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So there’s this company called Google that’s been working on a (sort of) open mobile phone platform thingie called Android and they say it’s gonna be a big deal. And when I say “they” I don’t mean the “they” who typically say things. You know, like “They say that you can catch the bird flu from lickin’ doorknobs!” No, not that “they”. The they I’m referring to are Google themselves.

But there’s this other company, or organization I suppose, called Openmoko. Seems they, too, have been working on an open mobile platform thingie called, uh, Openmoko. And it’s out. Now.

So what does all of this mean, for the uninitiated? Well, you know how here in the U.S., pretty much everything about owning a cell phone sucks? Like how you generally have to sign over all your cash for the next two years, and a kidney, just to use it? And how the neato-est new phone is almost never on the carrier who you’re stuck with for the next 23 months? And how some of the cool features you’ve read about on your phone are only available on another carrier? Do I really need to go on?

An open mobile platform means that you can buy the phone and do anything you want with it. Get an account with whatever carrier. Upload cool software to it. Upload ringtones to it from your computer all day if you like. Write your own software for it.

You can do all of this, because it’s open, meaning the source code and APIs are available to anybody, so anybody with a good idea, some skillz and some time can make the phone do cool, new tricks.

And the first phone, the Neo Freerunner, is a pretty swanky lookin’ piece of gadgetry. Check out those rounded ends and that screen…that there is a VGA screen: Only 2.8 inches, but 480 x 640. You’ll also notice that it doesn’t have a whole lot of buttons, because it’s a touch-screen phone. So that’s cool.

I’m not sure about the rest of the specs…at one point it was said that Openmoko would include multitouch. And I don’t see a camera listed in the official specs, either. Here they are so you can check them out fer yerself:

Openmoko Neo Freerunner Technical Specifications

What do you think? Yeah, it’s ovalish, and it’s black, and it’s got a nifty hi-res screen, but if there really is no camera, no 3G, etc., it seems like it might be a bit late to the party.

The real potential most proably lies not with what it can or can’t do right now, but what it will do in the hands of creative developers.

Is the world ready for an open source mobile platform? Does the world care? Some folks relish the idea of getting in and tinkering, but most people seem to have an allergic reaction to the words “command line interface”.