Comments on: Getting constructive about Nokia and maemo

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:35:34 +0000

Andy, are you kidding ?

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:58:23 +0000

Closed components, fine, it is not a philosophical opposition but there is a serious shortage of ported software. Sometimes it is lighter to carry around an Eee PC than to port all of Ubuntu. But the functionality of an Eee PC can be achieved in a much smaller package. The N810 is too small. Don’t listen to all the girls who want a smaller device. First give us the ability to run all our favorite apps, then shrink the device later. The Nokia 9500 was released long before the Nokia 9300i shrink. I disagree that backwards compatibility is important. These devices are quickly obsolete because they are so underpowered. Sure it would be nice to have an optimized light Fennec browser but in the meantime we need to be able to run the desktop versions of software such as Firefox because mobile versions with the same functionality could be decades away. In other words, sure, add value through ARM mobile optimizations, but don’t let any closed components get in the way of running the full desktop software when a mobile version is not available. There is no value in having perky performance and long battery life if we can not run the Linux applications we need. Users who need to go beyond optimized mobile applications should be able to apt-get desktop apps with no porting required. All the whiners who want long battery life that can fit in their purse can buy a fashion phone, but we need the ability to run professional grade Linux apps without porting and worry about the long process of mobile optimization later.

By: keesj

keesj — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:20:27 +0000

Hi Dave.

I really wish you had that super cow power. I think you are confusing computer problems with social problems.
It is not all that simple. For one it starts with getting respect, getting to know people. Asking around and this post leaves me with the bad feeling “you already know it all”.

Your activity is proof that Nokia is trying to do something good. I don’t think you should try to move yourself between Nokia and the community. I really hope this is all just a feeling because I wish the best for the maemo platform.

greetings

By: Marky Mark

Marky Mark — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:45:23 +0000

good luck…really good luck…you have been handed the shit stick, no the shit end of the shit stick and so i really hope you keep sane
Nokia !=Free software
Nokia != Anything which even looks like free software (unless marketin g is involved)
You will be fucked over , rafted
and need to beg for your life…mark my words (give it 4 months max)

By: Jerome Haltom

Jerome Haltom — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:53:16 +0000

I want to add, I’m unsure of the politics of something like that. I remmeber, at UDS-MTV, talking to Carlos about this very thing. I think at the time he agreed that it was an ideal circumstance, and that Shuttleworth could probably provide guidance. I never actually saw anything come of it, though. If Nokia were to engage Canonical, handing some money to them to provide consulting and hardware for the work, it would get done. It’s basically just an ARM port of Ubuntu.

By: Jerome Haltom

Jerome Haltom — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:50:15 +0000

My main problem with working on Maemo is that it’s never been presented in a form that I’m comfortable in. To hack on it, I’ve traditionally had to install scratchbox, dump a bunch of weird stuff into it, and try to get it building using weird cross compiler stuff. To me this has always seemed odd.

My honest wish is that Nokia would spend the time to rebase their devices distribution off of Ubuntu. There are already hildon packages in Ubuntu archives for their MID work. Those packages should be finished. Organized. Supported. The distribution for the N770 device could then be a pre-built copy of Ubuntu with some extra packages installed for teh binary only components.

Working on the Nokia would then be as easy as working on my Ubuntu desktop. I could just work on the code in Ubuntu. Submit patches to Ubuntu. Those patches would find their way to the N*** devices on their own, or I could upgrade my N*** device to the latest Ubuntu unstable release and work on it directly.

Additionally, the work for the Ubuntu MID stuff, and the N*** stuff would be shared.

This would get more exposure for hte Maemo platform libraries as well.

As it is now, Maemo is just too much trouble to significantly interest me.

By: Hrw

Hrw — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:50:09 +0000

It is not only matter of binary wifi drivers. What would be nice to see is a list of Maemo components with their open/close status and reason to be closed for non-open ones. Then cooperation with community to improve situation. I have read too much posts about openess of Maemo but each use of 770 or N810 reminds me that many parts are still closed.

I would not split Maemo from Nokia tablets. This platform exist since 2005 and no one else released device with it. So for many (if not most) of people Maemo == Nokia tablets.

By: koos

koos — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:55:33 +0000

Thanks to Nokia we finally have this nice linux device and the binary blobs we know is according to Torvalds a grey area that at least allows us to get linux on such hardware. Linux is about open source but also about having this nice Unix environment where we all love to develop against.

That said, I think Daniel has a good point. Actually I would prefer to keep the binary blobs so we have a tree that works. Update the core libs (and beg Nokia for buying us a PowerVR library) so we can keep on with developing against the latest OSS futures.

By: foo

foo — Sat, 10 May 2008 05:09:21 +0000

I’d like to see maemo eventually merged back into debian/emdebian.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:00:11 +0000

Maybe a good idea, which may well be done already would be to create an opensource image (ideally for the n8×0 but would get the same results on a virtual machine). So you can than compare the standard nokia n8×0 software with the open version where the closed components are stripped out. Then try to perform a number of end user tasks and see where the open version is failing in comparison, publishing the results so the community can work on those missing areas or ask nokia to open those components. This could also be a good foundation/template for people wanting to customize the image adding software elements from else where.
So when the n8×0 reaches it’s end of supported life the community has access to enough of the source that new images can be made but with a newer non nokia media player and updated kernel etc.
I know a lot of this has probably been done and projects like ubuntu mobile using parts of maemo have probably done a lot towards this.