First ever open source tablet announced

The new 7-inch ‘Spark’ touch-screen tablet will come with the free open source operating system Linux preinstalled...

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Aaron Seigo, senior developer at KDE, an international free software community, announced the upcoming release of the ‘Spark’ tablet on Saturday, saying that the unit will offer consumers unprecedented freedom for a tablet device.

“[The Spark] sports an open Linux stack on unlocked hardware and comes with an open content and services market,” Seigo wrote. “There's no walled garden to get locked into or which can be taken away.”

The as-yet unreleased device will retail at around AU$254 and offer a 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor, Mali-400 GPU, 512 MB RAM, 4GB internal storage plus an SD card slot, a 7" capacitive multi-touch screen and WiFi connectivity.

Furthermore, the content store associated with the device will offer free content, such as e-books from Project Gutenberg, in addition to paid content and apps.

While debate rages over how much demand there is in the consumer market for fully open source enabled hardware, open source software developers looking for an inexpensive environment for developing touchscreen applications are likely to be intrigued.

In addition to the release KDE is using the announcement to express some rather more lofty goals than just another consumer device launch.

“This is more than just another piece of hardware on the market,” Seigo said.

“Finally we have a device coming to market on our terms. It has been designed by and is usable by us on our terms. We are not waiting for some big company to give us what we desire, we're going out there and making it happen together. Just as important: the proceeds will be helping fuel the efforts that make this all possible.

“The people who get to use these tablets will have in their hands a device that is more than an application bucket that sees them as a consumer. They will have a device that places value on who they are and what they are doing.

This lies at the heart of Activities in Plasma Active and the open software stack will drive that trend further. Perhaps best of all: there's no walled garden to get locked into or which can be taken away.”

Details around ordering and availability are yet to be announced.

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