[Community] Help to grow The Independent Mobile Tool Community!

Hi all, today I would like to ask you to help to grow the OpenPhoenux Independent Mobile Tool Community. Why do we need to grow the community? We need many more active members contributing in all aspects of such a project. We need developers, maintainers, testers, people discussing new ideas, writing blogs, writing comments, going to fairs, making presentations, running servers, teaching and convincing others that we are doing something useful. And we need more people interested in our software and hardware or we will remain a side note of history. Finally we can't get new members by waiting for them to come by chance. What is this community about? There has been a long discussion recently about next generation OpenPhoenux devices and I got a lot of valuable inputs indicating that we even need a broader view, so that I now feel that I am able to write down what this community is about. And very important: what makes it different from other human activities! This is important because any new prospective community member will ask you and I hope that my proposals are the right answers to their questions and make them join our community. Most of us have origins in the OpenMoko community. OpenMoko did appear in Nov 2006 as the attempt to provide the first really open Linux portable computer with telephony functions. At that time this idea was very new - it was announced 2 months before the iPhone 1 - and did catch a lot of attention. In the meantime the world has changed a lot. iPhone comes with an Appstore which has revolutionized the way independent software developers work. Google has established Android and the whole smartphone industry has got to speed to provide cheap (and some crap) devices with Android. Facebook has appeared and also tries to get their-selves onto the Home screen of smartphones. Smartphones have developed into tablets and phablets. Combined with the millions of Apps, that are "mini-browsers" for specific tasks, this is more or less the opposite what the "personal computer" idea combined with a "world wide web" of connected computers was. In that model everyone did have control over the data that was published. This means that neither the device hardware nor the software and the services provided by the network are the most important. I.e. we must see all three (HW, SW, Services) as parts of a complete OpenPhoenux system. If we look at what the big players are doing, it can be summarised as: they fight to capture the user. They want to bring back the mainframe concept (logically centralised services + dumb terminals) and use that to provide walled (zoological?) gardens where the user does no longer have any ownership of the data. They can even find out things about us we don't know ourselves (at least we are not aware of). So everything is about incapacitating the users like the "Borg" does. Apparently half of the world population is happily accepting this, because the devices are cheap, the software is glamourously polished. And the services are apparently useful. And because the neighbour also has it. Like a mouse in an experiment. And we should not forget why devices are so cheap for us. On one hand they are made in biggest numbers. But their production is not always based on fair labour conditions. Sometimes they are subsidized to get more users into the trap. Like free cheese for the mouse... Fortunately, not everyone is accepting to be controlled by a handful of big players, that are pumped up with stock exchange money to a level more valuable than some smaller states. They want to remain individuals and don't want to become part of a big machinery with the sole purpose of making the shareholders happy. And are willing to accept that a community developed device or software can be as ultimatively polished and devices may be more expensive to produce. This is IMHO the dream of the OpenPhoenux community and everyone sharing this view is welcome! Fortunately we have almost all components in our hands to be really independent of such big players: * Software/GUI: SHR and QtMoko and Replicant * Electronics: GTA01, GT02, GTA04, GTA0x (if enough demand) * Mechanics: 3D printing, wood, aluminium * Services: www.openphoenux.org could host many additional services (e.g. Diaspora, friendica) or support ideas like limesco What OpenPhoenux stands for: * participation by everyone * extensible hard- and software - DIY * allows to inspect what the system is doing (as far as achievable) * can be repaired using standard parts (as good as possible) * long-term support (e.g. software upgrades for an 2007 Neo 1973) * no planned obsolescence through open hard- and software * no central, intransparent, stock exchange listed instance that gives directions * hardware development and production near to users (Europe) under fair labour conditions * independent from the "modern mainframe" and back to the networked, decentralized web * everybody plays client and server roles and keeps control over his/her participation * makes the technical system transparent, not the user Please discuss and share and distribute. And recommend our community whereever you see/read someone complaining about big players trying to capture the users. The OpenPhoenux Community is the independent alternative. Subscription link for the mailing list: http://lists.openphoenux.org/mailman/listinfo/community BR, Nikolaus