GPS integrated with the modem, but it can be blocked from software and odds are that we'll also provide an option with second GPS chip - see http://projects.goldelico.com/p/neo900/issues/526/ )

PS. Even if I won't use the pager at all, I find it really great idea! :)

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

DOS1, sent that answer to RMS. thanks

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Since we have descended to the level of rant anyway...

Isn't the main idea*) of "free" software a freedom of choice? Doesn't seeking the approval of one führer man, however charismatic, go directly against that idea?

Some people like calling the users of certain commercial operating systems "sheep". I am sorry but if you are not grown up enough to make up your own mind about which [software | OS | computer | mobile phone | pair of underpants] is "acceptable" but need Mr Stallman or anyone else to tell you then I think we have someone better suitable to carry the title.

*) Alright, maybe not main, but at least one of the ideas.

EDIT: The above is by no means meant to diminish Mr Stallman's or anyone else's contributions and achievemnts. It is aimed squarely at those who say, "I don't know if I like it, I need to go and ask XY's opinion first."

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Jörg,

Thanks for the detailed reply and for once again providing full transparency.

It's not that I didn't believe you before but I'm really quite shocked that RMS would write and endorse such drivel that goes against most of their principles. I'm looking forward to reading the paper, it should make a good excuse for another Slashdot submission, "FSF criticised for promoting user restrictions".

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

[speaking privately now]

That's not the purpose of the paper and I won't put my name under anything that's worded in such way. I believe that FSF is well-intended and I respect them not only for what they did past 30 years, but also for what they're doing now. Still, it's Free Software Foundation, so I wouldn't expect them to be infallible about the hardware. In fact, no one is infallible about any topic - and I believe we found a rule that does very little (or maybe even nothing at all) about user privacy, so we think it shouldn't be promoted in the name of it.

I (we?) would like to raise the discussion about this topic, but without doing any finger-pointing. It's not about FSF. It's about technical discussion on what we can do to respect privacy of our users. After all, it might turn out that there in fact is something we couldn't come up with that FSF already had in mind when stating such rules - we're also humans and we can also be wrong. So please, keep it technical!

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

My take is that Neo900 team and FSF are speaking different languages regarding the last point. Neo900 team proposes something that would provide the best possible privacy, while the FSF, to endorse anything requires all the software to be free. I think we are in a situation that the FSF really likes the project, wants to endorse it, and is trying to find a loophole in it's own guidelines to do so.

By christening the modem "circuit" it doesn't make the problem any less, it just moves the problem out of the jurisdiction of the FSF and into that of one imaginary FHF.

If there is another, saner way to actually be compliant with the FSF guidelines and at the same time ensure decent privacy, IMO it would benefit both parties.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

Hello!

I just recently got hold of an N900, i wanted it for really long for its features. It turned out its more comfortable than my android based phone, thats also a reason why i follow this thread, and i am sure that i want a Neo900 when its ready.

But... i dont know, i feel like this level of privacy security is unnecessary for a normal user. Or the struggle to reach it. I know there is a big fuss around this topic but it feels like overreaction for me.

Its just my toughts about it, i am more interested in a working device with sane amount of secure privacy than perfect privacy on papers/plans.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I too respect the FSF which is why I am surprised by their argument on read-only firmware not counting as software. Sorry for my headline suggestion, it was a bit radical and I did not mean to represent this project in a bad way.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

That's understandable. The majority of the society thinks in this way I guess :)

However, there are also people who really care about their privacy. User freedom we want to provide with Neo900 contains also the freedom to decide on how paranoid the user wants to be about his/her privacy and we're happy to assist them in pursuing the perfect device for them. After all, what does all this freedom mean when we don't care about such basic thing as privacy around ones mobile phone?

Don't worry. Joerg and Nikolaus aren't stopping their work just to focus on privacy :) It won't also affect anyone who don't care or simply don't care as much about it - you can just ignore all those "omg-so-amazing-privacy-stuff" if you want. It's just one of the topics we're working on, one out of many - and it was there from the very beginning.

Anyway, thank you for your support! :)

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

From what I understand implementing the super-paranoid privacy features (with considering modem a black box) is trivial compared to the difficulties of sourcing the missing parts and proper technical hardware testing.
So iff all the parts can be sourced and the HW design will reach its final stages privacy will pretty much just be icing on the cake.

I, for one like sweets, but nothing will stop you from using your Neo900 for automated GPS-based facebook status updates every few seconds.

After having written this the fact that Google and Apple will not grant you that super-paranoid privacy which wouldn't cost them any extra money makes me even more paranoid. :rolleyes:

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

The more the project advance, the more I am interested, and less in Jolla. To have so good privacy is an unexpected and appreciated extra :). I love the resistive screen, having the zoom on volume keys, the fm transmiter...

About the modem and FSF, I think that the solution proposed of monitoring and controling the modem, it's better than FSF ask, so explaining that to them, maybe RMS and FSF will love it.

The three things that stop me from for participating are:

1-Not having for sure 1Gb RAM.
2-The price seems high but maybe having an N900 (sadly with a broken usb port, surviving with external charger) will reduce the final price.
3- Not being sure of having a modern free (libre) OS. I like Maemo, but I am hypnotized with SailfishOS XD.

But I will continue here, promoting it by publications in Google+ and if this continue improving at this rate, and reach to 1Gb RAM, maybe I won't have any excuse to not paying whatever is needed to have it in my hands XD.

Great work ;) Thanks, sincerely.

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

1. (1GB [not Gb] RAM) Since this is a much requested feature and we finally found a way and components to do it, you can consider the probability that we will get 1GB RAM at around 95%. Doing a preorder will greatly improve the probability since the RAM is easier to source in 1000 quantities and we could do this when phase-V completed.

2. The difference in price between the bare GTA04-NeoN board to DIY-retrofit into your N900 and a complete Neo900 incl case and stuff from N900 will be around 150EUR at least. Of course you can make excellent use of a broken N900 with defect USB like this. And each single donation makes the device less expensive - again see rationale given in phase-V

3. Some guys already ported sailfishOS/Nemo to N950 and N9 and I have no doubt somebody will do same porting as soon as they get their hands onto a Neo900 with sufficient RAM. Particularly now that Neo900 will even support multitouch for pinch/rotate-gestures

You could consider the 100EUR donation like a season ticket to watch and contribute and participate (and of course support and make happen) one of the most exciting and entertaining projects of the last few years, and odds are in the end you even get your value back in form of a great device you can order discounted by 106 or 110 EUR. Your arguments to not do it seem to vanish like snow in the sun ;)

Thanks for your interest and support
cheers
jOERG

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

I wholeheartedly agree with every word you wrote :-)
The problem is in FSF's definition of own "territory". In my book it's not their call to judge about peripherals, no matter how closely integrated or remotely attached those peripherals are mechanically. For every normal user it's pretty clear that the printer for example is irrelevant for evaluating FOSS properies of the PC and the OS running on that (unless it's a GDI aka "windows" printer). Likewise it's not relevant what firmware is running on the USB UMTS dongle you plug into your PC. Now what we did is moving the dongle inside the case but it still is a USB dongle for all the logical/IT properties. FSF needs a better more sharp definition of what they consider "system" and what's "peripheral" and not relevant to them. We (Neo900 team) can't help with that.

/j

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

The fact that submission already happened with another Openmoko-related device is just icing...

The fact is, when you talk about "the Neo900", you're including this "peripheral." If the Neo900 had no such peripheral, and you/another company was shipping privative peripherals for it, I'm sure they'd see no problem in endorsing the Neo900 (it would be like the PC & Printer case you described). Albeit they may have problems endorsing you/that other company then ;)

False dichotomy. You could give the option to upgrade the firmware AND be endorsed by the FSF: create and ship a free firmware for the modem.

The position of the FSF is clear cut here. In their view, "Upgradable firmware" is just a weasel word for "software", and all software must be free. Period. They must draw the line somewhere.

Personally, I do see their point. Despite the clear chicken and egg problem here (because the FSF and even the FOSS movement in general have solved much more problematic chicken and egg problems). Obviously, we're all here to solve this chicken and egg problem, in our own ways.... :)