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Another Angle To WAP And Linux 55

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-think-about dept.
An anonymous reader pointed us to an article running on LinuxDevices.com talking about Supporting WAP in Linux and why this should be a priority. WAP has taken a lot of (deserved) heat, but this is a good argument on the other side.
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Another Angle to WAP and Linux More

Another Angle to WAP and Linux

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  • What I'd *REALLY* love to see is Slashdot formatted specifically for WAP. You can currently view Slashdot on a phone, but my home page is split up into 32 screens on a Mistsubishi T250, which has a very large 10-line display. I should think it would be easy to have a Slashdot site that has no slashboxes or links, just a list of stories, each linking to plain-text comments. I'd use it constantly.

    You can use the "light" mode of ./ (but it might not be enough). What you would want too is that banner removed :) In any case, what I don't quite get is how WAP-enabled web site will make money. Or will they stick advertisment on the phones too? If a WAP-enabled site is really very well designed. Say, you have the stock quotes in real time with an intelligent layout, why would you use the regular web site?

  • I'm still dealing with the thought that devices roaming from network to network over these long thin pipes where 9k6 is a lot, should somehow have had TCP/IP deployed

    And if Jacob Nielsen wanted to browse the web on the run, he should get a laptop. The idea with WAP is to deploy highly personal, highly targetted, highly compact information to the personal compact device people actually end up carrying. Too bad most developers don't get it and think WAP is supposed to be a WWW-lite.

    FJ!!

  • Re:What deserved heat? (Score:5)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Monday September 11, 2000 @08:30AM (#788070) Homepage
    A few articles that speak against WAP:
    --
  • For those interested in this subject you may like to know that the Opera browser supports WML. Handy for testing your code before releasing it to the wide wireless world.
  • Many people here seem to be confusing a big issue here. This post is regarding the entire of the WAP situation. WML, which is what one would use to provide content for the WAP gateways, is one of the *SMALLEST* parts of the article. The WAP protocol is what he's talking about. WML is the display mechanism that you can spit out. WAP is the raw protocol in and of itself. WAP = IP.. WML = HTML.. The gateway converts WAP requests to HTTP. Apps could, theoretically, spit out WML direct to the phone, instead of going thru the HTTP 'gateway'.
  • Low bandwidth
    Text-only interface
    No advertising
    No banner ads

    Sounds like Lynx on Linux, I know....

  • Re:What deserved heat? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Too bad most marketers don't get it and think WAP is supposed to be a WWW-lite. "Micro browser". "The internet in your pocket". "WAP brings mobility to games and entertainment". (quotes taken from here [nokia.com])

    Also, 380kbps is coming and as soon as that happens, applications will want all the features that TCP/IP provides.

    Other than that, you're dead on.

  • Too bad most marketers don't get it and think WAP is supposed to be a WWW-lite. "Micro browser". "The internet in your pocket". "WAP brings mobility to games and entertainment".

    Yup, that really sucks. You'd think usability guy like Jakob Nielsen would be able to see through that.

    Also, 380kbps is coming and as soon as that happens, applications will want all the features that TCP/IP provides.

    Ah yes.... "soon". And don't forget "everywhere". Hold on to those words, tightly, as you click your heels three times.

    FJ!!

  • Gateways exist for Linux other than the one
    made by phone.com, too. Peramon Technology
    (just to mention one company which I happen to
    work for :) makes one, and I believe I saw a
    reference to an open source one earlier.

    Are you serious about phones in the US not
    supporting changes of settings? All the phones
    I've seen here in the UK allow you to change which
    gateway you go to. If this isn't so in the US,
    then that's a problem with the phones, not a
    problem with the idea of WAP gateways on Linux.

    Jon
  • Hahahaha, exactly what I thought! It was a total sales pitch. I feel as if the 3-4 minutes spent reading that article were stolen from my life. The author's history on his site reflects his phone company bias.

    Perhaps he should have read the article by 4k Associates [4k-associates.com] a little more closely and he wouldn't have cofounded a company on a dying "standard" and have a need to create self-promoting propaganda.

    Jayson
  • I think you'll find that UTMS actually uses the WAP protocol in a large number of areas.. UTMS (Universal Telecomms Mobile System ackronym fans) is simply another way to push the info to a wireless device. But before we get there we'll have to trundle through GPRS first.

    There are two points here:
    1. The telecomms operatros have spent stacks of cash of WAP, GPRS and UTMS licenses. In the UK its 22billion pounds between four major companies and one start-up. They're not going to through that away. The first GPRS and UTMS applications will be faster WML based sites.
    2. Second, content is king. Always. If theres nothing to see then people will move away. At the moment there are many new WAP sites springing up, its going to be a good long time before we see applications that fully utilise faster wireless networks.

    Fun as it is to cry WAP is dead, its simply not true. WAP is the protocol for delivering things to wireless devices. WML may die, but thats not the same thing.
  • I live in Italy, where WAP is advertised a lot, but it looks like no one is using it. The cheapest you get it is at 50c/min, which is too much for reading some one-word-per-line sentences.
    Also, the companies are starting the upgrade process to UMTS, which blows WAP and even classic home telephone for its data rate.
  • Good article but I found some technical misnomers in the features of wap...
    Wireless Sessions- actually wap support connection orientated and connection-less sessions, which means you have to choose the connection orientated session in both the client and the server(the default in most servers is connection-less). Connection orientated sessions are slower because they have the overhead of tcp/ip like handshake.
    Device Abstraction - this is a bad thing! it is simliar to the problems writing html content for IE and netscape. Here you are creating special versions for specific phones. Isn't this what standards are suppposed to avoid?
    Bearer Abstraction - this is wap's biggest strength.
    Data/Header Compression - actually they are compiled to byte code.
    Reliability - wap doesn't support fragmentation, which means if you send a packet that is too big for the phone (i.e. Nokia 7110 has a max page size of less than 1400 bytes) it blows!
    Otherwise a good article, although a bit biased towards the author's company. Also no mention of the open source wap gateway project Kannel [kannel.org]
  • Hmm - your comment appears to be both right and wrong to me. You're right about what the issue should be, but you mention "getting it done, tested, deployed". That's why a WAP browser that runs on Linux is important at the moment.

    I develop for WAP and I use Linux as my OS of choice. Until very recently I had to boot into Windows (or upload and use my phone) every time I wanted to check that the WML my application is outputting. I think that an open WAP browser project is a great idea - just like the various open source WAP gateways are great ideas (and hopefully the various web tools that will spit out ready to run WML will be).

    "Give the anarchist a cigarette"
  • I already agree they should. Not questions there. I also think several other protocols out there should die. They're not about to. I seem to remember the same argument being used for HTML a while back. What happens? I was extended all to hell, and it's still here. So will WAP I think. Hopefully, I'm wrong. In the meantime, I'm hedging my bets.. ;-P
  • Read the damn article! Here's one chunk of the many problems with WAP that they point out:
      • Security -- Firstly, even though the WAP protocol has a security mechanism via WTLS, it is not possible for the content provider, using HTTP or HTTPs, to know whether there was security over the air unless a proprietary header is placed in the HTTP header. Secondly, when a user connects with a WAP Gateway it authenticates with it, but never authenticates with the content provider. Thirdly, when the user has authenticated with the WAP Gateway, the gateway decrypts the secure content and might re-encrypt the message to be sent over HTTPs. This implies that the secure content that was intended for the content provider flows as clear text through the WAP Gateway. Fourthly, the WAP Gateway represents the browser and means that any cookies or security information is kept on the Gateway. Information such as credit cards, address, names and all sorts of other information usually kept in cookies by the browser are kept by the Gateway.
    If you would read before posting you would appear much less stupid.
  • I'm with a research project that used Wap extensively. Not myself, but my fellow students. Pity them. They kept swearing and swearing and swearing.

    Note: This is is not my personal experience. I am only rehashing what they told me:

    Poor device support. Constantly crashing Nokia phones. Very limited page sizes (there is a fixed maximum in the most common Nokia phone). Every phone provider offeres a completely different Wap gateway. Each of them has its own set of bugs. Try to type text in a WAP phone when you search something without making you want to scream out loud. Try to fit some actual informational response on a typical phone's screen. And of course, the costs are astronomical here in Germany.

    So no, they told me that it does not live up the hype.

    ------------------

  • WAP patent problems -- was Re: Semi-Open? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The best source of information on the problems with WAP is the Free Protocol Foundation (freeprotocols.org [freeprotocols.org]) which has these informative essays:

    The longer people continue to take WAP seriously, the longer we in the US will be kept from a serious wireless internet access solution such as NTT DoCoMo's i-Mode, which has grown from 0 to 9 million+ subscribers in Japan over the past year and a half. Just try to get statistics from a WAP vendor on how many WAP customers there are -- they won't tell you; wonder why?

    -- Anonymous for a good reason

  • Weird. I just got off the phone with AT&T to order my new WAP phone, and then I bring up Slashdot to see a story on the very same thing.

    Anyway, I used to think WAP and the whole concept of having the web on a cell-phone was silly, but then I started working on a WAP project at work and I have had a change of heart. It is definately useful for quick information-retrieval tasks like looking up phone numbers and addresses, checking prices, stocks, news, etc. It's also great for getting access to corporate data on the road. As long as the data is carefully formatted to be easily viewed with the small form-factor, I think it works great. The problem I see is some people seem to want to cram all sorts of fluff onto the pages, and it ruins the whole experience. Just plain text. That's all we want.

    What I'd *REALLY* love to see is Slashdot formatted specifically for WAP. You can currently view Slashdot on a phone, but my home page is split up into 32 screens on a Mistsubishi T250, which has a very large 10-line display. I should think it would be easy to have a Slashdot site that has no slashboxes or links, just a list of stories, each linking to plain-text comments. I'd use it constantly.

    -Vercingetorix

  • Anonymous story submitter == 5nine.net? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...like a poster has already explained, WAP is indeed supported on Linux already. Well, at least I connect my Nokia 7110 [nokia.com] to the world using my free, BSD licensed copy of Kannel [kannel.org].

    Of course the proprietary 5nine.net solution might be workable (couldn't see a download though.)

    This article really left me thinking, though. How could I get free advertisment for my closed-source product on Slashdot... yeah! Now I know. I'll write a introductory article to a opinions website and link it to my product, then email CmdrTaco!

    Presto!

  • >which will just make you spend more
    >time "online" at the cellphone. Shouldn't we
    >fight for cheaper telephone rates instead of
    >making more and more flash and candy which only
    >will make the users spend more money.
    I work in the voicemail/messaging industry and I think I have a response for this. You can't fight for cheaper telephone rates. You will get lots more flash and candy. In fact, all this has just begun.
    The phone industry works to optimize a measurement called "call completion." If you get a busy signal, the phone company has lost money. If your customer has gotten a busy signal when he calls you, you have lost money.
    So they develop voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting, etc. Now they develop Unified Messaging, WAP, and other technologies to make sure the message gets through.
    How will you fight the phone company for lower prices? Get a phone line through a CLEC? They are also in the game of optimizing call completion. They will buy gadgets for you and you will pay for them, whether or not you want them. Also, remember that the CLECs have to buy their service at a discounted rate from the RBOCs. Outside of the US, the situation is similar or worse -- many of the big phone companies have just been broken up. Phone service costs more - often per minute. This drives up the phone company's need to optimize call completion. They need to keep you on the phone.
    Anyway, the free market doesn't effect phone companies much, since they own the infrastructure.
    But good luck in the fight!
    rhadc
  • Why would you need a WAP browser on linux? What would be the point of that?

    Gateways already exist for linux (from phone.com) but installing and running your own gateway for a commericial or hobby venture is retarded; unless you are planning on a private wireless intranet. If you are planning for that, then there are solutions that exist already that are 100% java by Nokia. Both options are expensive though...

    More then that, WAP is incredibly lame compared to other technologies that exist now: voiceXML, Palm PQAs (web clippings), NTT Docomo's iMode phones, etc. My guess is that the need for WAP/WML as it exists today is going to be eclipsed by telephony applications because they let you get to the information you want faster and with less hassle. A combination of voice and display would, naturally, be killer.

    I was at phone.com's Unwired Universe conference in San Francisco this summer and I walked away with a bitter taste in my mouth. Gateways are controlled by telcos, getting your WAP application listed on the gateway costs $$$ (unless your a major like Yahoo), and most US phones don't let you enter in a new address for an alternate gateway so you're SOL if you want to switch. Beyond that WAP is a horribly thought out spec, WML being a crippled lame piece of shit utilizing a horrible metaphor for handheld app development.

    I do this for a living.

    -earache

  • Hey doofus... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Taco said "deserved heat"... not directly in reference to the article...

    Perhaps this guy wants to know what Taco means - to back up his editorial comments.
  • The problem here is that there really AREN'T any other options yet, and by supporting an inferior protocol instead of developing something better you make it that much harder for a decent one to get accepted once it IS developed.

    This is like saying:

    Write apps for Windows because it's already there

    Support the RIAA because online models of distribution aren't fully realzed yet

    etc.

    Look at the mess this attitiude has created in the current implementation of TCP/IP. The entire net is run on a hideously patched together and crufty protocol because everyone just decided to support it because, hey, it was there.

  • AFAIK, every last one of the problems noted in that article is being worked on as we speak{1} at many levels, from working on the next round of standards to implementing the current ones properly. Including end-to-end security, which, for example, is now being worked with by a PKI text-signing/crypting solution with the keys stored in the SIM cards, and Toolkits that will let WAP developers simulate and experiment with this.

    It is too bad WAP wasn't a complete solution where everything was taken care of from the moment it was specced, just like the WWW had forms and https and dynamic content generation the instant it came out in 1993- oh wait, it didn't, did it? I am sorry, but these things just take time to get them right.

    WAP standards themselves are exploding to take care of the objections voiced. We telco developers - Nokia here - moan and groan after each round of the WAP forum about what our browsers and Toolkits and gateways have to implement this time, yet we understand that the market needs these solutions, and we get to work. You will get push, you will get interoperability with your voice-mail and phone-calls and address-book, you will get styles and DOMs for your phones, current and 3G, you will get easy gateway-provisioning when you switch networks, you will get end-to-end security, and you will get it in a way that is not haphazardly cloned from the wired world but a way that makes sense for the networks and the devices and the way the bills get paid.

    We also know that we aren't dealing with just one or two players like in the Netscape vs. IE world, but with a massive amount of browser- and gateway-makers, and that this time we have to make absolutly sure everything works together. Guess what: testing all this shit takes time. Believe me, you don't want to see our QA-matrix, nor the esoteric this-gateway-and-that-handset bugs we are chasing. We did learn from our first releases.

    I am sorry you couldn't get it all in one fell swoop yesterday, a perfectly finished standard that did everything you needed, all with these 100% bug-free implementations. But we are working to get it to you now.

    FJ!!

    {1}Well, maybe not, it is time to sleep now in Hong Kong.

  • Niether WAP nor WML is either required or desirable in wireless interfaces either today or in the future. There is quite simply no compelling reason to support WAP and a whole host of reasons not to.

    See post #38 in this topic for a pretty good set of links to pages critical of WAP. Read them all (and then go read phone.com's site for balance) before making up your mind. I think you'll agree that all WAP "standards" should die ASAP.

  • An alternative to WAP: IP (Score:3)

    by X ( 1235 ) <x@xman.org> on Monday September 11, 2000 @10:38AM (#788094) Homepage Journal
    Key problems WAP addresses:
    1. Wireless devices frequently go out of range. As a consequence communications are unreliable
    2. A wide variety of devices. Wireless devices come in many shapes and forms. You need to adapt to these forms.
    3. A wide variety of networks. This way you can access data regardless of the native network.
    4. Limited bandwidth. We all know this one. ;-)

    Now, I'm going to explain how the breakthrough technology of IP (Internet Protocol) solves all these problems:

    Reliability: IP was designed back in a time when even leased line connections were unreliable, let alone the computers that were linked up to them. I would argue modern wireless communications is not significantly more unreliable than wired communications were back in the early days of IP. Furthermore, HTTP was originally designed as a stateless protocol, and as such, most "web sessions" are persistent for a limited period of time. That's right, I can pull out my ethernet plug, wait for 10 minutes, plug it back in, and then bingo, my Dell shopping cart is still there!

    Variety of devices: Considering how many different kinds of devices support IP and even the Web, it seems insane to me to suggest that IP-based technology doesn't already provide enough capability to get the job done. Indeed, XML/CSS/XSL/XSLT etc. are all designed to address this issue. Indeed, before HTML became bastardized it was supposed to address this issue. The only thing that has kept the Internet from supporting a wide variety of devices has been market forces, not technological limitations. Wireless communications will hopefully balance that out.

    Wide variety of networks: The original intent of IP was to bridge together a wide variety of networks. As such, IP can already be embedded on top of (and used to bridge) DecNET, NetBIOS, IPX, etc.... even itself!.

    Limited bandwidth: Wireless networks today typically have 14.4kbps bandwidth, and those numbers are expected to climb significantly in the years to come. When IP was first being developed 2400bps was a lot of bandwidth. So, don't tell me that IP can't be used in low bandwidth situations.

    The WAP guys have developed a huge set of protocols and technologies that mimic their IP counterparts. They've done this seemingly without considering how to use or extend the existing IP protocols to support their needs. I think it's pretty clear why this is happening.

  • But what about the software patent? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This article seems to not mention the most important point- Geoworks claims to own a software patent that applies to all WAP implementations.

    Thus, anyone who distributes WAP software is open to being sued.

    Thus, no Linux distribution (at least in the US) will contain WAP. And no open source programmer in the US should be contributing publicly to WAP stuff unless he/she is willing to take a considerable risk...
  • He's right:
    http://www.wop98.com/ [wop98.com]
    • During the years of the mass Italian emigration towards the States, thousands arrived at the Immigration centers without any documents. In order to distinguish them from the others, the Immigration Officers attached a sign to their back, WOP, meaning 'Without papers'. This site is dedicated to them, and to the great Country that still gives us the opportunity of a new life.

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-excerpt/ 0671024698/qid%3D 927786919/sr%3D1-1/102-8749994-3425750 [amazon.com]

    • Because of the high rate of illiteracy, many new immigrants arrived without the right documents. The derogatory term "wop," an acronym for "With Out Papers," would be stamped on the forms of these unfortunates and officials would call out, "We have another 'wop.' Send him home." I can only imagine how my grandparents felt, not knowing whether they might at any moment be rejected and sent back to Italy.
  • That's not the way I read what he said. It sounds like he meant "user-land" vs "kernel-land", not "desktop-land" vs "server-land". It's too high-level to be a Linux issue, since Linux is just the kernel. It's like mentioning a flaw in Netscape and mistakenly calling it a Linux flaw. It wasn't about end-users vs programmers.
  • While it's appealing to suggest that Linux developers should implement all important (a.k.a. strongly hyped) standards and let the marketplace sort things out, I don't think its always in the best interest of the Linux community to do so. As mentioned, the forces behind WAP represent things repugnant to many open source developers--a standard developed in closed quarters by a group of corporate interests, a standard which (poorly) reinvents and fails to interoperate with existing Internet protocols, a standard rife with patents, and a standard which promotes a very restrictive Internet access model.

    Why should developers and vendors spend their effort implementing and supporting a protocol stack which was developed primarily to serve a few select corporate interests? By implementing WAP, they would only be reinforcing it (support for a technology encourages use of that technology). People who use and work on Linux because it is free would be taking a step in the wrong direction to support WAP.

  • Wap is nothing more than a technological stop-gap introduced by the telcos as a result of of bandwidth and hardware limitations in the current generation of phones. These problems will be largely solved in the next generation of phones, and my prediction is that these will use TCP/IP, HTTP, IMAP, etc., just like any other net connected device. As such, WAP is a already deadin the water.

    In the generation of wireless devices after that, there will be little or no distinction between phones or any other device (laptop, PDA, security passes, credit cards, whatever), and they will all use the same open protocols (which may be new versions of those we know and love today).

  • Look at the mess this attitiude has created in the current implementation of TCP/IP. The entire net is run on a hideously patched together and crufty protocol because everyone just decided to support it because, hey, it was there.

    TCP/IP is quite good. It might reach its limits on terabit/second networks but it serves extremely well its purpose: a protocol that adapts to the available bandwidth, without creating congestion collapses. Most of its options address an important point (such as Nagle algorithm, or SACK). What do you want to replace TCP/IP with ?

  • I hate to say it, but $27,500 isn't a whole lot of money. If they consider a telecommunications giant a company that is able to come up with that cash, then I'd hate to see the state of the small company.
  • One thing that I've wondered about:
    Since WML is likely to remain restricted to mostly text because of the nature of the display devices, would a PC-side WML viewer that worked with screen readers or Braille devices be practical?

    I'd think this would avoid the increase in graphics use (and abuse) that's caused some problems for blind users of the Web.

  • TCP/IP has lasted about 20 years, as the Internet grew from a handful of academic sites to the backbone of e-commerce. It is an astonishingly successful set of protocols by any standards, and still has a great deal of life in it, perhaps because the first ARPANET protocols were implemented, tested and then thrown away...

    Implementing WAP and other protocols is essential to seeing how well they work - there are also many other protocols, e.g. cHTML over i-mode, and so on, and soon IP over GPRS, all of which will
    be implemented and tested.

    Or would you rather reject protocols based on a purely paper evalation?
  • Um, are you aware that more than a few carriers don't allow you to type in an arbitrary URL?

    --
  • One reason why I would still use the regular website would be coz wireless access is a zillion times more expensive (and slow etc.) than regular access.

    On a different note : Qualcomm is reportedly doing some tests on delivering mp3 stored on my.mp3.com to devices in cars. What I last read about Qualcomm CDMA was that it has a bandwidth of 9.6 kbps per channel... so I wonder what it sounds like.... then maybe they are doing something else.
  • Well, as long as one is aware that WAP sucks, and that if it hadn't been for the sucky HTML code everybody writes we would have had full web on our cell phones by now, I can't see any big reason why it shouldn't be implemented. Implementing it is just saying to the world: "geeks can do anything, we have implemented this, but we still think it sucks."
  • I haven't actually heard anything too negative towards WAP... am I missing something?

    I've used it on my cell phone - and it's cool enough for looking up quick info (stock quotes, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc)... but I don't think I would try and read a /. article on it... unless I was very bored...
  • Just wondering - I think WAP is a great technology, but places like here in Denmark, its really expensive to use the cellphone, even for data transmissions. We know it won't be long until we see advertisments on WAP sites, which will just make you spend more time "online" at the cellphone. Shouldn't we fight for cheaper telephone rates instead of making more and more flash and candy which only will make the users spend more money. On WAP and Linux, if people need it, and WAP is an open standard (correct me here?) - If people or a coder needs it, they will eventually make it. If for instance Nokia goes and makes a WAP browser for *nix/BSD, as binary only, would ya all go and beg them to go open source? If yes, why don't you go make something alike?. (sorry if it sounds like flamebait). My 2 cents..

  • WAP has taken a lot of (deserved) heat, but this is a good argument on the other side.

    WAP is a crappy protocol that will be mutilated beyond recognition to make it (slightly) less crappy before it is popular. So any work done on it's current incarnation will need to be redone within a year.

    1 Alpha7

  • Support everything. (Score:4)

    by Spudley ( 171066 ) on Monday September 11, 2000 @07:54AM (#788110) Homepage Journal
    Some people will say that you shouldn't support WAP because of it's shortcomings. I would argue against that viewpoint.

    An OS (ie Linux) should be able to support as many protocols/standards/etc as possible of each type. The ideal is for people to be able to choose each aspect of their system, without it breaking other parts, or requiring X so I can use Y. Everything should be as interchangable as possible.

    WAP should be supported simply because it's there. You don't have to use it; just accept that it's there. That way, everyone can see it and try it, and the same for any alternatives that are offered. Then they can pick the one they like, or even use a mixture of them all. Interchangability.

    The philosophy here is to make all the options available. If everyone can use whichever option they like best, and have the chance to make the judgement freely, they will for the most part use the best option. Of course, "best" means different things to different people, so you may still end up with several standards, but the poor ones will fall away, and the good ones will survive.

  • WAP is a userland phenomenon. [...] this stuff has nothing to do with Linux

    Linux does have some userland-uses. Five or six stories ago on slashdot, they mentioned that IBM's working on a Linux-based wristwatch [slashdot.org]. On top of my TV is a consumer electronics device running Linux [tivo.com]. Linux may not be to the point of being able to pander to the point-click-drool crowd, but it's certainly more than just a server OS.

  • I thought there were many open source WAP projects happening. Why does the 'semi-open' nature leave a 'bitter taste'?

    The most advanced is currently Kannel [kannel.org], followed by Ophelia [3ui.com] and GNUws [wapgw.org].

  • I'm currently working with WAP at work, and while it does have its problems, it's not all bad. I've sent lengthy e-mails via hotmail over the phone without any trouble. The T9 predictive typing feature on some of the phones makes it pretty easy to type stuff in, and it's surprisingly accurate. Keep in mind that the point is not to let you have full internet access over a phone. It is for getting quick information, important news, and sending SHORT messages. For that it is great. Problems crop up when people want to have full-featured websites via WAP. It just ain't gonna happen. Work with the medium, not against it.

    As for price, I can't speak for Germany, but in the US unlimited basic WAP service through AT&T is free as in beer.

    -Vercingetorix

  • I'm kinda looking forward to the WMLBROWSER. [wmlbrowser.org]

    We definately need more browsers...

  • There are some problems revolving around WAP related patents. And some of them have yet to be questioned in court. I suggest you search the mailing list archives there was a lengthy (which is amazing in itself) explanation by Alan Cox on the topic.
  • Sorry, but White Anglo-Saxon
    Protestants (WAPs) have done
    quite a bit for computing,
    and society as a whole.
    Perhaps the white boys at /.
    should check themselves
    before they rig-ity-wreck
    themselves.

    ______________________________
    Eric Krout

  • Why Linux? (Score:3)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Monday September 11, 2000 @07:58AM (#788117) Homepage Journal
    WAP is a userland phenomenon. Developers who target WAP vs. HTML vs. whatever, are developing in Perl, PHP, etc. -- this stuff has nothing to do with Linux, it's going to run the same whether they run it on a Linux box or a Solaris box (or even a Windows box, if a portable language is installed on it).

    The real issue should be of getting the open source world's portfolio of web service tools to dish out WAP in a friendly and easy-to-configure way -- and getting it done, tested, deployed, and grabbing market share before Microsoft starts raping and pillaging that part of the market.
    --

  • Mozilla is the answer ! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now, what was the question again ?

  • These problems will be largely solved in the next generation of phones, and my prediction is that these will use TCP/IP, HTTP, IMAP, etc., just like any other net connected device. As such, WAP is a already deadin the water.

    Only if you want to wait until these phones are depolyed. Hey, if you want to cede your market to people who are building up experience now until your perfect phone/network/operator combination emerges with significant coverage in, oh, 2004, then just you wait.

    Others might want a head-start, though. And believe me, even by 2004 there are gonna be markets aplenty where trying to deploy TCP/IP will be met with laughter.

    FJ!!

  • As for price, I can't speak for Germany, but in the US unlimited basic WAP service through AT&T is free as in beer.

    Here it's 40 Pfennig per Minute (20 cents)

    ------------------
  • You know, I always hear people say voice is the next killer thing, but I wonder. Do people really want to walk around, apparently talking to themselves? What about sitting at work? Imagine 100 people sitting in their cubes, all talking to their machines. "Computer, File, Open." "Computer, IRC, Open." It's bad enough that you can hear people yakking on their phones, what will it be like when everyone is talking to their computer too? Also, do you really wnat to have to speak your credit card number out loud when ordering something? I didn't think so. I'm just not convinced that voice recognition is going to be all that big.

    'Course. I could be wrong :)

    -Vercingetorix

  • The WAP protocol and WML are two different beasts. You speaking WML, which spits out content for a WAP gateway. The WAP protocol is the actual protocol being used BY the phones..

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