[Community] [OpenPhoenux Community] New cell phone design wanted?

[james]

On 04/08/2016 04:02 PM, Chris wrote:
>
> Hey James,
> ups, now I see I forgot to CC community at openphoenux.org
>
> If it is alright for you, could you please just resend your reply to the
> list, and we write there?
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
>

Sure, I even cleaned it up a bit.
>
On 04/08/2016 09:38 AM, Chris wrote:
 >
 > Hello James,
 >
 > were you able to publish something like a work-in-progress wiki
 > document that dokuments the current state?

No. I would be eternally grateful if somebody other than me just created
some online docs (very flexible here) itemizing the hardware desired
or the features. Designing the hardware is an enormous effort. Somebody 
needs to 'herd the cats' and that aint me!


 > One hardware feature I didn't see in the responses yet, is
 > dual-sim-card support. I think being able to work with two
 > SIM-Cards is a unique feature for developing an open mobile device.

An excellent idea. Itemize it with the other ideas.

 > The other feature is mentioned at the last paragraph of this article
 > http://neo900.org/news/paypal-resumes-neo900-sources-again

 > Cheers,
 > Chris

I was excited to find a collection interested in an open source phone. 
The hardware details may or may not be able to be 100% open-sourced, as 
constricted by the manufacturers and their strategic business partners. 
I never meant to imply I was willing to go down that 'fools errand path' 
of 100% open hardware. To me, if you get to 90% percent open hardware, 
that's a great place to start. The goal is to get a current phone 
(hardware wise) where WE the open source community control the software 
(stacks). That IS doable, imho. Then WE can chip away at the hardware 
openness in the subsequently revs of the phone.


If WE can do this, and the hardware becomes marginally commercially 
successful, then other vendors will move toward the 100% open hardware 
model, albeit against their will. Hardware vendor like to hold "the 
upper hand" in designs, reference designs and the coolest of features 
therein. Example:: Intel with the internal FPGA in their processors, 
have been there for decades. Those internal fpgs in intel processors are 
only now being announce to the public.


Second Problem. Folks seem to be 'diluted' that an open phone will have 
cheaper hardware costs. *INSANITY* Hardware costs are driven by volume
and this phone will be a low volume phone, so to be able to put your own 
software on a cell phone, that has current hardware, your going to pay a 
lot more. Nothing I can do about that, and thinking otherwise just 
identifies those folks with little real design/implementation expertise. 
So, if folks want an open, cheap phone, then just use the old hardware 
designs and organize a project. I'd be willing to code
on that *organized* project, if it existed.

Me? I want modern hardware and I'm willing to pay a lot more, as long as 
I can put the software I want on the phone. In fact, I just prefer to 
pay $1,000.00 usd and buy one and not have to 'venture' the phone. So 
please let me know if such a phone exists. I did not discern, from 
previous posts-responses, many were of that mindset. Was I wrong? I have 
deep connections to some of the chip manufactures and access to capital. 
I can propose a phone based on a consensus and take a huge financial 
risk bringing it to market.


Third:: I cannot/(will not) herd cats. So collect up what folks want and 
drop me an email to an organized url and I can work with one or 2 folks 
to refine it to a specification. Then we float the idea and see what 
kind of response we get. I take the financial risks, I'm going to get my 
seed money back on the first 5,000.00 phones. If I do not do that, the 
hardware vendors will laugh me out of California, the next time I 
propose a project like this?

PS, we (your club) can take an existing cell phone design and modify it 
(specification wise) to include a quad core arm64 with 4 gig of ddr4 
ram, as those are my minimum needs to secure the phone. In fact I really 
see no reason that the 'club' could not design the specification for 
myself or any number of other HW fab companies to build the phone and 
many could work on the software with their own (funding or not) teams. 
There is widespread interest in a cell phone that can be 100% software 
controlled (minus hardware firmwares) so as to build secure phones. The 
legal ramification of such a cell phone may vary country by country, so 
that is another area that needs attention.

I do not read the list, so somebody drop me an email, when you guys 
coalesce into some form of a converged specification.



James