Yelläks /ˈyæl•eks/

Something like a hype was created after the global player Google announced its ambition to create a platform for cellphones called Android which should be freely available. That was almost a year ago and by now the customers can purchase the first cellphone based on this platform.

So, the question arises, how “free” this platform is in reality. Well, it provides definitely more freedom than the AppStore by Apple, which seems to keep deleting applications in the directory randomly. Just recently an application has been removed called “MailWrangler” that provided a single interface to manage multiple Google Mail accounts through its web interface. Reason: MailWrangler would confuse the costumers since there is already a mail client available in the iPhone. It clearly shows that the people of AppStore cannot differentiate between a program using a web interface and a mail client. Another question: If it copies the functionality of a mail client, why are 20 different calculator applications available in the store?

But back to the topic: In the past months developers for the Android platform suffered from an incomplete SDK making hacking an application very difficult, while Google’s “premium” developers could implement and test their applications on the most current version. In addition, the first Android cellphone is only available in the US through T-Mobile and has a SIM lock. Is the bounding to a specific service provider called freedom in the land of freedom? I need to hack the phone to gain my freedom?

The freedom comes into picture, if the Android platform will be published under an open source license. Nevertheless many parts such as the GSM module and the SIM lock implementation will not be published. To high is the interest of the involved companies in making money and the risk to damage the GSM network.

Fortunately there is a platform that is absolutely published under an open license called Openmoko. Except for the GSM part, this includes not only the software and operating system running on the phone, but also the hardware. A very active development community has been established around this platform and implements many nice gadgets. If there is not enough software in the original repository, even Debian with its huge package archive can be installed. It is up and free to the user, what operating system and which distribution he wants to use. Till now the software is still under heavy development and basically the phone is a Linux box with a phone facility. So the usual stuff like SSHD etc (as known from a desktop running with a Linux distribution) is available.

Currently the phone is not recommended for public use, since it is still a little bit buggy. But the speed of development and the idea behind it, makes it very interesting for Linux enthusiasts and for people, who want to know, what is going in in their cell phone. Needless to say that nobody (and especially no big global player) can dictate, what you want to use and what you want to do with your device.