Linux International CEO Jon Maddog Hall has set the mobile phone as the next frontier for free software in his conference at the Campus Party being held in Sao Paulo. His project, called OpenMoko – which means telephone in Japanese although "in Spanish unfortunately it means something else," he says wryly – will allow users to choose the way they configure and use their own phone.
As with free software, explains the well-known ambassador of Linux in the world, the use of open codes in mobile telephony opens the door to new applications, such as free open television, while leaving the way free for improve its compatibility with other media and share files with your computer. "It's all under your control," he says.
"When you buy a phone now, the manufacturer doesn't tell you anything about it and jealously guards its codes. Even if you don't like it, you can't change it," he explains. However, with the incorporation of an operating system with a free license, created from a version of Linux called Debian, the user is allowed to choose how they want their mobile to work, create the tools they need and, insists, improve them.
Until now, Maddog It has two prototypes of this free software phone: Moko and Krullo, "which I'm afraid doesn't sound very good either." Likewise, on a functional level, he comments that they are designed to use all types of cards from any operator.
The key to everything, says this American from New Hampshire who looks like Heidi's grandfather who walks around the fair equipped with his inseparable shorts and a multitude of bags, is freedom: "Freedom is a difficult thing to explain, that's why I "I prefer to talk about its opposite, slavery, which is a term that everyone understands."
Thus, he states that "being a slave means that they tell you who you have to go with, where or who you want to marry. I propose the opposite, choosing your own path. That is what free software means, returning control to people". Even, he emphasizes, "if you don't want to decide or don't know how to do it, you can choose to have someone else do it for you. It's freedom of choice."
In this point, Maddog, which this year will propose to campus students the creation of music and video multimedia products using only free programs and all Creative Commons licenses under a very representative title: Why do you like to use Linux?
Maddog recalls the case of the Junta de Extremadura in Spain and its commitment to the use of free software in its IT area and in schools.
An initiative that, in his opinion, is good because it saves costs, creates jobs and allows money to stay in the region instead of sending it to the United States," where the majority of software providers with a paid license are located.