Sep 072007
pdafrance.fr has just posted a few leaked pictures of Palm’s upcoming Centro smartphone:
http://www.pdafrance.com/news/2007-09-04/id9854/Exclusivite—Photos-du-Palm-Centro/
To cut a long story short, we now know the following:
- Contains Google Maps in ROM
- Contains Treo 680 phone app
Has Bluetooth
Has GSM radio
Has camera
Has high-res screen(!!!)
Tamoggemon has refrained from posting images because they clearly show the encoding “cuts” next to the screen. These dents in the housing serve to identify the prototype’s owner even if the serial number is covered up – that’s why reposting these images on a site that gets read by loads of Palm folks isn’t a good idea…
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I would like to emphasize that this is not an attack on the OnoardC team in any way. I could have done a find/replace to change it to any inactive, yet popular, Open Source Project and it would have the same affect. OnBoardC is just on my mind as I code right now
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I want to comment on your first paragraph, where you note “There is a distinct lack of commitment and dedication in comarison to closed source and commercial applications.” This is only true if the author is short on time, and thinks his product is quite finished as-is. The same goes for a commercial product, where the development team is just directed to another [new] project that’ll bring in money if the product is thought mature. Of course, if people offer money for implementing $feature, the company is glad to put a developer on it, if it’s going to make more profit that way. That’s generally the key: more features so the people keep buying.
Also, an Open Source author is mostly quite enthousiastic about his product, so he’ll try to make it as good as possible: clean code, low on bugs etc. Features cost extra time and aren’t always that trivial to implement and maintain. A company thinks in features: that’s what sells them products. Their number should be good enough to weigh against the general quality of the product.
My point is: look at Agendus, for example. For the last few major versions, only features have been added, as that’s what sells. It’s getting bigger and slower by the version, still causing crashes. I’ve stopped tracking it a few versions ago. However, I considered getting the source, stripping out all unneeded features and debugging it. However, that’s of course not possible with a commercial, closed source product. With an Open Source program, anyone can step in and help out with implementing features, fixing bugs, or can even fork the whole program [a process which isn't to be taken too lightly BTW] and build on that.
So, the difference in commitment to an Open Source project depends on how much time the author has and whether his interest didn’t shift away to other things. However, anyone can help him out. The amount of commitment of a company to a project is how much money it makes for them. If it doesn’t generate enough anymore, they’ll add some features. If people start screaming too loudly, they fix some bugs. Implementing features cost them money and coding in general, so they’ll only do so if they expect a nice revenue. OSS programmers do it out of a certain passion for their program.
Just my 2 euro
Whoa, I think you hit some nerve in me, considering the sheer amount of text I just typed on the subject. I hope you don’t mind my rambling on about it. FYI, I posted a [slightly better] piece on it on my weblog: Commercial vs. Open Source commitment.
Valid points, michiel, Thanks for talking back!
“Also, an Open Source author is generally quite enthousiastic about his product, so he’ll try to make it as good as possible: clean code, low on bugs etc.”
This, again, does not always happen. Look at, again taking example from my current activities, SmallBASIC. That author, seemingly, is not coding on it anymore.
“However, anyone can help him out.”
In the case of OnBoardC, not. The charter states that, basically, the admins control what gets changed. We’re back to the fact that unmotivated admins->outdated app.