Trolltech has done a lot of things right, in terms of making it easy for open source developers to write Qtopia applications. However, the company's unlocked, open Greenphone is hampered by counterproductive end-user license agreement (EULA) terms, concludes a review of the phone at… LinuxLookup.

The brief LinuxLookup review details the Greenphone's hardware features and software environment, before moving on to describe setting up and using its Debian- and VMWare-based software development kit. Although not a software developer, reviewer John Buset was able to build and install a source package downloaded from the Greenphone community site, he reports.

Buset's review seems to stop short, however, when he discovers that the phone's license reads in part, “…This device may only be used with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of hardware and software that was delivered to you…”

Buset says such restrictive licensing limits developer freedom and creativity, and he wonders whether they could prevent a developer from creating synchronization plug-ins for non-Qtopia desktop PIM suites, such as Evolution and Kontact, or from trying out other firmware stacks, such as OpenZaurus, on the phone.

The brief LinuxLookup review can be found here.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.