Love the idea, but... bottom line... I'm just one of those Linux users that's too cheap. I wish you success; it sounds like a great and well-researched idea. If my making it all the way up to page 55 of this thread is any indication, I will be most envious of those willing to afford it.
Now, to my reason for posting:
Just how "open" do you intend the HW to be? I ask because Arduino published everything OpenSource and Chinese manufactures seem to have taken them up on this, at a fraction of the original price. The market for Arduino can't be that much bigger than a real Linux phone would be. Chinese manufacturers are doing this with a lot of Android devices too, open or not. Some 7" tablets are now sub $50.
Recouping R&D costs these days is no trivial matter and I don't envy your position. Assuming you can find a way to pay the bills, have you considered massaging the design to encourage mass copying?
Considering that what you are planning doesn't require the n900 case, nor keyboard (the n800 ran without one), nor camera for that matter, a open HW design might prove interesting to these manufacturers. Doing a board run, tossing it in whatever cheap case they come up with, and loading some totally free OS on it... They do seem to have a knack for such things.
You are basing this on an existing board (GTA04) that has not been cloned in some 30,000-unit-a-month Chinese monster factory. Why? Is it because the HW is not fully open? Or, is it because there's no decent OS to run on it? If the latter, then that's what you're planning on solving, right?
These factories are selling better-spec'ed Android smartphones for less than 1/10 your projected costs. Why? Because they can. They're not going to idle their plants if orders slow down. They'll do a run of whatever they think they can sell, so long as they don't have to invest any R&D. Your design could very well fit this criteria. Have you considered this, to your benefit or harm?
please, read the first posts in the thread. especially post #5, where you can find these words: "drop-in replacement for N900 current users".
the goal of the project is not another "cheap android phone" but drop-in replacement for N900. this means that Neo900 must have everything N900 have and maybe some more (if it's not breaking N900 compatibility).
and FPTF aim is not "free OS", but "free fremantle". this means that all fremantle software must work. this can't be done if camera, qwerty or something else N900 have is missing.
I think you have missread what fixerdave meant in his post. He doesn't opt for better hardware or android crap - he saud that with Truly Open hardware design, some chineese crapnese manufacturer could just produce and sell same devices for 1/10 price, or so.
AIUI, this won't be the case, as Neo900 people doesn't plan to release designs fab-ready - just schematics, so one would need to RE board structure to copy->paste device. There were, even, some funny reasons stated - like, "focusing on big batches instead of more small ones" - which doesn't make much sense, if you're talking about keeping fab files closed - so we can safely assume, that *not* allowing "chineesians" to simply steal device design is a real reason behind it.
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Now, not that I'm overly concerned about it - I presume, that if China would get interested in design, they would copy features, but lock it to some android-based crap OS, just to increase sales.
Not to mention, that I would prefer people designing it to profit, not some "l.et's steal it" asian manufacturer. Frankly, I don't mind, if they (the latter) would earn 50% of price as profit (which is *not* going to be the case, AIUI, again), as long as there are buyers interested and device "happens". Designing it is no small task.
Neo900 is based on TI beagleboard / Zoom2, like N900 and GTA04. If chinese copycats would want to copy the design, they could've done based on beagleboard long ago.
I promised in post#1 that we're doing an opendevice and we don't work behind walls. This means that we even might opt for an inferior and more expensive hardware when the alternative is not open, means no docs publicly available. Neo900 will be as open and documented as it gets, to the limits of us not publishing the project files since those only help copycats.
When there will be "closed blobs" in the hardware then only because even we didn't find any (publicly available) docs for that particular component and we had no other option than using this component - see Option modems. See plans for FreeCalypso modem alternative. It's your hardware, you paid for every single resistor in it, so I personally feel it's fair you know what you purchased, by us documenting each single resistor and other component. This openness is our core sales argument.
/j
on a sidenote: I didn't start this venture to get rich by it, I just want a future for the only phone and OS I like to use, and I'm happy when we can produce and sell enough to keep the ecosystem alive so I don't need to worry about bitrot and no spare hardware available. Of course I somehow have to take care about my bagles as well, more than I did during last 9 months, or eventually I won't be able to continue on such projects
Actually, one question which was asked but I didn't see answered after searching was 'can we still use bleeding edge /monitor/ injection' drivers with the wifi module. This is something important to me at least. I'd rather have the same wifi module if this was the only way it could be achieved (if you ever do custom builds).
Actually, one question which was asked but I didn't see answered after searching was 'can we still use bleeding edge /monitor/ injection' drivers with the wifi module. This is something important to me at least. I'd rather have the same wifi module if this was the only way it could be achieved (if you ever do custom builds).
Manuals for GTA04 [1] state w2cbw003 (Marvell 8686) wifi chip and quick google states that 3 years ago it did not support monitor mode [2], but few other links say someone enabled monitor mode on it - so I guess it could be doable, but I might be wrong...
Manuals for GTA04 [1] state w2cbw003 (Marvell 8686) wifi chip and quick google states that 3 years ago it did not support monitor mode [2], but few other links say someone enabled monitor mode on it - so I guess it could be doable, but I might be wrong...
