THERE HAVE BEEN a lot of phones claiming to be ‘Linux phones’ and those that do run a Linux kernel, but they all miss the point of Linux: to be open. FIC is about to change that in a big way with a truly open phone, the OpenMoko.

This is the first phone in a long time to get us really interested in what it is, what it isn’t, and the philosophy behind it. The philosophy is the thing that makes Linux great, and not in the sense of window-dressing or half-hearted openness, it is really open. It runs the latest kernel, 2.6.18 as of a few weeks ago, and you can get software from a repository with apt-get.

The OpenMoko is meant to be a fully mobile Linux machine that happens to look like a phone. The point is simple, where others have a Linux kernel with a locked proprietary stack on top of it, this one is open, top to bottom. You can use your own tools on it, compile your own kernel. and bang on the bare metal if you are into that sort of thing. Everything barring a few small drivers is GPL’ed.

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