Openness of mobile os?
 

what exactly is the openness of different mobile operating systems? i am fairly new to linux and have been dealing mostly with computer os, but i am curious about mobile phone os (ie which are more/less open??? i have read that web os and maemo are MOSTLY open source with some proprietary components, and android is open? but needs to be rooted and some default apps closed source? what about symbian platform, MeeGo, LiMo, Openmoko, moblin?).
(update: what about embedded linux????)


also, could anyone point me in the direction of a guide to installing a new or second os on your phone (example: http://www.pcworld.com/article/19659...ur_iphone.html)!?!

Android is fairly open, there are some core items that aren't public but for the most part you can hack at a lot of the internals or replace them. I think the only other one I've heard was open source was Symbian but I'm unfamiliar with it beyond knowing the name. As far as I know, except for a few select phones there are very few phones that will take another OS and then it's entirely reliant upon it already being on similar hardware.

is there a simple guide to embed linux on your phone, especially for more popular phones?


also, in my search for a prebuilt, completely open source os (which may or may not be designed for a specific phone) i think (please correct me if i am wrong) that android is mostly open source with some "some core items that aren't public" and maemo and palm webos are MOSTLY open source with some proprietary components. the other os (MeeGo, LiMo, Openmoko, moblin) i am still a little unsure of their openness and i would appreciate it if anyone has information about this topic.

i am still very unsure as to how easy/successful it would would be to install one of the above mentioned, linux based, os onto a phone that it was not designed for. if anyone has experience with this, i am very interested to know of your findings please.

Garmin Asus Nuvifone G60
 

Hi I got this phone recently and it is locked under ATT. I am currently in the Philippines and I am to use this phone for other network providers. Is there any chance I could unlock it by any linux based software?

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page here's a project in the works that looks promising