I would love to have opening Fremantle possible, but I still fail to see how do You want to achieve it. *Ever* given millions of $$$ grants - which sounds even less possible, considering limited resources we have. Don't want to argue nor I'm planning to, but I don't see anything "new thinking" in planning to spend money we don't have on achieving goals we can't achieve (having money or not ), technically.

IMO, sane thinking is "lets use resources we have/may have to achieve something non-existing now, but possible".

/Estel

// Edit

I don't consider Mer/Nemo as fail, in any way. Openmoko is dying due to design decisions, not overall concept. Pandora is working well, nothing seems worrying about Pi future. Vivaldi - while not being designed from scratch - is also looking more and more interesting every day.

Now, You can sum up money/time involved in all above projects, mix it up, and use to achieve hypothetic FREEmantle. You would waste every bit of it, still, without single percent, heck, even 1/1000 of what You would like to achieve :/

I think you need to look at the ARM tree within the kernel. Getting things working for one specific ARM processor will get not get you very far at all with the next one. Unlike the x86 world, there's very little standardisation - even when the ARM core is the same, the rest of the on-chip hardware can be radically different (or even be identical but use different addresses, etc. for the same components).

maybe you can afford to (re-)design a back cover in your workshop, but i doubt you could come up with an even remotely working device, or only it's design
you don't seem to have a clear idea of the cost involved in developing a (new) device.
this is the whole point of remaining dependent of NOKIA.
they provide a new device every now and then.

So very very true, there are basically 2 ways. 1 sponsoring, and 2 sponsoring
Besides the above joke. Sponsoring is the only feasible way forward, either by Nokia supporting us, letting the community in the development process (design ideas, platform, HW etc), or by obtaining sponsorships by funding. Now second one may be harder, we need to think quite deep on where it is feasible and likely to get sponsored, there are many options.
The most likely in my point of view, is sponsoring by Nokia. (please do start commenting LOL) as hard as this may seem, I do not think it is unobtainable. But we need to think out a win-win situation.
I believe Nokia would likely be open to design ideas, and also input for a platform that would attract not only the devs of the community, but also, through unique UI ideas, the general user.

Here is my comment - LOL indeed. do you really think that Nokia - or any company - have interest in sponsoring competing, 100% FOSS, not proprietary (their lawyers would scream like banshee here) device? LOL, LOL, and ROTFL. Last time I've checked, they were not registered as charity.

Of course, there is need to contribution from Community, if we talk about designing own device. It may be either by skill/time (people skilled in hardware engineering), or by donations. No one said it's going to be free as in beer, our interest is the 2nd meaning of free
---

But, it's deriving too much int off-topic for this discussion. While it's probably OK for notorious "future of Maemo" talkers, which "contribute" only by talking, talking, talking and then some talking (waves to misterc), it's not what this thread was about.

/Estel

@Estel
Thanks for LOLing
If you believe I am 'only talking' I don't really blame you. Those who might have seen me on other forums for other platforms will know this is not the case.
As for Nokia as a registered charity company, no they are not, but they are one of two who are (somwewhat) open for input.
In other platforms community have a great cooperation with the phone manufacturers. Allowing some openness, but surely not complete (other companies play the hinder here - Nokia can not release sources for eg wireless network cards).
This does NOT stand in the way for a more open platform, but we need Nokia to be up to speed (Sony is a pretty good example here) and actively help us developing binary blobs for where it is needed.
So yes, I still say it is possible. And I will do my best to take part of the discussions with Nokia (also my employment situation makes this the more likely place for me to participate)
I will try this no matter the election fall-out. But surely to speak on the behalf of the community, this election is the proper way to go. Otherwise it would only be 'me' single person speaking, making it much harder (still, not impossible)

First thing first - I wasn't referring to You as "talker" only, I hoped it's marked clear enough in my last post.

Generally, I would agree with You, if we would be talking 2 years ago - Nokia indeed looked or was such company then. But, now, everything You've said about them is "past". Elop (+ other fail executives on lower level) ruled Nokia doesn't comply here. I'm ever glad and surprised, that already started projects (whole QT thing) weren't sabotaged like Harmattan thing. But, IMO, it's all we can hope for.

don't get me wrong - I would really like to have things looking like You described them. Yet, guess where Open Pandora or Raspberry Pi guys would be now, if they would endlessly wait and "try to interest" big companies into creating product for them. It may be surprise to some, but there is no "great tactic" behind Nokia & Friends actions - no creative thinking, niches positioning, etc. Even Apple did their own niche some time ago, and run by momentum they've gained. Some of them seems to adapt what everyone else's adapt, some act like Nokia [ADHD(tm)]. There are small lights in some areas (part of Sony actions, that You've mentioned, but I would not agree to name them as "FOSS friendly" company), but generally, brain cells and common sense isn't valued very high in high-op cadres. It looks more like playground for never-grown-up boys (much less frequently, gals).

Cutting rant about "big gadget companies" lack of brain, I just don't see any company that would like to create device fitting our target. Of course I may be wrong, but it seems that if we won't fill our niche, no one will. It's even more than that - success of things like Raspberry Pi or Vivaldi (?) may actually bring interest of "I'm xero boy" companies like Samsung, to unused niche.

BTW, there is much expertise, that could be united. I'm sure many OpenMoko guys would share their knowledge/participate. We're talking about "computer first, phone as a function" approach, so there even are some Open Hardware designs, that we could base upon. I'm aware that we may be not able to use only 100% open (in terms of available software to power them) components - mainly graphic part - but hey, we don't need to get into heaven on first try. for most, availability to run every new upstream kernel would be a heaven-like already

/Estel

Vision without action is a daydream.
Action without vision is a nightmare

how blind can you be?
:|

you are just making my point...
you are a clueless kid who found a toy (the N900) you may be very passionate about but without the slightest idea of economic reality.

this is becoming too personal, but if you live in the Poland i know of, you are Mami's or Dady's kid (who got a very expensive workshop @ home and is possibly studying to become an engineer of some kind) but, again, you have no clue of how much it costs to design, create & manufacture a electronic device the size of a mobile phone


anyway, back to the topic...
should you get elected, there'll be four other members in the council who will (have to) hold you back to prevent you from destroying all the hard work of Rob

btw: when are those elections going to take place?

@misterc lets stop the harrassing.
now, in order to develop a new device.
this is practically possible, without zillions of $$. Prototyping boards with all the necessary HW is available.
Now, when it comes to finish the product (design, custom mainboard, chips, screen etc) to a smaller, usable device, this is where it will start costing, probably hunfreds of thousands $.
THAT is where we need to look for sponsoring. Chip manufacturers, cell phone manufacturers or whoever would be interrested in sponsoring.