Openmoko

On of the most sickening trends in today’s world is depriving people of control over their lives. It’s very clear in mobile phone space. You can’t update operating system to a newer version, you got to buy a new phone. You can’t change carriers. You can only use software blessed by your phone manufacturer. You can’t get root access and so on.
There are workarounds with various levels of usefulness or legality but why do you have to fight such artificial limitations in first place?

Yesterday I stumbled upon Openmoko. It’s a family of smartphones with open source hardware and software, with strong emphasis on community development and support. It exists precisely to solve problems like the ones I mentioned.
I spent a few hours reading about the project and my impression is that it’s not ready for the prime time, there are still numerous hurdles that should be solved. Even the official wiki
states that. Therefore I’m not buying one yet…but it’s very likely that when I’ll decide to retire my phone, I will take a much closer look at Openmoko.

Somehow the world seems a better place now that I know there are customer-centric alternatives.