It’s really, really paining me to watch the beating that the openmoko project is currently taking. I’ve been majorly into this idea for some time now, about half way through ‘07. FOSS is a brilliant thing, and it’s only a matter of time before the telecommunications industry wakes up to that. After all, Linux sprouted from Unix which sprouted from a telco.

Sadly, it looks like the openmoko team has set the effort back a fair ways. It’s been released before it was ready and Dave Fayram has pointed that out. I thought Dave gave a reasonably fair assesment. He doesn’t seem to have spent much time with the manual, but most users don’t. His review has unfortunately been leapt upon by every Apple fanboy out there and it’sgaining a life of it’s own.

I’m a rank outsider, no involvement in the project whatsoever aside from voraciously reading news about it for the past 12 months. Frankly, it seems that it’s been mismanaged by FIC. There has been a fair amount of disgruntlement coming from the developers working for the company. The fact that they switched from the original GTK platoform to the qtopia stack at the eleventh hour smacked of desperation.

This wouldn’t really bother me if it wasn’t for the fact that openmoko had gained so much media attention. So often you hear outlets talking about the triumverate of iPhone, Android and openmoko. Up until this week I’ve been really proud to see such a rabidly open source project be given that much airtime. It’s frustrating to now find out that they weren’t deserving of it.

I think those of us looking for an open source phone now need to turn towards the slightly-open-source-but-not-really Android, and hope like hell that something great comes out of Nokia’s plans for opening up Symbian.

Fucking World Youth Day.

I decided to go for a ride today to check out the local walking/riding trails around Willoughby leisure centre and see if there was any decent mountain biking to be had. There’s a whole bunch of concreted paths down there that are shared between pedestrians and bikes.

I was riding down one path when I saw a police motorcycle coming the other way. I was confused, until I saw a bunch of people walking behind it, many in World Youth Day Staff outfits taking up the entire path.

I considered moving over to the left and trying to ride around them, but then realised I didn’t want to be “annoying”. I pulled off onto a grassy area by the side of the path to wait it out. As I sat on my bike I got a whole bunch of greasy looks from the police, presumably they were sizing me up wondering if I was going to be a nuisance.

All up, there were two police motorcycles, four more police on foot and about 10 WYD staff members. This was all for about 20 - 30 pilgrims, doing nothing more than walking along a fucking path in the suburbs. As I rode home, I saw another police car and two more bikes directing traffic, I presume they were there for the same group.

For starters, what a goddamned waste of police resources. Secondly, why the hell was I made to feel like a criminal in my own suburb for some freaking god-botherers? Why did none of them even make a token effort to move over and let me past? Why was I glared at for sitting on my bike and watching them pass? The whole “Do not look upon them for they are holier than thou” attitude shits me to no end.

It Hath Begun.