Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 15, 2014 14:10 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (guest, #50784)
In reply to: Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes) by lbt
Parent article: Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Of course this is indeed a *yawn* to anyone who's principles demand that they only use a GTA04 style device - but if you want a smartphone running a modern linux then this may be for you.

By "modern linux" I guess you're referring to something other than merely what kernel version you're using, noting this because as far as I can tell the GTA04 developers are targeting current kernel versions and trying to get everything upstream.

What's closed: some kernel blobs from our suppliers, some 3rd party apps and yes, the UI layer and apps are closed at the moment (we need to exist in a harsh commercial environment and survival is a key prerequisite to any improvements in this area)

So the burning question, then, is this: how much more open does this make Jolla than Blackberry?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 15, 2014 15:42 UTC (Wed) by lbt (subscriber, #29672) [Link]

yes - and I was more meaning the 'smartphone' hardware aspect. Whilst the Jolla device is not bleeding edge, it is more advanced (and more closed) hardware than the GTA04.

The modern referred to systemd, user sessions, connman, ofono - that kind of thing (and the reason for the ps -ef)

You could theoretically run the same versions of userspace code on both Jolla and GTA04; I don't know where Openmoko is with Qt though. Mer/Nemo is about to hit Qt 5.2 (it helps that Jolla hired a lot of Qt developers and is actively pushing code into Qt too.)

Blackberry uses the QNX OS - so it's not even close to being as open as SailfishOS although of course they have Qt too.