Would you be ready to pay for a Linux Palmtop OS

[amrein]

A few months ago, ideas about the creation of a user driven company have reached zaurususergroup.com forums. Today dnns again said things arround this idea in a thread about "Sharp Zaurus suffering in US" but this time with an example of a working user association.

Are you ready for the creation of a Zaurus user driven company?

A company defending two purposes:

_ Create an - Open Linux Palmtop OS Specification -, build it and maintain it (for all kind of PDA).
_ Create an - Open Linux Palmtop hardware Specification -  build it and support it (when our Zaurus/iPaq/Yopy/.. will become too old or perhaps before).

The main goal is simple in fact: provide what users really expect from a Linux Palmtop and no more what a few companies whould like to force us to buy. Even if it could be hard to define globaly accepted design.

[pcgamingsolutions]

I've had a few PalmOS devices in the past, and the one thing that made me not go with Palm again is that while PalmOS has a zillion applications, the majority of them are commercial or some kind of shareware.  I like my Linux desktop because it's build on free software and standards that don't benefit any one organization commercially.  So I thought what would go better with my Linux desktop than a Linux PDA?  I don't pay for PDA software because I know somewhere out there someone else once desired a program that did the same thing I'm looking to do and decided to write one.  That's why I don't mind if free software doesn't look as polished as a commercial application, because if you're not paying anything for it, you'd better not complain about it.

[jamesm]

So long as any OS or hardware designs are subsequently released under terms closely resembling those of GNU then I would be more than willing to support (financially or otherwise) any user focused and driven effort that benefits all of us.

In the same way that Linux has enriched the free ('speech' not 'beer') OS world; so a similar initiative by users of the Z community could only be of massive importance to the PDA world.

At the very least we should discuss all the possibilities and implications of such an idea and give it the chance it deserves, to succeed.

[cradlinski]

Linux PDA aficionados should contribute labor, not money.  Help out the folks over at handhelds.org.  Write code, write manuals, or be a tester.  I'd much rather see a group of dedicated enthusiasts working on a free (both senses of the word) project than yet another for-profit company (i.e. Sharp) work on Linux PDAs for a few years before bailing out of the market.

[amrein]

Of course, this kind of company is like Debian or Mandrake.
Same business model but for PDA/Palmtop and not for desktop (even if it could be a light desktop distro for low ressource PC). The only goal not shared is the commercial one.
Same idea as Debian: as long as money is not necessary, no need to ask for it.

The term company is used but it could be "user association".

[JohnKiniston]

From what I can tell The OpenEmbedded project is already doing what you ask for:

Open Linux Palmtop OS Specification -, build it and maintain it (for all kind of PDA).


Why split up our small community more than it is with more projects?

[amrein]

No split up here. It's your own perception of the poll.

[padishah_emperor]

Well, without wanting to revisit old arguements, plus I'm no longer using a Zaurus as such, I'd echo the sentiments of other poster's here, if everyone could do a bit to support the existing projects and write code for the kind of apps you want while porting the end product to as many handheld platforms as possible, that would go a long way to creating the kind of environment we'd all like. There are just too many projects and not enough talent to go round, maybe it's time to start merging a few and dropping some others....

[dhns]

Linux PDA aficionados should contribute labor, not money. I'd much rather see a group of dedicated enthusiasts working on a free (both senses of the word) project than yet another for-profit company (i.e. Sharp) work on Linux PDAs for a few years before bailing out of the market.

There is a third model - a non-profit Foundation. The Blender project seems to have good results.

IMHO it is a good mixture between free/open source and the fact that there are not enough "enthusiasts" on the world who can really afford to live from money they inherited or won in a lottery.

And the other effect is that there are a lot of interested users out there who can much more easily contribute money than labor (e.g. based on skills, experience, spare time, etc.). Essentially this makes it "Donationware" (a model that pdaXROM is already using and which is also encouraged by Sourceforge).

So, I agree that development should be "free" from the control of internal decisions of a for-profit organization (deciding on where to invest money to generate shareholder value) - but IMHO it does not necessarily need to be free from any approach with a money-flow.

-- hns

[dhns]

From what I can tell The OpenEmbedded project is already doing what you ask for:

Open Linux Palmtop OS Specification -, build it and maintain it (for all kind of PDA).

Developing for all kind of PDA is IMHO the Achilles heel of this project. New PDA models are coming out faster than the project finds (unpaid) enthusiasts who purchase the new device and start to find out about the specifics of the new device.

IMHO, the result is that there are stable releases only for older devices and as a user you must either try to eBay such an older device - or have the luck to buy the right model for which a stable software appears 1-2 years later. Or you have to be able (time, money, skills) to start porting yourself.

So, these projects should be focussed either on a low number of stable platforms (PDA brands/models) that are not easily abandoned by their manufacturer.

Or, an open hardware spec and someone willing to produce devices based on that spec is required. The benefit for them would be that they get a modern, free, easy to use Linux right from the net.

So, repeating myself - that leads to some form of a "Zaurus Foundation" (or "Open Handheld Foundation"). Amrein already has proposed what could be seen as a first draft of a "charter".

-- hns

[ev1l]

Linux PDA aficionados should contribute labor, not money.  Help out the folks over at handhelds.org.  Write code, write manuals, or be a tester.

That's really the way things should be done, IMHO.
I'd contribute to software bounties (basically, developers get money when they implement a specific feature) if hh.org had those.
Don't kid yourself, though, as more and more device get converging, you'll see less and less usable linux implementations, because it's just not worth the work compared to the usability increase.