FreeCalypso update

[Mychaela Falconia]

Hello FreeCalypso community,

I got a little bit of news on FC hardware: our Caramel2 boards have
cleared the first assembly stage and are ready to enter the second and
final assembly stage in which they will be outfitted with Tango
modules and the necessary RF plumbing.  At the present moment it is
very uncertain if there is even one person on the planet who might be
interested in buying one of these boards when they become available,
but at least they *will* become available soon.

Aside from finishing these C2 boards and checking off the "yes, Tango
modules and C2 dev boards for them are available" checkbox, the only
other remaining part of FreeCalypso in which I still have interest is
producing a FreeCalypso phone handset for my own personal use, and
*maybe* for other users *if* there is another person on the planet who
would want to use a FreeCalypso phone even if it were to be given free
of cost - and it is very uncertain if any such other person exists.

My personal preferences as to what kind of phone I desire are highly
subjective and probably not shared by anyone else on the planet.  My
ideal dream phone would be just like Pirelli DP-L10, but with certain
misfeatures removed: in terms of hardware I want the camera and the
WLAN subsystem removed, and in terms of firmware functionality I want
MMS and WAP capabilities removed.  Camera, WLAN and WAP subsystems
don't bother or offend me per se, but because I have no use for them
and no desire to expend effort replicating them, I am removing them
from my desired semi-clone of the Pirelli - these are simple points.
MMS is a different story though - having MMS capability present in
Pirelli's fw with no ability to completely disable it is actively
causing me enormous amounts of grief, and producing a replacement with
MMS disabled is my most acute motivator for wanting a FreeCalypso
phone.

In terms of what it would take to produce my desired dream phone as
described above, the firmware currently appears to be a more difficult
task than the hardware.  Every phone consists of both hw and fw, and
both are vital: hw without fw is a very expensive paperweight, whereas
fw without hw can be considered a form of vaporware.  However, in the
specific case of my desired dream phone most of the fw can be developed
ahead of custom hw, using FC Luna and Mot C139 hw to run prototype
versions of the fw.  Thus the most logical order of steps is as follows:

1) Develop a first-order approximation to what I desire my dream phone
fw to be like, and get this first-order fw running on FC Luna and Mot
C139 hw.  There is a strong likelihood that we can get it to run on
Pirelli DP-L10 hw as well, with vibrate-only alerting (no ringing
ability and no working loudspeaker), but practical usefulness is
highly uncertain given the current draw issue on this hw.

2) Develop FreeCalypso handset hardware.

3) Make final polishes to the fw that can only be done on the ultimate
target hw.

I am currently working on Phase 1 out of the above order, and I am
doing this work in FC Tourmaline source repository.  But the work is
absolutely massive, and right now I have no certainty that I will be
able to complete it.  There are many things that can happen that would
prematurely end my work before completion: I could lose my life in a
gunfire exchange with police resulting from an altercation which in
turn stems from my refusal to muzzle my face, or T-Mobile USA could
deliver on their long-standing threat to kill their 2G services,
instantly sending all of my life's work to the dustbin - lots of bad
things can happen in these troubled times.

*IF* there is at least one other person on the planet who desires a
FreeCalypso phone, and who lives in a country where GSM/2G services
are better protected against shutdown threats than in USA, then it
would make good sense for me to teach that person how to work on our
code base so that he or she could complete the work after my death -
but right now it is very uncertain whether or not any such person
exists.

Hasta la Victoria, Siempre,
Mychaela aka The Mother