[Tfug] Hackable phone?

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 05:06:19AM -0800, Bexley Hall wrote:
>Hi, Jude,
>
>--- On Sun, 2/15/09, Jude Nelson <judecn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> T-Mobile G1.  Hands down the best handheld device for potential
>> hackers I've ever seen.  It runs Google's Android OS (Linux) natively,
>> and with a bit of hacking, you can get root access and flash a
>> bootloader that doesn't required signed firmware, allowing you to do
>> whatever you want with it.
>
>Cool!  Is documentation available without signing your life away?

Completely.  In fact, as of one or two months ago, Android is now an open
source project.  Still guided by Google, of course... similar to how Java is
handled now, but, to me, seems a fair bit more open.

In Android's short 1-2 years of public life, they've made far more
(substantial) overtures to the OSS community than Palm did in 12+ years.

Downloading the Android SDK was a matter of a click here and there (probably
some webpage EULA thing) and following the directions to install it into
Eclipse.  Of course, Eclipse isn't necessary and you could go the ant+emacs
route if you like.

Compare this with Palm's SDK (or SDK addons from companies like Sony).  You
needed to get a developer account approved, then log into and dig around the
website to get the SDK files.  Then you still needed to hack them to make them
work on non-Win platforms.


Regardless of alternative motives and dark machinations, I can say that Google
has been making all of the right moves to attract FOSS developers now that
Palm OS has tanked.  That is, frankly, a very good thing for the platform.
Most of the best Palm apps I used weren't commercial in any way.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
Try Weasel Reader for PalmOS  --  http://weaselreader.org
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max