"Open" device

"Open" device

Posted Mar 27, 2007 11:31 UTC (Tue) by net_bh (subscriber, #28735)
In reply to: "Open" device by mrfredsmoothie
Parent article: Playing with the N800

>I would like it if reviews about a device advertized by its manufacturer as >a "Linux-based" device informed readers prior to shelling out $450 or so >that they might not want to assume that means they can, say, modify all of >the software or build a fully equivalent environment from the sources and >information provided (without basically reverse engineering a bunch of >things).

This is based on your assumption that every device that runs Linux (the kernel) somehow has to have the whole stack (userspace+middleware+kernel) open sourced. I am not sure there are many devices and software stacks out in the market that allow that. Openmoko is probably the first such attempt.

I am not questioning your wanting the whole stack open-sourced. But implying that Nokia is misleading people into believing that is the case is a stretch of imagination.

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