Surj Patel and Deva Seetharam are using open source to revolutionise mobile communications and take on existing technology
BANGALORE: Computers built from scratch are part of technology folklore. Now it is the turn of the mobile phone. Two Indians, Surj Patel and Deva Seetharam are working on a homebrewed cell phone, which will challenge the quality and capabilities of traditional models available in the market today.
Working on the project for two weeks, the two are confirming American writer Thomas Friedman's belief that innovation is no longer confined to the realm of big companies.
Deva explains, "We are building an open source hardware/software Linux-based cell phone." Open source refers to a programme for which the source code (written by a programmer and converted into machine language) is available to the public to use or modify free of cost. The prototype they are working on will be open source and will help developers build powerful applications as they like.
Today, people don't have much access to the source code of their mobile phones and have to make do with features provided and pay telecom networks for additional services.
"The phones manufactured to date have been closed platforms that you cannot develop on or personalise," says Surj.
For example, cell phones that allow you to download songs have certain conditions attached like you can download a fixed number of songs or that the songs have to be available in a certain format. The new prototype will be able to access and perform this service using the Internet without help from telecom networks. Surj and Deva have earned their Masters from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory. Deva grew up in Coimbatore and now lives in Massachusetts. He is presently working with a MIT start-up TagSense Inc.
The GSM-network mobile phones they are working on will be tailor-made with parts like the display screen sourced from the Internet. The core of the phone will be a Linux computer, which helps them experiment.
"By assembling a phone this way, we can programme it better. This will help create innovative applications that have not been possible before. For example, if you lose your cell phone, all your messages and numbers are lost.
We intend to tie into web-based address books, so that your data is not lost," Surj adds. Surj and Deva have managed to open up a world of possibilities for researchers and developers.
What is Open Source
In the simplest terms, open source software is code that is copyright-free. Developers anywhere are free to access open source software and tweak it to their needs. In the 1960s, most software was free, and was exchanged by programmers without any qualms until specialist software companies decided to take it commercial. The Free Software Movement began in 1984, but Open Source as a term became popular with the release of the Mozilla browser by Netscape. Open Source software is different than free software in the sense that open source allows collaborations, whereas free software usually does not.
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