OpenMoko: its present and future

OpenMoko has had a tough time. Since announcing in 2006 that it was creating an open, Linux-powered mobile phone, it has been plagued with hardware problems and immature, buggy software (the software stack has been rewritten at least twice). The problems with the product has resulted in poor sales which caused smart, motivated staff to leave (or be laid off), thus creating a vicious circle.

LWN has chronicled OpenMoko's progress and problems over the years, culminating in another recent round of lay-offs and OpenMoko (OM) refocusing on a mysterious "Project B" about which little is known except that it is not a mobile phone.

Ironically, just at the time OM is (temporarily?) refocusing away from phones, its phone: the Neo FreeRunner (aka GTA02) is just becoming a stable, usable phone suitable for use by the typical LWN reader.

There are a number of distributions available for the FreeRunner. The majority of those that have ongoing development are based on a telephony stack called freesmartphone.org (FSO) developed by (now-)former OM employees. This stack provides a number of D-BUS interfaces for controlling various phone components including GPRS, wifi, and GPS, as well as the GSM phone functionality. Different distributions can then build on top of the FSO stack.

Stable Hybrid Release (SHR) was one of the earliest FSO distributions; it originally aimed to be a hybrid (hence the name) of the best bits from the various official OM distributions. It has evolved into a general purpose, community-driven distribution that has regular testing releases (and a continuously updating unstable release) that incorporate new software and features frequently.

OM2009 is OM's officially blessed distribution and, like SHR, it is based on FSO and OpenEmbedded. OM2009 is minimal in the features and software it provides; OM wanted to concentrate on creating a working mobile phone before trying to create a "smart" phone. This is reflected in the choice of the Paroli application, which is a GUI for controlling basic phone functionality such as a dialer and SMS. Not all the FSO distributions use OpenEmbedded, for example Hackable:1 (which has created a number of popular applications) is based on Debian and there are also Gentoo and Slackware distributions. There are also a number of non-FSO based software stacks including a port of Android.

All the FSO based distributions are still relatively immature; Neither SHR or OM2009 has yet to make a formal stable release though the "testing" images are widely used. Looking at mailing list traffic and IRC, most users seem to have switched to using them (I've been using SHR for about a month as my daily phone).

Using SHR as a day-to-day phone

SHR contains all of the features you'd expect in a basic phone: a dialer, messaging, and contacts applications. They all work well, but are rudimentary. Call quality is noticeably worse than that of my Nokia in noisy environments, but is still acceptable. The phone is configured to suspend in order to save battery life, but reliably wakes up on incoming calls and texts. With a fairly typical usage pattern, the phone battery lasts a couple of days before needing to be recharged; though recharging it every night is not a bad idea.

Wifi, GPRS (the FreeRunner is a 2G phone), and GPS all work and can be configured via the GUI. The default browser (Midori) is more suited to a traditional desktop - it lacks finger scrolling and zooming which makes using it quite cumbersome. Other browsers are available, in particular, a Hackable:1 community member has created a WebKit-based browser named Woosh which is designed for the FreeRunner. Woosh is still in its infancy but if it, or another similar project mature it will be a big boon for the OpenMoko platform.

A variety of other software is available, most is available in the repositories for the various distributions but opkg.org exists as a useful showcase. Some popular apps that I regularly use include Navit (GPS car navigation system that requires some fiddling with text files to install and configure, Intone (music player) and MokoMaze (simple but addictive accelerometer based ball-in-maze game). You can also use applications like Dictator to transform your phone into a basic dictation machine or to record phone calls.

There are a large number of keyboards/software input methods available (e.g. Hackable:1's Xkbd and qwo) but partly because the screen is inset from the case (and partly just because it is a touch-screen) entering lots of text can be a laborious operation. Because it's an open phone based on a recent Linux kernel, though, it has support for Bluetooth keyboards which make text entry much more efficient.

In short, it has all the basic requirements for a simple phone. In addition, there is a community creating and refining software for it and you have the ability to do things like ssh in and use vi (or to make use of a simple D-BUS interface to determine your location). There are plenty of rough edges, though, for example, the speaker phone button doesn't seem to work in the dialer, there is currently no GUI for altering the volume during a phone call, and connecting to a wireless network requires two applications: one to turn the wifi power on, the other as a GUI for wpa_supplicant.

There are OM distributors around the world who will happily sell you a FreeRunner, however it is worth noting that there have been a number of hardware revisions. Those prior to the most recent (A7) revision were susceptible to "buzz" on the line during phone calls with certain combinations of GSM frequencies and carriers. OM has supported distributors (e.g. Golden Delicious and SDG) in providing hardware buzz fixes to earlier models, but confirming which revision of the FreeRunner you are purchasing could prevent a lot of hassle after purchase.

The future is uncertain for OM and its relationship with mobile phones. OM has opened the hardware schematics for the FreeRunner and a community project is making a number of updates. Whether we will ever see new phones and major new software revisions coming from OM itself is an open question, but, given the open, community-oriented nature of both the hardware and the software, that is not necessarily a death knell for the phone. OM has plenty of stock of FreeRunners and can continue to produce more if the demand is there.

Despite the rough edges, the Neo FreeRunner is a usable phone. What sets it apart from other phones is its openness; unlike others, the user rather than the phone vendor or the carrier are in control. All the software that runs on the phone's main CPU is open source (the separate GSM module is closed) and hardware schematics are available. However, given the perilous state of OM's finances, if you want open phone hardware with a growing community, now might be a good time to buy one.

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