Linux boots on the iPhone [LWN.net]

Linux boots on the iPhone

Posted Dec 1, 2008 12:32 UTC (Mon) by Janne (guest, #40891)
In reply to: Linux boots on the iPhone by tajyrink
Parent article: Linux boots on the iPhone

"Regarding Amarok developers and others, and your iPod Touch, the ability to upload music to the Apple devices depends on whether the lock-down system has been overridden or not,"

If you insist on using anything but iTunes, sure.

"Regarding your listed features, you can actually remote-control your media-center with it (ReMoko for example), and can use the device as a "Bluetooth mouse""

I just checked the Remoko-video (I didn't know that Freerunner uses a stylus. yuch), and it seems like it's more about remote-controlling a computer, as opposed to being a straightforward media-remote. There's a world of difference between the two.

"I'm surprised at the amount of people on LWN who concentrate on just the what-the-user-gets-now instead of the benefits of actual freedom of usage instead of vendor lock-in."

What do yuo expect to tell people when they ask you "so, what's in it for me?"?. Do you tell them that "at some point in the future, you might get a benefit A, B, and C"?. At that point they would tell you that "I already have those benefits in my phone".

Besides, running Linux on the iPhone is all about removing that vendor lock-in.

I'm actually thinking of getting my wife an iPhone. Why? Because it's simple and powerful device. Openmoko might be even more powerful, but it's nowhere near as elegant or usable. And that's the problem with phones these days. they have more features you could ever dream of having, but they are so hard to use and access that people don't use them. That's one thing the iPhone got absolutely right. It might not have as many raw features as hi-end Nokia phone (for example), but the features that are there are so easy to access that people actually use them.

"However, it will always be the most demanding, most aware people who actually start demanding better, eg. more free, products, and the masses are happy if they just get the cover flow."

People should demand products that help them do the things they want to see get done. If those needs can be satisfied with an "open" phone, great! But as things are right now, they are not. So why exactly shouldn't they get an iPhone (for example) that does let the carry out those tasks at this very moment?

Just because something is "free" does not mean that it's automatically better. If user wants feature X, and iPhone has it, but Openmoko does not, is Openmoko still "better" as far as that user is concerned? No it's not. People don't care about ideology, they care about that they can do. Sure, you can tell them that "but this is free software", and he would say "but this other phone has feature X, while this free phone does not....". If you then tell him that "this free phone could have that feature in the future", he would shrug his shoulders and say "but I can have that feature right now on this other phone".

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Linux boots on the iPhone

Posted Dec 1, 2008 12:53 UTC (Mon) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

"If you insist on using anything but iTunes, sure."

We _were_ talking about Amarok and other stuff available on Linux. We are not discussing on whether iPhone can be used on Windows or Mac OS.

""I'm surprised at the amount of people on LWN who concentrate on just the what-the-user-gets-now instead of the benefits of actual freedom of usage instead of vendor lock-in."

What do yuo expect to tell people when they ask you "so, what's in it for me?"?"

Like I said, this is LWN, Linux Weekly News. The point was that I was assuming people reading LWN actually use Linux, where there's no choice of being able to choose a device you cannot interact with from Linux. Also it'd be natural also not to choose a device which currently works in Linux, if the vendor actively tries to prevent it like Apple does.

For the question, the answer is "independence from what the vendor allows or not allows you to do". It's a bit same as "it pollutes a little less", ie. possibly an intangible value that the customer may or may not care about, and which requires a bit of trust that it's better that way.

I forgot to answer one more point in your previous post:
"And most phones out there, even closed-source ones, do not place limitations on the user."

They do. I don't claim they are restrictions your average Joe might care of immediately, but there are always restrictions in basically all other phones besides Openmoko. The vendors always allow some stuff, while not allowing some other stuff. Apple's grip of the application store is one example, while the other example is of course that most phone manufacturers do not support open media formats like Ogg, which means it's difficult or impossible to get one's music collection to play on those phones. Sometimes also access to specific APIs is restricted, and at least in the end the kernel and hardware support is limited by the closed source software that cannot be changes.

Try eg. attaching a generic web camera or digital TV stick into some random phone's mini-USB port. What are the chances of ever getting it to work on some other phone besides Openmoko products?

Restrictive Hardware

Posted Dec 1, 2008 14:22 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]

And most phones out there, even closed-source ones, do not place limitations on the user.
They do. I don't claim they are restrictions your average Joe might care of immediately, but there are always restrictions in basically all other phones besides Openmoko. The vendors always allow some stuff, while not allowing some other stuff.

Indeed. Anyone claiming that phones sold to end-users don't have restrictions (possibly while advocating "cheap" deals involving contracts) is in fantasy land. A friend of mine couldn't transfer his pictures via IR or Bluetooth from his phone to his computer, in contrast to my phone. The difference? His phone was bought on a contract and it was Nokia and Netcom who had decided that to get your pictures you had to send them all via MMS. In other countries it's a lot worse since the stupid operators want to brand the whole experience.

A lot of this is about having a reliable source for the hardware on which you intend to run Linux. The whole "anything but Apple on Apple" scene is a cat-and-mouse game where the next revision of the hardware will probably necessitate more cracks to break the newly added locks and barriers. In contrast, the Openmoko-related hardware is a lot more attractive to independent companies wanting to use it as a platform (and there's at least one doing so successfully), precisely because there's cooperation between the vendor and the users/community.

In short, being able to run Linux on the iPhone/iPod and other closed devices is a good thing because it gives existing users options, but it's not the magic solution for getting *open* Linux solutions on mobile hardware, nor is it an adequate substitute for truly open hardware, despite what some people might have us believe.