Closed Source Packages in Maemo

[korbé]

The Media Player UI is closed source. ...

Ok, it's decided, I will not buy the N900.
I am the only one who finds it outrageous that Nokia makes proprietary software into an operating system that they say it's Free?

[Capt'n Corrupt]

Awww.. It's not so bad. We still retain the freedom of choice, remember?

}:^)~

[johnkzin]

Ok, it's decided, I will not buy the N900.
I am the only one who finds it outrageous that Nokia makes proprietary software into an operating system that they say it's Free?

There's no conflict at all between "closed source" and "free (as in beer)".

Nor is there anything wrong with hybrid/mixed-source platforms.

Unless you're Stallman, in which case, all things should be free (as in speech AND as in beer), and personal-hygiene should be optional and smell like bunny farts. But, for us normal people, there's nothing wrong with clearly defined hybrid platforms ... nor bathing.

[ragnar]

Ok, it's decided, I will not buy the N900.
I am the only one who finds it outrageous that Nokia makes proprietary software into an operating system that they say it's Free?

You are perfectly free not to buy it.

Nokia is not saying that the operating system is "Free". Open source does not equal "Free", and open source does not also mean 100% open code.

If you are waiting for a device that will be "100% Free", and something that will be of relatively high quality, my humble prediction is that you will need to wait A Really Long Time Indeed.

[korbé]

Nokia is like Canoncial: Free software to save money, and proprietary software to keep users in a certain form of submission. Hypocrites.

Nokia is a manufacturer of hardware and service provider they can therefore make a profit with 100% FOSS.

[johnkzin]

open source does not also mean 100% open code.

Depending on what you mean by "open code" (open source vs open standards), I disagree with that part.

open source == open source (100% of the source code is available). Otherwise, there's no point in calling it open source.

If some, but not 100%, of the code is available, then you've got a hybrid platform, not an open source platform.

For example, Google Android is open source (100% of the code is available and re-usable, as far as I know). But, HTC's version of Android is NOT open source; it's a hybrid open/closed source platform (the parts they took from Google are open, but their Sense UI code is not).

[Corwin]

It is a coin with two sides - as the Capt'n (ironically) remarks, we still get to choose ;) More than others.

I can already see loosing parts of the functionaliy compared to my N97 with some limitations (like e.g. no portrait, issues with syncML, poor OVI integration, no turn by turn navigation). And yes, it will become complete over time.Until EOL the product will be perfect (like any NSeries with v30 FW).

Maybe I shouldn't have handed the E71 to the wife - but who's the geek, then? :rolleyes: Just kidding, of course it is a must have :)

BTW, did you already vote for Browser portrait mode?
http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/browser-add_portrait_mode_support_to_the_browser-automatic_screen_rotation/

[korbé]

There's no conflict at all between "closed source" and "free (as in beer)".

Nor is there anything wrong with hybrid/mixed-source platforms.

Unless you're Stallman, in which case, all things should be free (as in speech AND as in beer), and personal-hygiene should be optional and smell like bunny farts. But, for us normal people, there's nothing wrong with clearly defined hybrid platforms ... nor bathing.

Normal people? normal people?

They are people like RMS that created the Free Software and their communities. And now that big multinationals have seized upon the concept, we should be imposed proprietary software, continue to contribute, keep quiet and suffer?

[johnkzin]

Normal people? normal people?

They are people like RMS that created the Free Software and their communities. And now that big multinationals have seized upon the concept, we should be imposed proprietary software, continue to contribute, keep quiet and suffer?

No one is imposting proprietary software upon you. Not even Microsoft.

And just as you are free to choose your platform, free to contribute to open projects, you are also free to contribute to non-open projects. That's what freedom really is: the freedom to choose. To choose whether or not you'll use open vs hybrid vs closed software; to choose whether or not you'll contribute/write open vs hybrid vs closed software. And just like you deserve those freedoms, so do other people. Including the people who run corporations of all sizes.

(and, really RMS is anything but normal, in both the good and bad implications of that statement)

[ragnar]

Nokia is like Canoncial: Free software to save money, and proprietary software to keep users in a certain form of submission. Hypocrites.

Nokia is a manufacturer of hardware and service provider they can therefore make a profit with 100% FOSS.

Well.

Naturally there is a long answer that doesn't need to be written here, but naturally there is interest for Nokia so that we don't spend Much Time and Effort in creating something that then some company from Asia could just create a slightly cheaper device, put the same piece of software there (the "100% FOSS Maemo") and make a profit. A hybrid model gives much back to the open source, gives opportunities for developers to do what they want on the platform while also giving some reason for a company to start utilizing open source in their products. Everybody benefits. Even Linus T. understands and supports that. ;) (Recall the GPLv3 discussions.)

But anyway, I'll stop on commenting on this more on this thread - after all, this is about portrait mode support, not about fundamentals of open source.

[qgil]

I don't understand the surprise with the Media Player. It has been closed source since the first day of Maemo. In Fremantle the engine is oss generic (MAFW) and the player UI is closed, so there has been opening progress.

I will convert https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1235 in a brainstorm proposal so we can see the potential and preferred solutions.

Now, please move the topic back to portrait mode.

[nilchak]

While I understand that Maemo OS is billed as open source that may not mean that all other components and apps on top of Maemo will also be open sourced.

So the Music player not being open sourced is highly likely and does not conflict with the fact that Maemo is open sourced.

If I develop an application for Maemo, I can close it down and not have it to be totally open. The Music player just happens to be integrated and built in. It need not be also open as the OS underneath.

Google has built up its infrastructure and its search universe on open source too, but that doesn't mean Google's code is all open sourced. No way.

[korbé]

@Ragnar
And now, yet this principle of **** that is that of "Open Source but not Free (af free Speech)"

And freedom of the user? And equality of users?

"Useless, they are only there to pay and be subject to the richest ..."

Grrrrrr. :mad:

[ragnar]

As my personal opinion, Maemo is not some ideological struggle. We don't open source because of ideology but because of the pragmatic thought of it being the best method for us to make compelling experiences and products for our customers. That's how things should be, as far as I see. Open source is utilized because it is good, not because it is some holy crusade. For me that is the far more interesting angle in Maemo and open source: balancing openness with interests of a multinational corporation. Sticking to absolutes is easy but easily gets you nowhere, making compromises is hard but it can get you somewhere. Making something where everybody, including Nokia, wins.

[qgil]

(someone please spin off this oss discussion since it is interesting but I don't feel like keeping it as OT)

korbe, releasing distributions that are completely free is good and accomplishes an important role in the free software community. However, in order to distribute free software someone has to develop it and contribute it.

From this point of view have no doubt that Nokia is one of the main contributors to the free desktop, and Maemo has played a big role on this. Ubuntu and others benefit from these contributions, just like Nokia benefits fom the work contributed by others. Measuring the "free software value" of Maemo based only on the percentage of open source code in the official releases misses a big and very important part of the picture.

[korbé]

the non-topic part:
As my personal opinion, Maemo is not some ideological struggle. We don't open source because of ideology but because of the pragmatic thought of it being the best method for us to make compelling experiences and products for our customers. That's how things should be, as far as I see. Open source is utilized because it is good, not because it is some holy crusade. For me that is the far more interesting angle in Maemo and open source: balancing openness with interests of a multinational corporation. Sticking to absolutes is easy but easily gets you nowhere, making compromises is hard but it can get you somewhere. Making something where everybody, including Nokia, wins.


And democracy is a utopia also?

No, it's a necessity. Like Free Software, especially if it is related directly to our private life or private data.

In addition, Nokia has absolutely nothing to lose by doing 100% Free Software.

Except to keeping the user in a form of submission unhealthy oxploiting > exploited, or to hide things unmentionable, I see no reason to make proprietary software.

@ qgil : Yes, but I can not trust in a software whose operation is hidden.

[lma]

Nokia is not saying that the operating system is "Free".

True.

Open source does not equal "Free", and open source does not also mean 100% open code.

It does (http://opensource.org/docs/osd) actually:


2. Source Code

The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.

[ragnar]

In addition, Nokia has absolutely nothing to lose by doing 100% Free Software.

I thought I already touched on that. Quoting my previous answer,

"but naturally there is interest for Nokia so that we don't spend Much Time and Effort in creating something that then some company from Asia could just create a slightly cheaper device, put the same piece of software there (the "100% FOSS Maemo") and make a profit."

[ragnar]

Me: "Nokia is not saying that the operating system is "Free". Open source does not equal "Free", and open source does not also mean 100% open code."

It does (http://opensource.org/docs/osd) actually:

Ok, you are right. Sorry about my definitions of words. They weren't really good. I was trying to say that "an open source operating system does not also mean 100% open code". I am not trying to redefine the meaning of open source. :)

[qgil]

In addition, Nokia has absolutely nothing to lose by doing 100% Free Software.

Interesting. Do you have a business plan backing this assertion?

@ qgil : Yes, but I can not trust in a software whose operation is hidden.

Fair enough, but Maemo and Nokia have been very clear since the begining saying that full open source is not the goal. It's your sudden surprise what is surprising.

[zerojay]

It's your sudden surprise what is surprising.

Agreed. Ever since he's come to TMO, we've been telling him that while yes Nokia's been opening more and more, we already knew it wouldn't be 100% open source... so I think he's just trying to generate a negative reaction to try to pressure it into happening.

Seems that some people don't understand the economics of working within software development. "Open source" does not mean "free ride" for companies using it.

[allnameswereout]

@ qgil : Yes, but I can not trust in a software whose operation is hidden.Eagerly waiting for your DTrace analysis... :p

[korbé]

@Ragnar: Nokia is a manufacturer of hardware: it is there that can create unique features and inimitable quality.

@qgil: A businessplan?
- Nokia creates a material with incomparable quality.
- Nokia creates innovative features with hardware that copyists Chinese fail to imitate before Nokia did so the following model.
- Nokia provides innovative services with open and documented protocols for all software to be compatible with these services (more customers).
- Nokia make Maemo 100% FOSS than other manufacturer can use and evolve it. Plus there will be a contributor to different horizon for Maemo, better it will be

So Nokia's customer loyalty through quality, freedom and opportunity to fully engage in Maemo to all levels to ensure revenue.

We therefore apply the same principle as Trent Reznor for his music band NIN:
- Establish links with the fans.
- Give a reason to buy.

I am not surprised, I'm just very disappointed.

[GeneralAntilles]

I am not surprised, I'm just very disappointed.

What, in the millions of dollars a year Nokia pours into dozens of full-time open source developers?

[allnameswereout]

Nokia is like Canoncial: Free software to save money, and proprietary software to keep users in a certain form of submission.Canonical develops hardware? Canonical develops proprietary software? Nokia sells end-user products. A full, end-user ready package consisting of hardware, software, and service. Canonical only sell service. Btw, the hardware isn't open source either. There is a lot of proprietary firmware running. Isn't that a big deal for you?

[korbé]

What, in the millions of dollars a year Nokia pours into dozens of full-time open source developers?

No, just disappointed not to have a 100% FOSS mobile-PC/Smatphone with equipment capable of competing with the Palm Pre and the iPhone in my pocket. Especially for the price it costs.

But I am still waiting to see the list of proprietary software to determine if it is possible to create alternative Free Software and a script to "purify" the N900 (uninstall proprietary software and install alternatives FOSS) .

[qwerty12]

Especially for the price it costs.

Yes, as a consumer, before I spend my money, I always look for products that are 100% OSS and disregard its feature set totally. As long as it's fully OSS. :rolleyes:

[allnameswereout]

But I am still waiting to see the list of proprietary software to determine if it is possible to create alternative Free Software and a script to "purify" the N900 (uninstall proprietary software and install alternatives FOSS) .Keep your eagle eyes on development of Mer for N900... :)

[korbé]

Canonical develops hardware? Canonical develops proprietary software? Nokia sells end-user products. A full, end-user ready package consisting of hardware, software, and service. Canonical only sell service. Btw, the hardware isn't open source either. There is a lot of proprietary firmware running. Isn't that a big deal for you?

Canonical make proprietary software:
- UbuntuOne (sever side).
- Landscape.
- Launchpad is remained longtime proprietary.

Proprietary firmware is a problem too, but the source code of firmware can understand how a device works internally and there is still no viable economic model for material "Free" (for this moment).
But project looking to this side: Hackable-Device

[ragnar]

@Ragnar: Nokia is a manufacturer of hardware: it is there that can create unique features and inimitable quality.

Well. Nokia makes great hardware. I love my E71 for instance, it is a great piece of hardware.

But kind of polarizing, in 5 years the hardware designs will converge and every piece of touch screen hardware will look like the black monolith from 2001, or an advanced version of the smaller monolith from a fruit company: it's a big thin square with a screen as large as that what the device.

Ok, some might have a hardware keyboard, some not.

Then differentiating with hardware becomes very very hard. The Nokia black box might have better materials and might be one millimeter thinner, but our worthy competitors can do something nearly identical. OEM manufacturers already can do hardware that is virtually identical to brand name hardware.

Clearly, differentiating with hardware is not enough. The software is the thing that counts, not the hardware. People do not buy the iPhone for its hardware (not that there is nothing wrong with it), but for the software.

[ossipena]

@qgil: A businessplan?
...
- Nokia creates innovative features with hardware that copyists Chinese fail to imitate before Nokia did so the following model.


i don't like using this acronym, but LOL! in todays world your utopia is pretty much impossible.

and nokia does business, not charity. creating fully open source media player for maemo would be really huge donation (of money & resources) to every manufacturer using maemo in their devices. plain economics and pure competition. Usain Bolt doesn't do cartwheels during 100m sprint, does he?

[korbé]

Keep your eagle eyes on development of Mer for N900... :)

It's noted. :)

[korbé]

i don't like using this acronym, but LOL! in todays world your utopia is pretty much impossible.

and nokia does business, not charity. creating fully open source media player for maemo would be really huge donation (of money & resources) to every manufacturer using maemo in their devices. plain economics and pure competition. Usain Bolt doesn't do cartwheels during 100m sprint, does he?

-_-'

No need to create a media player from A to Z: if it is a FOSS, Nokia may use the source code to other FOSS.

[SpeedEvil]

Then differentiating with hardware becomes very very hard. The Nokia black box might have better materials and might be one millimeter thinner, but our worthy competitors can do something nearly identical. OEM manufacturers already can do hardware that is virtually identical to brand name hardware.


And it's not only better hardware, but also 'worse'.

A buzz arises out of maemo5, and you get hardware coming out with a similar sized screen with half the resolution, a smaller processor, no FM, a mediochre camera, as someone making a '3g' mobile in china has stuck maemo5 on it instead of their normal OS.

But at half the price.

Suddenly many potential users start wondering if they can actually see the difference between 320dpi and 160dpi, and if they in fact need the shiny, if they can run all the apps that run on the 'proper' version.

[allnameswereout]

Canonical make proprietary software:
- UbuntuOne (sever side).apt-get source ubuntuone-client
- Landscape.apt-get source landscape-client got me the source.
- Launchpad is remained longtime proprietary...yeah, but... not anymore. Linux kernel was also once proprietary. Same for Sun Java.

That server for Landscape and/or Ubuntuone are not open source means nothing. When I surf WWW I get HTML spewed by closed source PHP code. Doesn't mean my OS is suddenly running closed source software. I mean... do you use MSN? MSN server software is closed source. Does that make your Debian running only free software and a MSN client suddenly running closed source or proprietary software? No way. It does use a reverse engineered proprietary protocol, and the server software is indeed proprietary. But that doesn't make you run proprietary software.

So actually... your examples suck... :o

[allnameswereout]

and nokia does business, not charity. creating fully open source media player for maemo would be really huge donation (of money & resources) to every manufacturer using maemo in their devices.Barring the ideologic reasoning is there any other reason why media player open source is in advantage of Maemo users?

[SpeedEvil]

Being able to use codecs that nokia cannot legally distribute.
I have questions if this is a widespread draw though.

[qwerty12]

Being able to use codecs that nokia cannot legally distribute.
I have questions if this is a widespread draw though.

Wouldn't this be a thing for the backend that it uses? I believe that (MAFW) is open source.

Tuomas Kulve did a good job with this (adding ogg-support to Diablo's media player) and he seems to have done it again (http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel/pool/fremantle/free/source/o/ogg-support/).

[daperl]

Barring the ideologic reasoning is there any other reason why media player open source is in advantage of Maemo users?

Yes, 'cause I'll want to change it. I don't want to brainstorm, I just want to change it.

[Architengi]

@qgil: A businessplan?
- Nokia creates innovative features with hardware that copyists Chinese fail to imitate before Nokia did so the following model.
- Nokia make Maemo 100% FOSS than other manufacturer can use and evolve it. Plus there will be a contributor to different horizon for Maemo, better it will be



Not worth the financial investment and years of development, just to give away the software for other companies to use it from the day of the release.

[lma]

I don't understand the surprise with the Media Player. It has been closed source since the first day of Maemo.

Indeed, not to mention that various community members have stepped up and written a gazillion (http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008/multimedia/) open-source alternatives most of which improve on the built-in offering in various ways. The source of the Nokia media player is a complete non-issue IMHO.

[Architengi]

I never fully understood why some people want the OS to be fully open source. When the market is that much competitive and Chinese manufacturers create quickly thousand of clones of devices and when Chinese immitations of N95 or N97 are abundent on the market (like there are Chinese clones of Sony, JVC or Panasonic video cameras), why give them the software that cost a company to develop millions for free to other Asian companies (in an utopia that maybe those companies will also contribute to the code and improve it).

Too much Open Source Free software might be good not that good for the developers of it - do you see Movie productions or Music productions that are FREE?

As a software developer that I know how hard is to develop software, if all the software is open source and free, then nothing to sell anymore in the software production, where will the software developers get a job? Korbe, do you give them a job?

Because Movie Companies and Music Companies don't give anything for free, and I think being an actor is more fun than being a programmer, so why don't you ask the Entertainment companies to give all they produce as Open and Free? They don't and they hunt you down if you illegaly copy some MP3 music tunes or a film. But some want the software to be just free. And I know what is the difference between Free like "Libre" and Free like "Gratis/Gratuit". From the companies in competition there is not much difference when the software is "Open"/"Libre" then it is almost "Free" to get and use, so the huge effort (financial and human) invested in it is just taken for free by another company, that may or may not contribute back.

And why Apple does not even allow to install the binaries of Mac OSX (not talking about the source code, just the output-binaries) into other PC? (now that Macs are x86 based-architecture). Apple doesn't give even the binaries to other companies, see, that is business.

[korbé]

apt-get source ubuntuone-client
apt-get source landscape-client got me the source.
..yeah, but... not anymore. Linux kernel was also once proprietary. Same for Sun Java.

That server for Landscape and/or Ubuntuone are not open source means nothing. When I surf WWW I get HTML spewed by closed source PHP code. Doesn't mean my OS is suddenly running closed source software. I mean... do you use MSN? MSN server software is closed source. Does that make your Debian running only free software and a MSN client suddenly running closed source or proprietary software? No way. It does use a reverse engineered proprietary protocol, and the server software is indeed proprietary. But that doesn't make you run proprietary software.

So actually... your examples suck... :o

UbuntuOne and Landscape are proprietary on the sever side.

On the website that I visit, they are mostly made from CSS free, so ...

And MSN..... I don's use MSN. You're still too hung up on stereotypes.

So no, my examples dont suck.

[korbé]

Ok, Architengi, You need to better know the FOSS world.

1) It's possible to make money with completely free (as free beer) and FOSS. (See Red Hat, Linalis, etc...).

2) FOSS isn't obligatory free (ad free beer).

3) It's possible to distribute freely music and make money. (see NIN).

4) It's difficult but possible to distribute freely movies. (see Big Buck Bunny or here (http://oeuvres.artlibre.org/))

The only obstacle? The lure of profit and power.

And the problem of Chinese copy: the PC maker (Dell, Vaio, etc ...) are facing. But they make good profits.

[allnameswereout]

UbuntuOne and Landscape are proprietary on the sever side.

On the website that I visit, they are mostly made from CSS free, so ...

And MSN..... I don's use MSN. You're still too hung up on stereotypes.

So no, my examples dont suck.They do, they are pathetic. If you run a thin client which uses 100% open source software to connect to Microsoft Windows which runs 100.000.000.000.000 TB of proprietary software you are still running a complete open source operating system.

Why? Because the software running on your computer is open source. The server software runs on the server. E.g. the GPL does not kick in here, and while FSF initially wanted to target this with GPLv3 in its early design they quickly had to reevaluate that preference.

Next you're gonna complain this message was routed by some proprietary Cisco router which source code you weren't able to see :rolleyes: gimme a break geez!

[allnameswereout]

It's possible to make money with completely free (as free beer) and FOSS. (See Red Hat, Linalis, etc...)RedHat sells service; Nokia sells end products (combination of hardware + software + service). This was explained earlier in this thread.

BTW, what kind of proprietary search engine do you use? Surely not the proprietary Google?

[Architengi]

Ok, Architengi, You need to better know the FOSS world.

1) It's possible to make money with completely free (as free beer) and FOSS. (See Red Hat, Linalis, etc...).



I just don't want all my work to be open and free and to live from services (technical support or customizations), just because there is not the same money from that, so in the end I will have to look for a job.

All the developers that make their source code public will take the job and the bread from the hand of other developers.
For example: If Office is free, the developers of Quick Office, WordPerfect, even the MS Office will have to find another job.

For humanity's progress I love Open Source, like I would love no patents. But in todays world even the human genes (made by nature) are patented.
Now, the question is, the companies that researched and found that gene usage, can they get the money back from all that investment in research? The same with the code, if it is not closed and everybody has access to its source, will be the same interest for the companies to produce that code?

[yerga]

On the website that I visit, they are mostly made from CSS free, so ...


Check the software running this forum, and check its license (http://www.vbulletin.com/order/license_agreement.php)

Isn't it proprietary?

[Architengi]

>>> Korbe wrote:
>>> It's possible to make money with completely free (as free beer) and FOSS. (See Red Hat, Linalis, etc...).

I did not hear ever about Linalis, I heard of RedHat but not that much in the last years, but I hear all the time about iPhone OSX and how nice and easy to use it is. And the same with Mac OSX for computers. Which Mac OSX system is not even at binaries let be installed on other x86 systems than Apple's. Smart, huh?

[korbé]

Check the software running this forum, and check its license (http://www.vbulletin.com/order/license_agreement.php)

Isn't it proprietary?

That is why I am not here often. (except since the announcement of the N900).

And allnameswereout, please, stop stereotypes, you're ridiculous.

[korbé]

>>> Korbe wrote:
>>> It's possible to make money with completely free (as free beer) and FOSS. (See Red Hat, Linalis, etc...).

I did not hear ever about Linalis, I heard of RedHat but not that much in the last years, but I hear all the time about iPhone OSX and how nice and easy to use it is. And the same with Mac OSX for computers. Which Mac OSX system is not even at binaries let be installed on other x86 systems than Apple's. Smart, huh?

Popular != the best
Mediated == popular

[korbé]

I just don't want all my work to be open and free and to live from services (technical support or customizations), just because there is not the same money from that, so in the end I will have to look for a job.

All the developers that make their source code public will take the job and the bread from the hand of other developers.
For example: If Office is free, the developers of Quick Office, WordPerfect, even the MS Office will have to find another job.

For humanity's progress I love Open Source, like I would love no patents. But in todays world even the human genes (made by nature) are patented.
Now, the question is, the companies that researched and found that gene usage, can they get the money back from all that investment in research? The same with the code, if it is not closed and everybody has access to its source, will be the same interest for the companies to produce that code?

In computing, the majority of revenues come from:
- Services.
- Sale of hardware.
- Some custom features/sofwares developed for companys.

The revenues are sufficient for profitable company and pay everybody. (including developers)

If a company relies solely on a community to develop its Free Software, she controls nothing. The company must hire developers and rely on the community to make more.

In addition, each company that uses free software can modify it to suit his needs: he must therefore developers.

So no, the Free Software does not reduce the number of places of work for developers. It's creates.

[ysss]

@korbe: some numbers to backup your claim, please?
it'd be a shame if y'all are wasting all this time and effort to discuss false assumptions of mythical proportions ;)

[korbé]

Numbers on what?

[Stskeeps]

So, if Maemo from top to bottom was actually fully open source, what would you actually do with it?

This thought is actually fairly reasonable, let me just list items that were OSS'ed that pretty much have tumbleweed surrounding it instead of interested developers contributing and developing and using it - some of them that people actually almost begged to get OSS'ed: WiFi driver (stlc45xx), DSME, alarm framework - and opened frameworks like hildon input method and other examples..

How about instead of going about demanding that everything should be 100% libre that we go and set up an organisation and distribution with what we actually do have OSS, that is capable of giving proper contributions back and actually valuing and using open sourced components when they do come instead of having the source gathering dust somewhere?

EDIT: oh, wait - we -are- working on that. (http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer)

[korbé]

So, if Maemo from top to bottom was actually fully open source, what would you actually do with it?

This thought is actually fairly reasonable, let me just list items that were OSS'ed that pretty much have tumbleweed surrounding it instead of interested developers contributing and developing and using it - some of them that people actually almost begged to get OSS'ed: WiFi driver (stlc45xx), DSME, alarm framework - and opened frameworks like hildon input method and other examples..

How about instead of going about demanding that everything should be 100% libre that we go and set up an organisation and distribution with what we actually do have OSS, that is capable of giving proper contributions back and actually valuing and using open sourced components when they do come instead of having the source gathering dust somewhere?

EDIT: oh, wait - we -are- working on that. (http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer)

If Maemo is 100% Free, I can have 100% confidence in him.

And yes, FOSS is not only technical advantages.

But from a technical standpoint, there are advantages to having a 100% FOOS:
- I can work to resolve any bug. Whether a bug that I found or a bug found by a user.
- If I have an idea of new functionality, hop I can develop it, test it. And if it is quality and what I write is good, I can distribute this improvement to the official team.

[lardman]

But from a technical standpoint, there are advantages to having a 100% FOOS:
- I can work to resolve any bug. Whether a bug that I found or a bug found by a user.
- If I have an idea of new functionality, hop I can develop it, test it. And if it is quality and what I write is good, I can distribute this improvement to the official team.

Which closed source components require this attention from you? I.e. bugs you've spotted and are looking to fix?

[SD69]

Which closed source components require this attention from you? I.e. bugs you've spotted and are looking to fix?My understanding (correct if I am wrong) is that plenty of bugs have been identified and reported in Diablo and will not be fixed by Nokia and cannot be fixed by the community because of the parts in Diablo that are closed. I understand (even if Korbe doesn't like it) why Nokia doesn't completely open source Fremantle. But here is a question for us to ponder:

How do we know that the bugs and "fixed in Fremantle" situation that occurred with Diablo and the n8x0 NITs won't be repeated with Fremantle and the N900?

[Thesandlord]

Umm, is there a more open source phone out there?

No?

OpenMoko?

Ok.... what is the argument again? Oh, that Nokia is not Good Enough because it is not 100% FOSS. I mean, most of the OS is open source. And why can you not "trust" it if it is not open source? Is it going to eat you or something? Don't tell me that you are going to read and comprehend every single line of code in Maemo if it was FOSS. Would it be nice, yes it would. Would it be practical, probably not. Nokia has done a lot for open source.

[Stskeeps]

How do we know that the bugs and "fixed in Fremantle" situation that occurred with Diablo and the n8x0 NITs won't be repeated with Fremantle and the N900?

My personal hope - that we'll have a strong enough community development going on that we either

1) never get in the situation or

2) have developers crossing the 'divide' along who's willing to dedicate some time with some fixes and being allowed to publish results with

3) infrastructure and procedures in community to make community variants / SSU's to deliver these fixes or

4) a community which can make a precise request for X source to be opened, along with list of people who can actually do something about the source if it was opened and what they would do..

[bocaJ]

There's a point that seems to be being missed here, and that is that while the N900 doesn't by default run completely free software, the hardware is broadly accessible - Open, to that point that if you wish, you can completely wipe the existing operating system and start out with something 100% opensource like Mer.

To me, this is the revolutionary step that Nokia, and no other mainsteam manufacturer (to my knowledge) has taken. If you want to port VLC over, go for it! If you want to port Pidgin, great! Want to figure out a way to tether your laptop via bluetooth or wifi, Nokia won't stop you.

In contrast, Apple will say "I'm sorry, but that app replicates existing functionality, regardless of whether your app does that better or not." Even Google/HTC has worked to prevent tethering apps from being allowed on North American versions of the G1. Certainly none of these manufactures will provide an easy path to flashing your phone with an entirely different operating system, and such behavior may actually be a breach of contract.

Overall, I care more about Open Hardware than I do about Open Software, because you must first have access to the foundational equipment before you can worry about programs to make it do new and exciting things. I get mildly excited that Nokia has announced plans to make Symbian 100% open source, but since I'm not going to be able to recompile my own distro of it and successfully load it onto my N97 any time soon, and since I need a developer certificate to even load my own software I'm not rushing out the door. However; being able to use and program all the parts of my N900, just like I would a computer (even one that comes with Windows preinstalled) does make me excited, and does greatly serve the open source community, which till now has had little to really look forward to in mainstream devices.

[attila77]

4) a community which can make a precise request for X source to be opened, along with list of people who can actually do something about the source if it was opened and what they would do..

Perhaps a 4b) would be to suggest the automatic opening up of EOL-d components by a defined procedure (or was that what you meant?).

[qole]

As to the media player, it is just the UI that is closed. It is dead simple for even a non-developer hacker-type like me to write a quick-and-dirty replacement UI. Honestly, I think this is Ideology and Religion here, which is why you won't get many actual developers on the "open up the UI" bandwagon.

For other things openness is much more important. If you were to ask, like lardman, "So how do I auto-focus the camera in Fremantle," and you got, "you'll have to wait for us to reveal that info," you might have more of a valid complaint against closed source components then...

[SD69]

How do we know that the bugs and "fixed in Fremantle" situation that occurred with Diablo and the n8x0 NITs won't be repeated with Fremantle and the N900?

My personal hope - that we'll have a strong enough community development going on that we either

1) never get in the situation This is my hope as well, but, being realistic, what reason do we have to think the situation won't happen again. We already see signs of it from statements like: "sorry, we realize it's an unfortunate situation, but we didn't have the resources to fix in time for initial launch" and "the Maemo Devices team is focused in the Maemo 5 release and any resource available jumps to Harmattan". I, for one, (because I realize the challenges of adding 3G telephony to Maemo among other BIG advances in the platform, not as a reflection of the Maemo team) wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few bugs in Fremantle.

2) have developers crossing the 'divide' along who's willing to dedicate some time with some fixes and being allowed to publish results with

3) infrastructure and procedures in community to make community variants / SSU's to deliver these fixes I thought Nokia already indicated they wouldn't let developers cross the divide by signing NDA's. Or maybe you're referring to some different here??

4) a community which can make a precise request for X source to be opened, along with list of people who can actually do something about the source if it was opened and what they would do. What has been the success rates of previous attempts to do this? Isn't it limited or inconclusive (still waiting on TI graphics drivers)?

[johnkzin]

I never fully understood why some people want the OS to be fully open source.

Speaking strictly about the OS (meaning the kernel + drivers + infrastructure userland (bin utils) + basic libraries + dev tools), I definitely want THAT to be full open source. Why? because OSes should be commodities, not "value bearing products".

I would even throw the API/ABI/user-interface layer into there, but that's a harder sell (at least one company makes good money focusing on this layer (Apple); on the desktop/laptop level, that's pretty much where their value is).

At the "platform level" (Ubuntu, Maemo, the OS X that is on the CD, etc.) ... I don't think there's any good reason at all to insist, in an ideological way, that the entire platform has to be 100% open source. Entities (companies or individuals) have a right to do more than just trade in commodities. They have a right to create value, and charge for the value that they've created.

Anyone can take Linux, GnuBinUtils, X, and GTK+ and bundle it together into a commodity distribution.

But if I want to create a value-added distribution, with some basic and/or killer applications ... and use those killer apps as my "value add", and thus charge for my distribution ... who are you (the generic "you") to tell me I don't have the freedom to do that?

If you don't want the apps, you're free to go with any of the other commodity distributions out there. Go for it. I wont lose any sleep over it.

If you want my value added apps, tough luck. They're my apps. You only get them under my terms (whether those terms are open or closed). If you don't like that, write your own to compete with mine, and distribute them under your terms.

Freedom isn't just getting what YOU want. Freedom is each person having the choice to make their own decisions. Your decision to buy X vs Y, and my decision to distribute MY code under license N vs M.

[korbé]

This is my hope as well, but, being realistic, what reason do we have to think the situation won't happen again. We already see signs of it from statements like: "sorry, we realize it's an unfortunate situation, but we didn't have the resources to fix in time for initial launch" and "the Maemo Devices team is focused in the Maemo 5 release and any resource available jumps to Harmattan". I, for one, (because I realize the challenges of adding 3G telephony to Maemo among other BIG advances in the platform, not as a reflection of the Maemo team) wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few bugs in Fremantle.


If Nokia didn't the resource to fis many bugs, it's possible to transfer the package maintains a community member?


4) a community which can make a precise request for X source to be opened, along with list of people who can actually do something about the source if it was opened and what they would do..

It's a good idea. I would like to add some functionality to the Media-Player-IU.
However, when I have time. :D

[R-R]

Perhaps a 4b) would be to suggest the automatic opening up of EOL-d components by a defined procedure (or was that what you meant?).

Exactly, I'm really on Korbé's side on this but I can understand the Chinese ripoff argument...

How about: Nokia makes an ethical/public notice saying that we will release FOSS version 1 year from the binary for very specific bleeding edge stuff... That doesn't solve the trust issue but at least it gives us confidence that they really are doing it to preserve their research/market advantages and nothing else.

[johnkzin]

So no, my examples dont suck.

yeah, they pretty much do.

[SD69]

Perhaps a 4b) would be to suggest the automatic opening up of EOL-d components by a defined procedure (or was that what you meant?).Yes, we like this idea:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=30648

[johnkzin]

You know, a while back, Nokia announced that they would make free licenses for their proprietary stuff that they're not using anymore (mostly wrt to patents).

Why not see what it takes to get them to apply this same logic to Diablo's source code. Anything that is still closed, but no longer in use (in its current-to-diablo state), to be opened under an Open Source license (even if it's not GPL). Or do it like the Qt licensing: as long as you do Open Source things with it, you can use it under an Open Source license; if you want to do non-OSS stuff with it, you need to pay for a license to it.

I think, in general, that would be a good model for Nokia to adopt. As Maemo N+1 becomes available, take the parts of Maeno N that Nokia owns, ESPECIALLY the parts that have been superseded or deprecated, and open source them. Even if it's under a "Nokia OSS license" (like what Apple did with early versions of OSX) and not a Gnu license.

Though, because Maemo 5 isn't actually out yet, they might consider Diablo to still be "the current public Maemo" ... so might have to wait a few months for that.

[lma]

How do we know that the bugs and "fixed in Fremantle" situation that occurred with Diablo and the n8x0 NITs won't be repeated with Fremantle and the N900?

Realistically it probably will, at least for GUI components/apps which are effectively EOL due to the switch to Qt.

[SD69]

For other things openness is much more important. If you were to ask, like lardman, "So how do I auto-focus the camera in Fremantle," and you got, "you'll have to wait for us to reveal that info," you might have more of a valid complaint against closed source components then...Well..., a more likely question is, what if we report a bug in the auto-focusing for the camera in Fremantle, and the response is "Fixed in Harmattan"? ;)

Isn't there a valid complaint, not against closed source components per se, but against that somehow, some way, even with this mostly open source software, we still find ourselves on an upgrade path similar to what would be for closed devices?

I mean buy a 770 in 2005, a N800 in 2006, and a N810 in 2007. Now a choice to buy a new N900 in 2009, but none of the prior apps will work on the N900 and Fremantle will not work on any of the prior devices. Each OS is tied to particular hardware, and each device is tied to a particular OS. And the same thing for the next generation. And we can't even fix the bugs left from the previous generations! This is the kind of stuff that open source is supposed to save users from and yet we have this predicament (or is it a conundrum?).

[zerojay]

lol, nice thread tags, guys.

[korbé]

lol, nice thread tags, guys.

Ok, and admins do nothing against thos tags insulted me ans my convictions.

Conviction that are the basis of the free software movement, without which you would not have your Nokia NIT. (and many other things)

Who is the coward who made these tags?

[qgil]

I agree these tags are disrepectful. This was a topic for a long thread a while ago.

A short comment after breakfast and before picking the train to the office.

Open media players. Let's take into account that Nokia profits bring the cash to fund INdT, who then develops independently Canola under GPLv3.

And then you have many free software developers hired by Nokia and getting a decent salary thanks to its business. They work hard during office hours on open/closed stuff and then they can relax at home and work in their free time on the pet projects they prefer e.g. https://garage.maemo.org/projects/mplayer/ or https://garage.maemo.org/projects/ukmp/

I could go on with more Nokia employees, developer partners and community developers that are being directly or indirectly benefiting from the Nokia business and putting effort to improve multimedia software. The long tail is long, and it's the same in other software areas.

[Texrat]

I keep wondering what the firebrands hope to accomplish with the anti-Nokia ranting. Are you hoping to sway developers from the Maemo devices? You might pick off one or two with your barbs, but then, they wouldn't have been very committed in the first place.

[zerojay]

I agree these tags are disrepectful.

That's why I pointed them out.


A short comment after breakfast and before picking the train to the office.

Open media players. Let's take into account that Nokia profits bring the cash to fund INdT, who then develops independently Canola under GPLv3.

And then you have many free software developers hired by Nokia and getting a decent salary thanks to its business. They work hard during office hours on open/closed stuff and then they can relax at home and work in their free time on the pet projects they prefer e.g. https://garage.maemo.org/projects/mplayer/ or https://garage.maemo.org/projects/ukmp/

I could go on with more Nokia employees, developer partners and community developers that are being directly or indirectly benefiting from the Nokia business and putting effort to improve multimedia software. The long tail is long, and it's the same in other software areas.

I think we can yell it from the top of our lungs and it's just not going to matter with someone like him, unfortunately. It's all stuff that we've explained time and time again and instead of him saying "well, they're making efforts to open things further"... Nokia and the community get accused of being against free software.

Everyone here... especially you, Quim... would ideally want everything to be open source. The reality of the situation is that it isn't always possible for one reason or another and I wish he would understand that, or at least accept it and not go nuts on us suddenly. It's no excuse for being so disrespectful though, even if he was towards us.

Still, dealing with him is better than being accused of backroom deals and corporate takeovers. ;)

[Texrat]

How about: Nokia makes an ethical/public notice saying that we will release FOSS version 1 year from the binary for very specific bleeding edge stuff... That doesn't solve the trust issue but at least it gives us confidence that they really are doing it to preserve their research/market advantages and nothing else.

I agree in principle but not to details. 1 year is too short IMO. 2, maybe 3... it really depends on the product's intended lifecycle and where the long tail begins...

[qole]

...but none of the prior apps will work on the N900....

...actually, many of them do, even without a recompile, just not extremely well, due to newer libraries, different UI, etc. Many of them have been modified in very minor ways to get them working better with the new UI and changed hardware, and they are already sitting in the Fremantle repositories.

[korbé]

I think we can yell it from the top of our lungs and it's just not going to matter with someone like him, unfortunately. It's all stuff that we've explained time and time again and instead of him saying "well, they're making efforts to open things further"... Nokia and the community get accused of being against free software.

Everyone here... especially you, Quim... would ideally want everything to be open source. The reality of the situation is that it isn't always possible for one reason or another and I wish he would understand that, or at least accept it and not go nuts on us suddenly. It's no excuse for being so disrespectful though, even if he was towards us.

Still, dealing with him is better than being accused of backroom deals and corporate takeovers. ;)

I sincerely apologize if I have been disrespectful. ;)
when I spoke of anti-FOSS I was not talking about the community but some members.

Note: however, I'm still not convinced of the need for proprietary software.

[danramos]

Open media players. Let's take into account that Nokia profits bring the cash to fund INdT, who then develops independently Canola under GPLv3.

So... any way I can finally remove the default media player or browser in Diablo on my N800 so that I can use the purely open-source software like Panucci or Tear? ....and still have everything work well with them? (Like the RSS feed reader and file manager and so on?)

I could even replace the RSS feed reader (which I rather liked) and file manager (which I rather dislike) but is there any way I can remove them without breaking even more things? It would certainly be nice to be able to free up all those resources in favor of software I prefer.

And then you have many free software developers hired by Nokia and getting a decent salary thanks to its business. They work hard during office hours on open/closed stuff and then they can relax at home and work in their free time on the pet projects they prefer e.g. https://garage.maemo.org/projects/mplayer/ or https://garage.maemo.org/projects/ukmp/

I could go on with more Nokia employees, developer partners and community developers that are being directly or indirectly benefiting from the Nokia business and putting effort to improve multimedia software. The long tail is long, and it's the same in other software areas.

Wait.. so stuff like mplayer is being ported over by Nokia employees? It seems like mplayer and other apps were initially being developed by folks that didn't have any knowledge of how to work with the drivers, though. Or did you mean that they jumped on-board after seeing the efforts started? I'm curious about this from the standpoint of trying to understand why more people weren't privvy to things like accellerated video, DSP programming and A2DP (which is STILL an issue). I just sort of expected accellerated API stuff to be much more easily available on a device intended to be open to developers from the start, is all.

[fanoush]

This thought is actually fairly reasonable, let me just list items that were OSS'ed that pretty much have tumbleweed surrounding it instead of interested developers contributing and developing and using it - some of them that people actually almost begged to get OSS'ed: WiFi driver (stlc45xx), DSME, alarm framework

stlc45xx needs pretty recent kernel because of wi-fi stack it depends on. It is great we have it but it got dragged down by the rest of the hardware/software being not supported in recent kernel. For stlc45xx being effective it would also need to push everything from nokia kernel into linux-omap or mainline. It could be done now by community too but it takes far more time and effort then doing it by tighter collaboration with upstream when 2.6.21 was current. Still I see N8x0 linux kernel situation to be unfortunate, there are many things that could be done by community now but looks like there is few people with motivation and both time and skills to hack the kernel. I hope this will be better with N900 because OMAP3 is more open. I don't know about any other OMAP2 based device with community interested in maintaining support in linux kernel except us. Fortunately for OMAP3 there is plenty of them.

IMO dsme does not count. DSME got opened by ripping out closed parts and moving them into mce which is still closed. Mostly we got not so interesting (i.e already reverse-engineered) and almost empty shell. Again it is of course better than nothing but still I consider dsme to be 99% of 'too little too late' variety.

[ruskie]

I'm a Free Software "zealot"(some would call me this). I'll give my opinion on this as I think there's a good middle ground for all.

a) the CORE OS(kernel, basic userspac, compilers, drivers etc...) should all
be Free Software - there is no distinction here... less distinction infact
makes it far easier to reuse things from other devices and so forth thus
making it even more user apealing. And I'm not talking about binary firmware
here I don't mind that since I am aware that that runs on the hardware itself at
a much lower level - and would generally be a ROM. What do I see as usable
drivers. Drivers that will be easy to upgrade to a newer kernel version,
something that will not hamper the user to switch from one kernel to another.
It should not be a thin wrapper around a large blob like Nvidia/Ati. It should be
a proper driver that just hooks into the device - if the device needs a firmware,
load it in some way. Battery management should fit in this as well. Either
document how one could do this oneself or move this into firmware so that
there is no userspace thing at all

b) UI - as long as it is possible to replace it and still get everything else that's
running underneath, that should be Free Software, in a usable state I have
no problems if by default it comes with a closed UI. Infact the best would be to
have a GUI abstraction layer that would translate between all the various UI
intefraces(hey one can dream)

c) User facing things should be easiyl replacable without actually killing things.
If I don't want to use Conversations I should be able to use something else
that does things the way I want to. If I want to use an alternate phonebook I
should be able to do so. It should still all hook into the system though so
those api's and the backends should all be open and Free Software. Same
for example bookmarks and such. - yes differentiate it however you wish but
don't make it nearly impossible to replace things.

d) closed software - as long as it's possible to replace such software by those
who want to I have no qualms about it. Feel free to package Flash, Adobe,
whatever As long as I can remove it or replace it with what I want and still
have the proper functionality

Sorry if this is incoherent but I very rarely have any coherent thoughts ;)

I'd like to point out that I've been using Nokia products since 1998 or so(my first cell phone 5110 still runs way better than most things nowadays though I don't use it anymore). I've always used Nokia - why - because they make nice products for all ranges.

What I dislike about Nokia? They are one of the companies that want stronger patents and even software patents in the EU.

Does that make them evil/bad/good/etc...? No... it's how they are used to doing business. Hirring OSS developers - makes sense, means they'll do what they want them to do - i see nothing much benevolent in this just a logical business decission. Buying QT? well it's run on symbian for a while, maemo6 will be running it... again makes perfect business sense to get it so that things you want will be in.

Anyway I'm rambling so feel free to ignore this if you want ;)

[cristids]

Open source does not equal "Free", and open source does not also mean 100% open code.

Are you for real ? :eek:

[ruskie]

Yes he is... what most people would consider open source is being able to see the code... That's all. Free Software is something else... but most people would associet free with as in beer. But there's something new that is a bit clearer: Freedom Software... same thing as Free Software.

So yes there are differences.

[cristids]

@ruskie
No my friend, open source means not only you can look at the code. You can also use the code. You are restricted sometimes towards your intentions of making money of that code . Can you give an example of an application open source that you cannot use for free to back up your claims?

[zerojay]

@ruskie
No my friend, open source means not only you can look at the code. You can also use the code. You are restricted sometimes towards your intentions of making money of that code . Can you give an example of an application open source that you cannot use for free to back up your claims?

You clearly didn't understand what ragnar meant when he said that. Go back and read his entire post.

[cristids]

You clearly didn't understand what ragnar meant when he said that. Go back and read his entire post.

What is there to understand? While I totally agree that nokia is entitled to release closed source in their own device featuring maemo, I only sanctioned a phrase that is totally wrong. Then ruskie also came in with his claim and I was responding to him with my last statement.
So again, ragnar's statement was wrong and so was ruskies. That is all.

No since I don't want to start/continue a flame I will continue no further on this idea.

[danramos]

Folks, simmer. I believe what he meant was that, sometimes, simply being 'open source' implies being able to view the source code.. even if the license if harmfully limited and prevents you from actually USING it (depending on your situation). On the other hand, if you mean Open Source (as in the Open Source Initiative (OSI) standards) then you're generally open to use the source code as long as you provide attribution, source code, etc.

[ragnar]

What is there to understand? While I totally agree that nokia is entitled to release closed source in their own device featuring maemo, I only sanctioned a phrase that is totally wrong. Then ruskie also came in with his claim and I was responding to him with my last statement.
So again, ragnar's statement was wrong and so was ruskies. That is all.


I replied already, but I'll reply again. I used my words incorrectly.

I meant that when maemo.nokia.com talks about an "open source operating system", it doesn't mean that it is 100% open source.

It is more of a statement like "This is an environmentally friendly product", i.e. that is something that has much environmentally friendly aspects. A statement of general intent rather than a statement of being 100% free.

[danramos]

As followup: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

[korbé]

Before judging, would it not be better to await the final version?

Before choosing between Maemo 5, Android and OpenMoko, I'll wait to see the list of packages containing:
- Name of package.
- Version of package.
- Package description.
- Name and e-mail of package maintainer.
- License. (FOSS or not FOSS).
- Package Dependencies.
- GIT or SVN link to source code.
- Etc...

[shadowjk]

Wait.. so stuff like mplayer is being ported over by Nokia employees? It seems like mplayer and other apps were initially being developed by folks that didn't have any knowledge of how to work with the drivers, though. Or did you mean that they jumped on-board after seeing the efforts started? I'm curious about this from the standpoint of trying to understand why more people weren't privvy to things like accellerated video, DSP programming and A2DP (which is STILL an issue). I just sort of expected accellerated API stuff to be much more easily available on a device intended to be open to developers from the start, is all.

Funny that, I think one of the first things I took interest in and was able to discover was the degree of hw support mplayer in maemo had :)

DSP programming is on the wiki atleast.

[qwerty12]

Wait.. so stuff like mplayer is being ported over by Nokia employees?

Yes, I don't think they work on it any more but both ssvb (Siarhei Siamashka) and Ed_ (Ed Bartosh) work for Nokia.

[qole]

Can you give an example of an application open source that you cannot use for free to back up your claims?

Red Hat Enterprise Edition?

[luca]

Red Hat Enterprise Edition?

I think you can use centos instead, if you're not interested in the support options of rhel.
You'll have to come up with another example.

[allnameswereout]

Red Hat Enterprise Edition?Only the Red Hat artwork and name not, because of trademarks. That isn't related to the source code.

[Texrat]

I think you can use centos instead, if you're not interested in the support options of rhel.
You'll have to come up with another example.

You can't discredit his example solely on the basis of an alternative. Flawed logic.

[johnkzin]

I think you can use centos instead, if you're not interested in the support options of rhel.
You'll have to come up with another example.

Centos is not RHEL. It's an RHEL redistribution.

If you want to use ACTUAL RHEL, distributed by RedHat, with all of the bells, whistles, and services, you'll have to pay.

[DaveP1]

I get the feeling this debate could go on forever. While, in theory, I am in favor of complete open source software, in reality I am willing to pay for convenience or capability or credibility in certain cases. I am willing to pay for TurboTax in order to do my taxes because that capability does not exist in open source. Furthermore, if it did exist, I'm not sure I'd trust it.

If Nokia wants to add closed source applications to its devices, it then becomes a decision on my part. Is the total package I'm being offered worth the price and other trade-offs that come with it? After all, no one is saying the handset should be free or open although open source engineering exists.

Frankly, living in the US, the openness and cost of the OS is the least of my concerns. It doesn't take many months of a voice/data plan from any of our carriers to exceed the cost of an N900 or of Windows Vista Ultimate.

[luca]

Centos is not RHEL. It's an RHEL redistribution.

If you want to use ACTUAL RHEL, distributed by RedHat, with all of the bells, whistles, and services, you'll have to pay.

qed.

If you want a real nokia device, with all the bells, whistles, and services, you'll have to pay, even if all the software is free and a chinese knock-off could emulate it.

[johnkzin]

qed.

If you want a real nokia device, with all the bells, whistles, and services, you'll have to pay, even if all the software is free and a chinese knock-off could emulate it.

Your point?

The point of the chinese knock-off argument is "why would Nokia, effectively, subsidize those chinese knock-offs by letting them use Maemo, and thus undermine people's incentive to buy Nokia devices with Maemo on them?"

Redhat is not in the same business that Nokia is in. Redhat wants to sell Linux support contracts, which get more market as Linux in general becomes more popular. Nokia wants to sell complete devices (not just hardware). Very different businesses.

[Architengi]

>>>> korbé wrote:
>>>> Ok, Architengi,
1) It's possible to make money with completely free (as free beer) and FOSS. (See Red Hat, Linalis, etc...).

>>> end of quote

I just don't want all my work to be open and free and to live from services (technical support or customizations), just because there is not the same money from that, so in the end I will have to look for a job.

All the developers that make their source code public will take the job and the bread from the hand of other developers.
For example: If Office is free, the developers of Quick Office, WordPerfect, even the MS Office will have to find another job.

For humanity's progress I love Open Source, like I would love no patents. But in todays world even the human genes (made by nature) are patented.
Now, the question is, the companies that researched and found that gene usage, can they get the money back from all that investment in research? The same with the code, if it is not closed and everybody has access to its source, will be the same interest for the companies to produce that code?


>>>

In computing, the majority of revenues come from:
- Services.
- Sale of hardware.
- Some custom features/sofwares developed for companys.

The revenues are sufficient for profitable company and pay everybody. (including developers)

If a company relies solely on a community to develop its Free Software, she controls nothing. The company must hire developers and rely on the community to make more.

In addition, each company that uses free software can modify it to suit his needs: he must therefore developers.

So no, the Free Software does not reduce the number of places of work for developers. It's creates.

>>> ysss wrote:
>>> @korbe: some numbers to backup your claim, please?
it'd be a shame if y'all are wasting all this time and effort to discuss false assumptions of mythical proportions ;)

Yes, this is right. @korbe: do you have numbers or links to bacup your claim? "In computing, the majority of revenues come from: - Services, - Some custom features/sofwares developed for companys."

(for software companies the allegation that it can make money out of In computing, the majority of revenues come from:
"- Sale of hardware."
it is showing korbe does not understand what a software company is. We are not talking here about Apple or Nokia, but about software.)

Just my 2 cents... :)

[lma]

Red Hat Enterprise Edition?

Technically you can install and use it without paying, it's the updates and support that you have to get your credit card out for. Plus, you can get all the source RPMs regardless of payment.

[qole]

Technically you can install and use it without paying, it's the updates and support that you have to get your credit card out for. Plus, you can get all the source RPMs regardless of payment.

You can download the 30-day Evaluation (https://www.redhat.com/rhel/details/eval/). I would say that's different than "install and use it without paying."

[Texrat]

DaveP1, how dare you sir! Injecting more common sense into this thread. :mad:

[lma]

You can download the 30-day Evaluation (https://www.redhat.com/rhel/details/eval/). I would say that's different than "install and use it without paying."

Evaluation refers to the subscription services. The installed system doesn't go poof and turn into a pumpkin when the 30 days expire.

This is academic of course, for unpaid use CentOS is a much saner alternative.

[ruskie]

Simple example of something like that is PINE - you can get the source but you can't distribute modified copies. Only patches. I believe Elm is the same. Yet I think most people would consider this open source by any strech of the word. There's probably a few others. Basically anything that might restrict your use to: research only, non-commercial only, no distribution of changed binaries etc... would still be considered open source by most people.

[jcompagner]

is this thread about open source or about free?

In my eyes thats not 1 on 1.. Why would all open source software have to be free?

But i guess if Nokia would open source everything but use a license that would prohibit commercial use of that software (then you have to by first another license, just like if you would have binaries only) i guess the "true open source" persons here are still complaining right?

My believe is that it could be good to make everything open source. (so that it is easily debugged and patches can be created better) but it doesnt have to be free. I am a developer (for a lot of open source projects, eclipse,apache) and i dont believe that every software needs to be free. Thats why i really dont like and avoid like the plaque GPL...
Thats really a horrible license.

[lma]

Simple example of something like that is PINE - you can get the source but you can't distribute modified copies. Only patches.

That fails clause 3 of the OSD:

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.


and since there's no payment involved it doesn't apply here anyway.

Yet I think most people would consider this open source by any strech of the word.

Debian for example doesn't (http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-software.en.html#s-pine).

[ruskie]

I'm not talking about those who work with Free Software(as defined by the FSF) or Open Source(as defined by OSI). But talking about someone who never heard about it.

Yes if you limit yourself to that there's a lot. But consider this a collegaue of mine:

What do you consider open source -> I can look at the source and use it for myself - period. Nothing more or less... Similar thing when one mentions Free Software(without a definition) - I can use the software for nothing nothing more nothing less.

But yes if you know the definitions it makes a whole lot of a difference.

[allnameswereout]

DaveP1, how dare you sir! Injecting more common sense into this thread. :mad:It is rather rare these days. I blame Steve Jobs: The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently -- Nietzsche

The system doesn't go poof after 30 days of evaluation indeed. That is Microsoft behavior... :D still, the only reason Red Hat is proprietary is trademarks, and that is logical, because they must be defended for brand recognition. For the rest RHEL is completely open source. Even proprietary software Red Hat bought such as Netscape LDAP and GFS is open sourced. IMO Red Hat are good open source netizens. Heck, probably even good free software netizens. But again, you cannot compare them to Nokia, because they derive profit from different means.

[pelago]

I'm reluctant to jump into this thread, but here goes! (Incidentally, I would prefer if it was called something like "closed-source versus open-source idealogy" or something, as upon first entering the thread I thought it would be the long-awaited list of which packages in Maemo 5 are open and which are closed). Anyway:

The thing that I find disappointing is that it seems that Nokia are scared to open the source for their packages (e.g. the media player front end) by the threat of competitors stealing them. However, what about the benefit of the community, and indeed other companies, being able to improve the packages? Brainstorming and submitting bug reports is all very well, but theoretically with the source available, people can improve the packages themselves, e.g. add portrait mode support and all the rest of it? Nokia can then ship the improved packages, ship more hardware, and make more money.

I'm not suggesting that they don't employ their own people to work on the packages, I'm just saying that by open-sourcing them, they can get the benefits of other programmers working on the packages without having to pay them.

[SubCore]

Simple example of something like that is PINE - you can get the source but you can't distribute modified copies. Only patches.
That fails clause 3 of the OSD:
"The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."

no, it doesn't.

pine does offer source code, and does of course allow it to be reused under the same license terms, what it does NOT allow is redistributing a modified version under the same NAME.

[lma]

no, it doesn't.

pine does offer source code, and does of course allow it to be reused under the same license terms, what it does NOT allow is redistributing a modified version under the same NAME.

Uhm, let me repeat the clause with added emphasis:


The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

[SubCore]

i know.
i say again: pine does allow modifications and derived works. it also does allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
they just have different names than "pine". alpine (http://www.washington.edu/alpine/) for example.

[ruskie]

SubCore wrong... I'm the re-alpine coordinator(so I would consider myself knowledgable in this area). Alpine is licensed under the APACHE2 license which allows a lot. What pine is licensed is it's own PINE license which doesn't allow anything like that.

PINE != ALPINE yes... there is a historic link and quite a bit of code is the same but there are further changes that pine does not have.

[allnameswereout]

SubCore, from what you say it'd seem the license tries to function as a trademark protection.

But that is not the case. They do not allow one to modify the source and then distribute that as binary. See pine/faq/legal.html (http://www.washington.edu/pine/faq/legal.html). This is pretty similar to DJB software (Qmail et al).

Alpine is licensed under Apache License, version 2 which is OSI approved (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/apache2.0.php). No clue if they had to ask permission from authors to relicense code under Apache License v2 or could do that right away.

[ruskie]

Alpine is from the same authors so that's not a problem ;) UW ;)

[range]

I think you can use centos instead, if you're not interested in the support options of rhel.
You'll have to come up with another example.

That still doesn't enable you to use RH Enterprise, because you won't get any updates if you have no subscription.

And just because you found an alternative, that doesn't make his example moot.

[luca]

Your point?

The point of the chinese knock-off argument is "why would Nokia, effectively, subsidize those chinese knock-offs by letting them use Maemo, and thus undermine people's incentive to buy Nokia devices with Maemo on them?"


My point is that the "let's keep something closed so we have a competitive advantage" argument is bogus.
The chinese will copy it, closed or not. What they cannot copy is the high design and build quality of a nokia device.


Redhat is not in the same business that Nokia is in. Redhat wants to sell Linux support contracts, which get more market as Linux in general becomes more popular. Nokia wants to sell complete devices (not just hardware). Very different businesses.

Regarding the different business, either qole's example is valid or not. If it's valid it doesn't matter if its a different business, and if it isn't, well, that what I was trying to say ;)
Anyway, redhat is in a less ideal position than nokia (its "product", be it the distribution or the services, is far easier to copy than a piece of hardware) yet they manage to make a profit.

[johnkzin]

My point is that the "let's keep something closed so we have a competitive advantage" argument is bogus.

Whether it is bogus or not is irrelevant. Entities have a right to be wrong, sub-optimal, etc. Nokia, as the owner of the property in question, can choose whatever path they want. Even a bogus path. To tell them that they can't undermines everyone's freedom ... Nokia's, yours, mine, etc.

Anyway, redhat is in a less ideal position than nokia (its "product", be it the distribution or the services, is far easier to copy than a piece of hardware) yet they manage to make a profit.

Which is only relevant if they're in comparable businesses and have comparable levels of overhead. The former is definitely NOT true, and I would find any claim to the latter to be HIGHLY dubious.

(and, by the way, I used to work for Redhat and one of the companies it absorbed (Cygnus, who from the late 1980's through all of the 1990's, was the main developer and support mechanism for gcc and gdb, and were the creators of cygwin), so I have some familiarity with the way "free software companies" work)

[korbé]

@ luca: I'm agree with you.

If the reason for these proprietary softwares it to prevent copying of Maemo on other mobile device, then it's ineffective.

For each program that would proprietary in Maemo 5, there exist a FOSS alternative in FOSS Mobile or Desktop OS.

Example:

Conversation --> Empathy
Contact --> OpenMoko Contact
Media-Player_UI --> Canola
etc...

It will just adapt the UI, add 2 or 3 functionalitys and a similar API to API present in Maemo 5.

A Chinese company of copy that does not concern by quality can do this is shortly time.

But 100% closed is neither a solution. An example? The iPhone.
There are many Chinese copies of the iPhone.

If Maemo 5 begin popular, it will be copied.
If not popular, not copied.

So ultimately, this "anti-copy protection" will be ineffective and prevent the working of the community on certain elements of Maemo. That is all it will present.

So why these proprietary softwares?

I think it come more from the awkwardness than from the evilness.
But it will create problems to the community and ultimately to Nokia.

[SD69]

Whether it is bogus or not is irrelevant. Entities have a right to be wrong, sub-optimal, etc. Nokia, as the owner of the property in question, can choose whatever path they want. Even a bogus path. To tell them that they can't undermines everyone's freedom ... Nokia's, yours, mine, etc.

The "competitive advantage" argument is relevant because that's one of the points that Nokia has made. But I don't think it's fair at this point to say the argument is bogus. Although parts of Maemo 5 are closed, Nokia has apparently indicated it is willing to cooperate on opening parts of Diablo and the graphics drivers for the N8x0, which I think is rather consistent with the competitive advantage considerations for keeping parts closed.

[SubCore]

SubCore, from what you say it'd seem the license tries to function as a trademark protection.

i was under the impression that that was exactly their intent, since "Pine" is a registered trademark.

and i misread this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_(e-mail_client)#Licensing_and_clones), thinking it's still under a BSD-style license.

sorry for the confusion i might have caused and thanks for clearing it up.

[allnameswereout]

That still doesn't enable you to use RH Enterprise, because you won't get any updates if you have no subscription.Whether software updates are free or not is not related to the definition of open source. If Debian stops functioning tomorrow that does not suddenly make your Debian GNU/Linux distribution proprietary. Same for if they'd ask money for software updates.

In fact, it is entirely OK to ask money for open source or free software.

Like I said, RHEL is completely open source (OK, maybe something like Nvidia driver). An OS which is 100% open source but comes with trademarked artwork is still 100% open source. If RHEL wouldn't defend their trademarks they'd lose them.

[ysss]

This is tightly related to financial reasoning (calculations and all that) to produce and sustain the device.

You can't just blast it based on opensource idealism without understanding the numbers and making irrelevant comparisons with SERVICE companies that makes use of opensource software as part of their offering.

Maybe to make it simpler for everyone, try to get a sample company that produces a commercial device, but not directly compatible with other platforms before it that makes use of 100% opensource codes and thriving.

[korbé]

This is tightly related to financial reasoning (calculations and all that) to produce and sustain the device.

You can't just blast it based on opensource idealism without understanding the numbers and making irrelevant comparisons with SERVICE companies that makes use of opensource software as part of their offering.

Maybe to make it simpler for everyone, try to get a sample company that produces a commercial device, but not directly compatible with other platforms before it that makes use of 100% opensource codes and thriving.


PC manufacturers are not "competitive advantage" with the software they pre-install on their PCs. Yet they make profit.

Well, OK, PCs are mostly sold with Windows and Windows is not FOSS. But Windows is also disponnible for Chinese companies of copies and PC manufacturers make still profits.

Why?

[Alex Atkin UK]

Personally, I think it makes total sense to keep some things locked down. How else do you make your product stand out from someone elses?

If someone made a Linux distro and decided to not allow open use of their theme/GUI, how is that bad? The underlying OS and backend is still open, its just the GUI that may not be. I do not see that as bad at all.

At the end of the day, Nokia are not going to want a competitor to release a competing device using the exact same interface. They need to retain a little control so that you only get that true experience on a Nokia branded device. That's just business sense.

Why spend a ton of money doing something that your competitors can then rip off for free?

If you want a totally open platform, then YOU are going to have to create it. The only fully community driven devices that are out there are really niche devices and never hit mainstream plus are often usability nightmares. THAT is why you need a commercial company to step in and set some ground rules, pump some money into the project and that naturally results in it being slightly less open, but with much more usability and mass market appeal.

[DaveP1]

If you want a totally open platform, then YOU are going to have to create it.

For anyone who rejects the N900 because of open source issues, there's always the TuxPhone:

http://www.opencellphone.org/index.php?title=Main_Page


http://www.opencellphone.org/images/e/ea/Phone.jpg

Have at it.

[ysss]

PC manufacturers are not "competitive advantage" with the software they pre-install on their PCs. Yet they make profit.

Well, OK, PCs are mostly sold with Windows and Windows is not FOSS. But Windows is also disponnible for Chinese companies of copies and PC manufacturers make still profits.

Why?

Because there is already an open market for PC. It wasn't built by opensource operating systems, rather Linux piggybacked on the commercial success of DOS\Windows to take advantage of aftermarket x86 components as their host.

To understand the futility of your argument, you have to see it from Nokia's view. (Don't be selfish)

As I said, if you can come up with a good and thriving example of a company that releases a brand new device, with 100% opensource codes that is not directly compatible with anything before it (Your PC argument failed this condition which I have stated in my previous post) then we can talk on even grounds.

[danramos]

The point of the chinese knock-off argument is "why would Nokia, effectively, subsidize those chinese knock-offs by letting them use Maemo, and thus undermine people's incentive to buy Nokia devices with Maemo on them?

The chinese will copy it, closed or not. What they cannot copy is the high design and build quality of a nokia device.

WHOA! Where is all this more open Chinese crap coming from? I WANT ONE! :)

[Alex Atkin UK]

Indeed, I do not see the whole market crashing down due to these perfect chinese replicas. What I have seen of them, are people going "oh crap, got ripped off, need to get the real thing now as this sucks".

[johnkzin]

PC manufacturers are not "competitive advantage" with the software they pre-install on their PCs. Yet they make profit.

Well, OK, PCs are mostly sold with Windows and Windows is not FOSS. But Windows is also disponnible for Chinese companies of copies and PC manufacturers make still profits.

Why?

PC's aren't the same as cell phones (and mostly not the same for other pocketables)

PC's are commodity at this point. There's very little research that goes into the actual design of a PC. It's mostly in the case, and in what add-ons to bundle with the PC. Most PC makers aren't making their own motherboards, power supplies, display sub-systems, etc. Nor are they doing extensive evaluations of which CPU architecture to use ... and they can mostly use an off-the-shelf firmware/BIOS, with minor customizations.

NONE of that is true for mobile device makers. For cell phones, it's almost all custom hardware. Which means a whole different level of overhead for research and manufacturing.

The value in PC marketing is in "packaging, assembling, burn-in, and support". The value in pocketable devices is all of that ... PLUS the R&D that goes into design and prototyping both the individual components AND the overall devices ... PLUS the manufacturing of all of that.

Not the same market space. Not comparable situations. Anyone can buy off shelf commodity PC components and build a fully usable, fully functional, PC That is just as good, and in many cases just as physically "attractive", as a brand name PC. I'm not aware of ANY such capability in the pocketable arena.

For example, the TuxPhone isn't as fully functional as a all-round pocketable device. It is no where near as aesthetically pleasing. And, last I checked, it's a monster (in looks, size, and usability).

When someone is manufacturing pocketable motherboards, pocketable system cases, pocketable displays, pocketable keyboards, pocketable ...etc. that are all able to fit together into a single usable specification/standard (like the way you can with a desktop system) so that ANYONE can build an entire clone of an E90, E71, N95, G1, Touch Pro2, riser phone, or flip/clamshell phone from off-the-shelf components, and with easy to purchase and install copies of the OS ("just put this in the microSD card slot, boot from it, and it'll install into your firmware") ... THEN it will be comparable. Not until then.

You can't make an easy/direct AND meaningful comparison of commodity product business models and custom product business models.

[qgil]

Hi, please take this answer as a personal opinion and please don't limit it to Nokia since I believe it's mostly the same for any other company in the same position.

@qgil: A businessplan?
- Nokia creates a material with incomparable quality.

Sure but if you look at the trend, "materials" are decreasing the % of relevance while software increases it.

- Nokia creates innovative features with hardware that copyists Chinese fail to imitate before Nokia did so the following model.

"fail to imitate" fails to reflect the reality at least in two angles. One: cheap copycats are only one part of the story when a considerable % of the production of "western companies" actually happens in "easter soil". Two: companies actually protect such "innovative features with hardware" through patents since "western companies" are so willing to imitate than anybody else - if they only could.

And you mention China. Have you noticed that they are moving fast from subcontracts and imitation to genuine know how and innovation, filing own patents at EU / US levels?

- Nokia provides innovative services with open and documented protocols for all software to be compatible with these services (more customers).

Sounds like Qt. Nokia WebRuntime and Ovi SDK point to that direction as well.

- Nokia make Maemo 100% FOSS than other manufacturer can use and evolve it. Plus there will be a contributor to different horizon for Maemo, better it will be

If you look at Maemo you have the % of closed source mainly in two layers: hardware adapation and applications/services.

For the hardware adaptation you actually need to start convincing the chipset vendors since most of the closed software is licensed by them. If you answer "choose open hardware!" then you probably will compromise the previous points of "material of incomparable quality" or "innovative features with hardware (...) fail to imitate". So you need to have an alternative business model to chipset vendors in addition to the alternative business model to device manufacturers.

At the applications/services level... it's really complicated to make sustainable and competing innovation with open source (as much as I would like to see it). Commoditization sure, but pure innovation... It's possible, but complicated. It's like playing against Deep Blue: every time you win your competitor can immediately assimilate the lesson and use it against you with less investment and effort.

Yes, you can also copy closed source but the difference is time to market. If you release your closed apps only when the device is launched and in its way to the shops it's really different than developing them openly all the time. Specially the competitors caring less about "incomparable quality" might be able to ship a product with your new software even before yourself, while your "incomparable quality" standards keep you bugfixing (providing the bugfixes for free to the customers of your competitors).

All this might be worth if there is a critical mass of users and oss contribution around certain application. Maemo made a bet with Modest, and the contributions were also modest (yes, you can blame our mixed-open development but still). We are making another bet with Mozilla and the equation results better since the Mozilla engine is used by millions, tested by thousands and heavily contributed by hundreds.

The browser is a good example of open source innovation, but note that is an area where all relevant players seem to be moving towards OSS models on top of the Mozilla or the Webkit engines. It is much easier to compete with open source when your competitors are also doing the same.

So Nokia's customer loyalty through quality, freedom and opportunity to fully engage in Maemo to all levels to ensure revenue.

Nice sentence, but easy to rebate in a business plan for Nokia. RIM and Apple are doing good profits this year. They seem to be scoring well in quality and customer engagement looking at the levels of satisfaction of their users. Yet they achieve that not through freedom but quite explicit control. Software freedom doesn't seem to be a cry of the millions of customers of Series40 and S60, the platforms that are bringing the big profits to Nokia.


We therefore apply the same principle as Trent Reznor for his music band NIN:
- Establish links with the fans.
- Give a reason to buy.


You are missing the first step "Get millions of fans through the traditional multinational labels business". That was the case also for Hole, Robbie Williams, Gilberto Gil, Radiohead and many other great artists I love and have an attitude pro-CreativeCommons, file sharing, etc. Or do you know a professional band that hit the charts creating open music since Day 1?

They might come in the future, but not today. And this is similar to what Nokia could say about Maemo. Maybe one day it will be 100% free, but not today.

For all these reasons I think you would have a hard time convincing the Nokia shareholders (and even most Nokia customers, current and potential) with your business plan.

Good that in Nokia we have a good bunch of people thinking in open source innovation together with beautiful products and profitable business, all of them contributing to actually quite innovative business models around free software. This is why Qt was relicensed, this is why Symbian is moving to open source, and this is why Maemo will keep being a very interesting platform for freedom lovers.

[R-R]

For the hardware adaptation you actually need to start convincing the chipset vendors since most of the closed software is licensed by them. If you answer "choose open hardware!" then you probably will compromise the previous points of "material of incomparable quality" or "innovative features with hardware (...) fail to imitate". So you need to have an alternative business model to chipset vendors in addition to the alternative business model to device manufacturers.

That is an interesting problem and one of the more important one in the end for the long term viability of an open platform... If users can't get to the hardware it's game over. Hopefully hardware manufacturer could get pressured by such big players as Nokia to release source, at least a year or two after its bleeding edge chips are out ... ?

But not compromising on that choice makes total sense, of course!
It's Nokia's business to make kick-*** phones :)

At the applications/services level... it's really complicated to make sustainable and competing innovation with open source (as much as I would like to see it). Commoditization sure, but pure innovation... It's possible, but complicated. It's like playing against Deep Blue: every time you win your competitor can immediately assimilate the lesson and use it against you with less investment and effort.

Considering how competitive (http://gigaom.com/2009/09/24/iphone-nokias-troubles-by-the-numbers/) the market seems to become... I'm wondering if, Nokia being at the center of the real platform direction / innovation, shouldn't right now completely aim for a 100% FOSS platform...
It would completely satisfy the FOSS world and, even if you do get a bunch of clones, it's going to make the market share grow, as a platform! Growth which ESSENTIAL right now against Apple's lead...

As you said, the hard part would be to try and balance this with the fact that you're competing with others on the same game! Since Nokia now owns Qt and could start taking a bigger role in other leadership roles it should be adapting quicker to new needs... It's hard of course to exactly point at what needs to be done as this is the million dollar question but i think that the first company to set foot in this kind of model will have a tremendous advantage.

I'm just throwing ideas here but when you see softwares like MySQL being able to sustain themselves while being GPL or Qt for that matter, I think there is something to be learned about the history of the PC openess or the TCP/IP history and how it has beaten the other architectures or network protocols.
I may be hoping for history to repeat itself...

Yes, you can also copy closed source but the difference is time to market. If you release your closed apps only when the device is launched and in its way to the shops it's really different than developing them openly all the time. Specially the competitors caring less about "incomparable quality" might be able to ship a product with your new software even before yourself, while your "incomparable quality" standards keep you bugfixing (providing the bugfixes for free to the customers of your

Maybe a temporary license where we can see the source but not share it might make sense so you can still sue rip-offs and after a while completely free it? I don't know what might work but it's worth thinking about ...

As the platform is moving toward a portable PC-like experience, I think that selling proprietary software when it is the "bleeding edge idea of the year" might make some sense but anything else has to be considered commodity and moved to a community/leadership model. The proprietary possibility has to be left as to be able to create an app market for those who still think their great idea is worth 3.99$ and creating a real diversified market of license type.

All this might be worth if there is a critical mass of users and oss contribution around certain application. Maemo made a bet with Modest, and the contributions were also modest (yes, you can blame our mixed-open development but still). We are making another bet with Mozilla and the equation results better since the Mozilla engine is used by millions, tested by thousands and heavily contributed by hundreds.

Modest is probably too new and came out directly from Nokia and thus it will take time to build a community for an e-mail client used on what is right now a fringe platform... I think Nokia did a great job with the community and really is going in the right direction, it might just have to learn a few more things about how to deal with a community.

Software like Thunderbird came out of desktop environment groups whose goal are to build a complete desktop.
It's going to be hard (though Qt will help) to standardize a new desktop environment to build a community like KDE or Gnome, but if successful it would be an incredible success and advantage over competitors for Nokia!

Hopefully, as the smart phone is really in its infancy, we will see this community grow very quickly in the coming years and I hope Nokia can get as big a part of the pie as possible... But now is not the time to try to cash in too early! Though, time is running out...

The browser is a good example of open source innovation, but note that is an area where all relevant players seem to be moving towards OSS models on top of the Mozilla or the Webkit engines. It is much easier to compete with open source when your competitors are also doing the same.

I'm wondering why is everyone moving toward a FOSS solutions... The browser has become a commodity and there is not much you can do to innovate except for speed and usability (GUI?) without going through standard bodies, and that's a great thing, otherwise we wouldn't have the web!

As you said real innovation in the FOSS vs FOSS is hard and require great ideas and i think having your hands deep in some key communities!

I'm wondering, is the new browser front-end (GUI) in Maemo not FOSS ? (I know the back-end now is, and that's great!)
But, If not Why not?
How is that different than the media player which is even more of a commodity to me?

Nice sentence, but easy to rebate in a business plan for Nokia. RIM and Apple are doing good profits this year. They seem to be scoring well in quality and customer engagement looking at the levels of satisfaction of their users. Yet they achieve that not through freedom but quite explicit control. Software freedom doesn't seem to be a cry of the millions of customers of Series40 and S60, the platforms that are bringing the big profits to Nokia.

I'm guessing this is a question of market segment... and marketing, which Apple has always been good at, and people sucker for it...!

But it's true, most people don't care about their freedom!?

But we're moving toward a more complex world of information and the bet is now on whether more powerful device are going to be useful or not... And i think that for the market which will require the best adaptable devices the FOSS model will be an important key to success.

But yes, very specific dumped down solutions for different markets will probably always succeed. So, meanwhile, of course selling simple phones over and over again is going to generate a bigger margin of profit than trying to push the envelop like the NXX0 serie is... And while people looking for simple solutions are easy to please, those with complex problems will require more than a glowing fruit or soap bar. But of course, marketing does miracles that are actually horrible technically...

I wonder if we will get to a point where the software platform for cell phone will be moving toward a common base and/or formats without the type of lock-in that we see right now from Apple or Microsoft and all...
These type of barriers and vendor lock-in these days are really a barrier to global full scale cooperation and huge social networks unthinkable today, that and the carriers...
What if the 2 billions cell phone on earth could exchange more than SMS as their most complex common language?
This won't happen in any interesting way without open standards and FOSS...
Though Nokia got that by trying to sell phones directly, bypassing the carriers responsibility on the lock-in situations. I'm just hoping it's not to take their place!

You are missing the first step "Get millions of fans through the traditional multinational labels business". That was the case also for Hole, Robbie Williams, Gilberto Gil, Radiohead and many other great artists I love and have an attitude pro-CreativeCommons, file sharing, etc. Or do you know a professional band that hit the charts creating open music since Day 1?


Just playing devil's advocate here, but maybe the whole model of trying to be #1 is becoming outdated in the context of music and it's going back to what it was 60 years ago when we had 100 time more choice in music and diversity of labels now that people can access any music from anywhere and not get forced into the big label pop crap...
Same goes for every phone on the market where the diversity of solution right now is still limited by technology and Nokia's tradition of trying to hit every single niche market is a good idea in that respect! Though in the near future we'll see devices capable of a lot more and thus an open platform is the only way forward to bigger social networks and thus markets.

The whole model is on the verge of a big change.

They might come in the future, but not today. And this is similar to what Nokia could say about Maemo. Maybe one day it will be 100% free, but not today.

With all this said, I can understand how hard this is going to be and doing it progressively through Modest and other test is a good idea! Keep going :-)

Good that in Nokia we have a good bunch of people thinking in open source innovation together with beautiful products and profitable business, all of them contributing to actually quite innovative business models around free software. This is why Qt was relicensed, this is why Symbian is moving to open source, and this is why Maemo will keep being a very interesting platform for freedom lovers.

Go Nokia Go !!! ;-)

[korbé]

@ Yssss M#131:

You say that my example is not just because the computer is developed around the model Win-tel.
But it's wrong, my example is correct.
If computers had developed around a free OS, the computer now will not be less open. Instead it will be more open, freer (as free speach) and better quality.

The computer market is open today because it has been well established. And it was created thus beacaus it's a working model, companies make money and user have got choice.

So no, my example is not futile.

@ johnkzin M#134:

The N900 is not so different from a laptop.
You say that PCs are assemblies with parts of different manufacturers.
It's True, but who made the processor N900? Nokia? No, that Texas Instrument. It's same for the graphics accelerator for the audio amplifier, etc... They are not manufactured by Nokia.
PC manufacturers are producing components that can not produce themselves by other manufacturers, it's the same for Nokia and the N900. The N900 is built the same model that a PC: a processor, memory RAM, memory to store OS and user data, input devices and output devices, etc. ...
Finally, the N900 is a PC, for pocket, but a PC. It is more nigh of TouchBook (a Netbook ARM processor) than the 3310.
And Nokia too says the N900 is a Mobile PC.
So yes, it requires more work to create a N900 than a laptop, but why should that stop Nokia adopt the same policy of openness, for the software, than it is possible on the PC market?

Your arguments do not convince me, he instead makes me think more than I have right and that everyone would gain something if Maemo became 100% FOSS (exept some drivers): Nokia, the Maemo community and users.

Currently, the following model will be ideal (from me):

N900:
- Nokia allows, as a PC, install the OS than user choice.
- Like on a PC, an OS is pre-installed: Maemo 5.
- Basic, except for some drivers, Maemo is 100% Free.
- Proprietary supplements (Skype, Adobe Flash, codecs audio / video, etc ...) are automatically installed if the user seems to need it. (like Ubuntu). If the user does not need them, they are not installed.

Maemo, same model as for Ubuntu:
- A non-lucrative foundation is created: The Maemo Foundation.
- The Maemo name and logo have become the property of the Maemo Foundation.
- The Maemo Foundation aims is to manage community development around Maemo, organize the promotion of Maemo in event around Free Software and ensure that Maemo is Free.
- Nokia becomes the main sponsor of Maemo. Because Nokia needs Maemo to sell its N900, Nokia provides developers in full-time (as for Canonical Ubntu) and fiances.

@qgil M#135:

I agree that the business model I was talking about and that you quote may be impossible to present for the material. But, there are experimental projects underway in this regard.

But the business model that I present some lines above them is functional. Moreover, it solves the problem that you say in the software "competitors use the Nokia work before Nokia."

Indeed if Maemo is developed by a Maemo Foundation, everyone is equal, problem solved.

Because here, the problem you says is not resolved by the actual model:

In the hardware layer:
A competitor has the hardware drivers that he will sell, so anything that Nokia make don't change anything. Proprietary software is only acceptable in a pilot, if understanding of this driver permit copy the hardware.

In the Application layer:
With the exception of OVI MAP, any software application developed by Nokia could be replaced by a FOSS equivalent taken in on GNU/Linux Desktop. I explained this a few posts before this one.
And ultimately, the competition will have more FOSS software application with more functionality. So, in addition to taking customers to Nokia, the competitor will get a larger community.


The problem you are saying now is not resolved by the model chosen by Nokia now, but the model I propose in this answer resolve it.

So ultimately, I see no reason for the presence of proprietary software other than some drivers.

So, why?

[Alex Atkin UK]

Personally, I feel there is nothing wrong with proprietary locked-down hardware as long as the drivers are up to scratch and not putting huge restrictions on what you can and cannot do.

Now on PC sadly this is not the case, mostly due to the huge variety of chipsets and software revisions that cause instabilities. However something like the N900 is like a games console, they are all identical so you can tweak everything for that specific hardware combination so these instabilities should largely not exist.

Its all about APIs these days and that is not a bad thing. Sure it means you can't push the hardware quite so hard, but for a mobile device especially the last thing you want is someone bypassing the OS and crashing everything, as the end-user will just blame Nokia. Just how often do people blame Windows for crashing when its just a bad combination of hardware and software.

So yes, a lot more care and attention is taken tweaking the hardware for cost, features and battery life - so again they have to ensure they can make back that investment and being 100% FOSS would not allow that. FOSS is never quite as polished as a commercial venture which is why a device like the N900 is so appealing in the first place. Because it has the flexibility of FOSS but the refinement of a commercial product.

[korbé]

Alex Atkin UK, many of proprietary software are not as good as their equivalent free.

This is not what model is chosen than defines quality, but who working on it and the number of people working on it.

But Free Software has a big advantage for the number of people working on it and in fact more likely to have competent people working on it.

[DaveP1]

Alex Atkin UK, many of proprietary software are not as good as their equivalent free.

This is not what model is chosen than defines quality, but who working on it and the number of people working on it.

But Free Software has a big advantage for the number of people working on it and in fact more likely to have competent people working on it.

While I use a number of Open Source programs, let's not go overboard. There are some Open Source projects which are massively supported with top level participants. There are also many more which are developed by a few average programmers who maintain the software sporadically and drop it unexpectedly. Much as I like Open Source, I have to admit that, in general, proprietary software is better tested and more stable when it is released and it is more likely to be maintained because people are being paid based on it being sold and upgraded.

By all means, find Open Source alternatives, use them, support them. But recognize that there are valid reasons to pay for proprietary programs as well.

[Texrat]

oxy*****: enterprise open source. :D

[Alex Atkin UK]

I did not mean to say ALL proprietary software is superior to open source. For a start, Firefox is infinitely better than IE. But open source software does not exactly have a reputation of being easy to use. Simply because everyone is free to work on what they like rather than being paid to refine the UI.

As I have said before, my biggest complaint with Linux is the GTK vs QT issue. I can pop open a file requester in a QT based app and have my favourite paths bookmarked, then I pop one open in a GTK+ app (which from a user point of view, looks no different up to this point) and the file request behaves completely different and does not have my bookmarks.

Sure, Windows has the same problem due to legacy file requesters vs newer versions of the API. However the differences are a lot more minimal and if you stick with just newer software, you probably will never experience it.

Something like the N900 on the other hand can use both toolkits while maintaining the same interface throughout because it has stricter rules. Fact is, FOSS allows a little too much freedom sometimes and its detrimental to the end-user experience. However a commercial product will spend a lot of money refining the UI experience to a level FOSS rarely does and the only way to pay for that, make it proprietary.

Yet Nokia has actually been quite open about it. The main UI itself I believe is open, its just a few apps which they want to maintain their copyright on because presumably they spent a lot of money on it or maybe even licensed it from someone else. The fact the media player UI is the main one in question is all the more relevant, as I think most phones and in fact media player applications have terrible UIs. I never found one I was happy with on Windows Mobile. I REALLY hope the Maemo one is at least close to as good as the iPod/iPhone one.

[Alex Atkin UK]

While I use a number of Open Source programs, let's not go overboard. There are some Open Source projects which are massively supported with top level participants. There are also many more which are developed by a few average programmers who maintain the software sporadically and drop it unexpectedly. Much as I like Open Source, I have to admit that, in general, proprietary software is better tested and more stable when it is released and it is more likely to be maintained because people are being paid based on it being sold and upgraded.

By all means, find Open Source alternatives, use them, support them. But recognize that there are valid reasons to pay for proprietary programs as well.

Indeed. Like how I would STILL prefer to use Paintshop Pro 9 rather than GIMP. GIMP seems to be targeted at only hardcore graphics editors who use multiple monitors. Its a completely nightmare when trying to edit loads of smaller files for web work on a single 1280x1024 monitor as you keep losing one window behind another.

People say Open Source is about freedom. But unless you know C++ you are pretty much screwed as there simply is no incentive for them to support every kind of user. Quite understandably, they write an application THEY want, not necessarily what a huge chunk of people want. Lets face it, would I personally redesign one of my own apps (should I ever get that good to create anything useful) just because a few people wanted me to? I doubt it, without a financial incentive. Because I have better things to do.

Quite simply, Open Source does not need to make as many people happy because you are not doing it to make money. Whenever there is a financial incentive you are naturally trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

However much we all like to think we hate capitalism, we all do things for our own benefit even if its just to "make us feel good". Money makes the world go round, without it we would still be using the abacus.

[danramos]

Quite simply, Open Source does not need to make as many people happy because you are not doing it to make money. Whenever there is a financial incentive you are naturally trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

That's why Windows is such a smash success--not because of the legal strong-arming, exclusivity agreements and other unethical shenanigans that could have provided it with the unfair advantage it needed to be forced down our throats even when something else was cheaper, better supported and operated more reliably and faster. No, no.. clearly it was ALWAYS the better product despite not being the better product. :)

However much we all like to think we hate capitalism, we all do things for our own benefit even if its just to "make us feel good". Money makes the world go round, without it we would still be using the abacus.

I hate monopolistic capitalism, but I love the free market! Isn't that ironic? :)

[korbé]

While I use a number of Open Source programs, let's not go overboard. There are some Open Source projects which are massively supported with top level participants. There are also many more which are developed by a few average programmers who maintain the software sporadically and drop it unexpectedly. Much as I like Open Source, I have to admit that, in general, proprietary software is better tested and more stable when it is released and it is more likely to be maintained because people are being paid based on it being sold and upgraded.

By all means, find Open Source alternatives, use them, support them. But recognize that there are valid reasons to pay for proprietary programs as well.

I prefer to pay for a copy of a Free Software (FOSS) for it evolves than pay for a very restricted licence for only use a proprietary software.

[johnkzin]

@ johnkzin M#134:

Your arguments do not convince me

Great. Then clearly, since you don't believe what I said, you believe you can go build your own N900-clone from commodity parts, and put your own choice of OS on it, just like you can with a PC. So, go do that, and stop fretting about Nokia, Nokia's policies and licenses, and Nokia's OS, on here.

[korbé]

Nobody has the right to contradict Nokia model ?

Beautiful mind. Very.

We have no right to propose to change on something ?


So why the Maemo Community exist ?

[ruskie]

This thread has started to spin wheels... There is no more discussion in it sadly. Just my view other view etc.

To pragmatists - great that you can get the best of both worlds by using best of open and proprietary

To idealists(myself included) - Would be nice if we would get the benefit of the doubt and get our wishes then we could actually compete on an even playing field - as it is we can only follow whatever is locked down

I wish for a day when open vs proprietary would not be an issue. It would simply co-exist and play fair. Until that happens though open is at a disadvantage due to needing to reverse engineer APIs, drivers etc. Or when open comes up with anything original get's instantly spewed upon by people as being lame/not like $whatever other thing/etc... then copied by some proprietary vendor and marketed as the next big thing.

If you want better cooperation between QT and GTK+ it's easy. Make them both use the same bookmarks format and even file. GTK+ uses ~/.gtk-bookmarks with a simple: file:///some/path/to/someplace no clue what QT uses though.

Having used both and others as well I must say I still like GTK as a user the most.
But I would like to have them better interconnected. It's possible to theme each other supposedly though I only manage one way always gtk apps as qt.

Freedesktop should specify all these things so that irrelevant of the toolkit it would be the same data in the end.

Anyway rant over

[danramos]

Great. Then clearly, since you don't believe what I said, you believe you can go build your own N900-clone from commodity parts, and put your own choice of OS on it, just like you can with a PC. So, go do that, and stop fretting about Nokia, Nokia's policies and licenses, and Nokia's OS, on here.

Isn't that kinda-sorta what Crunchpad came out of? :)

[daperl]

oxy*****: enterprise open source. :D

So Not True (http://ofbiz.apache.org/) :)

[qgil]

That is an interesting problem and one of the more important one in the end for the long term viability of an open platform... If users can't get to the hardware it's game over. Hopefully hardware manufacturer could get pressured by such big players as Nokia to release source, at least a year or two after its bleeding edge chips are out ... ?

If the hardware vendors can't make business then it's really game over. :) Their current business model is mostly based on licensing. It's a tough market of big investments that require big operations to be profitable. The competition is fierce. And still free software is doing some progress in that area as well, so someone is putting the brain to work with business models considering OSS.

I'm wondering if, Nokia being at the center of the real platform direction / innovation, shouldn't right now completely aim for a 100% FOSS platform...

"The aim? To bring to life a shared vision to create the most proven, open and complete mobile software platform - and to make it available for free."
http://www.symbian.org/about/

Maybe a temporary license where we can see the source but not share it might make sense so you can still sue rip-offs and after a while completely free it? I don't know what might work but it's worth thinking about ...

http://qt.gitorious.org/qt/qt/blobs/4.6/LICENSE.PREVIEW.COMMERCIAL

The proprietary possibility has to be left as to be able to create an app market for those who still think their great idea is worth 3.99$ and creating a real diversified market of license type.

http://store.ovi.com/
http://maemo.org/downloads/

it will take time to build a community for an e-mail client used on what is right now a fringe platform...

Isn't more or less the same for the rest of pre-installed Maemo applications? Doesn't make sense to focus first on increasing the user base by selling more devices and getting a cross-platform API in place? Then when you cross the critical mass of user and developers is when you can have more promising foundations for free software collaboration at an application level.

I think Nokia did a great job with the community and really is going in the right direction, it might just have to learn a few more things about how to deal with a community.

Yes, we are all learning here about community and about business as well.

I'm wondering, is the new browser front-end (GUI) in Maemo not FOSS ? (I know the back-end now is, and that's great!)
But, If not Why not?
How is that different than the media player which is even more of a commodity to me?

If they were commodity you would find several options to choose at the same level or better. This happens in the traditional desktop, but it's still not the case in the mobile. The foundations and the API are all public so there is no hard obstacle for the free software community to commoditize them. As mentioned before, even Nokia is a contributor supporting directly or indirectly projects like Mozilla or Canola.

[Texrat]

Nobody has the right to contradict Nokia model ?

Beautiful mind. Very.

We have no right to propose to change on something ?


So why the Maemo Community exist ?

That's not what he said.

There comes a point where the wheels come off an argument train, and then it's time to regroup or park the thing... maybe elsewhere. ;)

[Texrat]

So Not True (http://ofbiz.apache.org/) :)

Was kidding, hence the :D.

:p

[DaveP1]

There's a good blog by Jason Perlow on this topic. Among other things he writes:

"While I have no doubt that many people and a number of large organizations do and can exist on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alone, the reality is that a lot of enterprises and people are like me have to and want to use both."

http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=11167

[allnameswereout]

Having used both and others as well I must say I still like GTK as a user the most.
But I would like to have them better interconnected. It's possible to theme each other supposedly though I only manage one way always gtk apps as qt.QGtkStyle should help with that.

Freedesktop should specify all these things so that irrelevant of the toolkit it would be the same data in the end.Not that I disagree with your point, its just that Freedesktop has come a long way.

I prefer to pay for a copy of a Free Software (FOSS) for it evolves than pay for a very restricted licence for only use a proprietary software.Then realize that by buying a Nokia N900 you support Maemo development which is 99% open source software. Instead of crying about that 1%, why not applaud the 99%?

You're free to run 100% open source Mer or buy another mostly-opensource-smartphone with an OS such as Android or OpenMoko. The former is not a UNIX-like environment with X, whereas the latter does not come with 3G.

I already made example of firmware. Even OpenMoko has proprietary firmware for the GSM whereas the GSM is just embedded hardware; the firmware is software. Same with a BIOS, and there are tons of other examples.

People say Open Source is about freedom. But unless you know C++ you are pretty much screwed You just insulted tons of C and Python programmers. :D has it ever occured to you that if you don't know e.g. C++ you can learn it or hire someone who knows? So lets say you found a bug in PulseAudio. You pay the developer to fix it. With Microsoft Windows that is not possible, whereas almost everything of Maemo is open source. The most important stuff is core software (usually LGPLed libraries) whereas something like Ovi Maps or Google Maps or Mediaplayer can be replaced. The rest of the software does not depend on such proprietary technology. So something like Mer can simply ship without that and be 100% open source, while proprietary software can be programmed and distributed for Maemo without making the OS less free.

[range]

oxy*****: enterprise open source. :D

Why? In a universe which needs no money, there's no need for protecting your code either.

The Earl Grey? Hot, please.

[korbé]

Maemo made a bet with Modest, and the contributions were also modest (yes, you can blame our mixed-open development but still).


Maemo is an OS that calls itself "Open", but in reality it have got a proprietary application layer.
Don't be surprised if few supporters of free software are contributing.

If you want a large community of contributors, aim for an OS for supporters of free software -> 100% FOSS

[qole]

Well, actually you need two key things that have been poorly done, or missing entirely (in the past) from Nokia's open source attempts:
1) release early and often (no hiding code in between releases!)
2) provide a low barrier to entry (make the released code usable)

[korbé]

Then realize that by buying a Nokia N900 you support Maemo development which is 99% open source software. Instead of crying about that 1%, why not applaud the 99%?


This, we do not know yet for Maemo 5.
I wait precisely this information for decide buy or not buy the N900.

If I can install other OS, if I can remove each proprietary element in Maemo 5 (exept drivers) without breaking the system and I can replace these with an equivalent FOSS, then I will buy the N900.

[qgil]

Maemo is an OS that calls itself "Open", but in reality it have got a proprietary application layer.
Don't be surprised if few supporters of free software are contributing.

If you want a large community of contributors, aim for an OS for supporters of free software -> 100% FOSS

In fact the wording goes around "open platform", without any pretension of openness in the application layer. The factors of success rely more on the points made by qole, I agree.

Within the Maemo platform there are hundreds of components.

- Many of them are untouched upstream / Debian.

- In a bunch of them we contribute a lot, directly upstream e.g. Tracker or BlueZ.

- In a bunch of them we collaborate directly with the upstream maintainers e.g. GTK+ or Telepathy.

If you want to contribute to all these components just go upstream and file your patches. They will come sooner or later to Maemo.

Then we have a small list of components where upstream is basically made of Nokia maintainers or other working for Nokia under contract e.g. Application Manager, RSS Feed Reader, Hildon, MAFW... Until now these have suffered a lot of not-open development, yes. Working on the fix, patiently.

And it's true that it's very difficult to get the picture of all this. This is why I ask you to vote and propose solutions at http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/increase_opportunities_for_contribution/

[allnameswereout]

What are you talking about? What is closed source? All the software providing new APIs are open. These were all announced a year ago. The source code is there. Have some faith in Nokia and Mer...

[korbé]

Well, actually you need two key things that have been poorly done, or missing entirely (in the past) from Nokia's open source attempts:
1) release early and often (no hiding code in between releases!)
2) provide a low barrier to entry (make the released code usable)

Sorry, my English is very bad and I did not understand what you mean.

@ qgil: Already voted. :D

[johnkzin]

Well, actually you need two key things that have been poorly done, or missing entirely (in the past) from Nokia's open source attempts:
1) release early and often (no hiding code in between releases!)


Actually, I very solidly disagree with this one.

The worst thing about most open source projects is that their release engineering and release cycles are abysmally immature.

"release early and often" == "no one with more than 3 functioning brain cells should depend on this software for anything useful".

Release when stable. Release when there's a point to the changes being distributed. Release when the release has matured and been vetted.

[allnameswereout]

Actually, I very solidly disagree with this one.

The worst thing about most open source projects is that their release engineering and release cycles are abysmally immature.

"release early and often" == "no one with more than 3 functioning brain cells should depend on this software for anything useful".

Release when stable. Release when there's a point to the changes being distributed. Release when the release has matured and been vetted.There is a paradox in that. Nobody will try the software unless it is stable. Best example is Linux kernel 2.6.0. So many 2.5.x verions, so many 2.6.0-test versions. Only after 2.6.0 was released some very, very nasty bugs were found, and solved.

[korbé]

Actually, I very solidly disagree with this one.

The worst thing about most open source projects is that their release engineering and release cycles are abysmally immature.

"release early and often" == "no one with more than 3 functioning brain cells should depend on this software for anything useful".

Release when stable. Release when there's a point to the changes being distributed. Release when the release has matured and been vetted.

Or make three versions:
Unstable (in development), Testing and Stable.

- Unstable, for developers. Add all features.
- Testing for find bug. no feature added.
- Stable for end user. Version provided by default.

[allnameswereout]

Yes, see alpha and beta versions of SDK, Extras versus Extras-Devel. But when not enough people test and fix bugs on Testing/Beta/Extras-Devel the quality of Stable/Release/Extras won't be good enough.

[NvyUs]

Or make three versions:
Unstable (in development), Testing and Stable.

- Unstable, for developers. Add all features.
- Testing for find bug. no feature added.
- Stable for end user. Version provided by default.
ain't that just a Alpha, Beta and public release. practically the whole world is using that strategy over last few years

[Alex Atkin UK]

You just insulted tons of C and Python programmers. :D has it ever occured to you that if you don't know e.g. C++ you can learn it or hire someone who knows? So lets say you found a bug in PulseAudio. You pay the developer to fix it. With Microsoft Windows that is not possible, whereas almost everything of Maemo is open source. The most important stuff is core software (usually LGPLed libraries) whereas something like Ovi Maps or Google Maps or Mediaplayer can be replaced. The rest of the software does not depend on such proprietary technology. So something like Mer can simply ship without that and be 100% open source, while proprietary software can be programmed and distributed for Maemo without making the OS less free.

I have no disrespect for C and I plan to learn Python once I get my N900. But it does not alter the fact that C/C++ might as well be binary for most people. I do understand it to a point, but not enough to do anything useful. Also talking about hiring a programmer is great if you are a big business, but as an end-user its cheaper to buy a copy of Windows where it "just works".

Funny you should bring up PulseAudio too as ever since Mandriva switched to PulseAudio I cannot get sound to work properly. PulseAudio does not support digital passthru over SPDIF which highlights my point exactly of what for me is the problem with Linux. They happily remove functionality I have been using for years in favour of something new and better, which is not feature complete. Just like how mucked up KDE 4 is compared to KDE 3.

I have also failed to switch back to OSS/ALSA. I uninstalled PulseAudio and got back to ALSA but now have other audio issues and SPDIF still does not work. You just do not have these problems on OS X and Windows.

C/C++ is way above what my brain can handle. A little bash, PHP and Javascript is my limit which is why I suspect I may be able to get into Python a little. But no way do I have the skill to fix the problems I have above. Problems I do not have on Windows 7 as it "just works".

On the other hand I love Linux. It was originally my dialup router and file server, now acts as both fileserver, audio jukebox (when it works) and desktop machine. I would never want to do that with Windows, for a start I would have to buy it first and worry about viruses. But it does not alter the fact, open source is not the holy grail people make it out to be.

[Texrat]

Release when stable. Release when there's a point to the changes being distributed. Release when the release has matured and been vetted.

Well... yes and no. If managed properly, release-early-and-often improves your opportunities to catch and fix bugs quickly by expanding your set of testers... which leads to more stability.

[allnameswereout]

ain't that just a Alpha, Beta and public release. practically the whole world is using that strategy over last few years-CURRENT/Sid/Unstable/SVN is not same as alpha. It is even more dangerous. After you freeze you get alpha/beta/rc/release.

[attila77]

Actually, I very solidly disagree with this one.

The worst thing about most open source projects is that their release engineering and release cycles are abysmally immature.

"release early and often" == "no one with more than 3 functioning brain cells should depend on this software for anything useful".

Release when stable. Release when there's a point to the changes being distributed. Release when the release has matured and been vetted.

No, no and no. Again, you're killing yourself with terminology. Release means something COMPLETELY different in proprietary and Open Source contexts. I know what you meant, but we're talking about two different things here.

[allnameswereout]

Also talking about hiring a programmer is great if you are a big business, but as an end-user its cheaper to buy a copy of Windows where it "just works".True, but if you're using N900 in corporate environment the freedom is quite attractive. It is also possible to vote with your money as consumer, just a bit harder. That is why I endorse a donation-based system where the users like you and me, being part of community, can vote with their wallet. Because sometimes a feature or a bugfix is worth some money.

Funny you should bring up PulseAudio too as ever since Mandriva switched to PulseAudio I cannot get sound to work properly. PulseAudio does not support digital passthru over SPDIF which highlights my point exactly of what for me is the problem with Linux. They happily remove functionality I have been using for years in favour of something new and better, which is not feature complete. Just like how mucked up KDE 4 is compared to KDE 3.Yes, OSS also supported sound cards which ALSA did not support. X.Org also still does not fully support some graphics cards. It is all a matter of 1) developer itch or financial incent 2) rarity of hardware or feature. If PA or KDE4 or ALSA doesn't cut it for you, you use the predecessor (legacy software) instead. There is nothing wrong with that, and there is nothing wrong with running an old, stable version of an OS. I also gave PA as example because it supports audio over network seemingly. There is no such thing for OSX or Windows, while PA is ported to OSX and Windows.

[ysss]

@tag writer:

I notice the tag "try to correct an error" on this thread. Would the writer care to explain more?

[Alex Atkin UK]

True, but if you're using N900 in corporate environment the freedom is quite attractive. It is also possible to vote with your money as consumer, just a bit harder. That is why I endorse a donation-based system where the users like you and me, being part of community, can vote with their wallet. Because sometimes a feature or a bugfix is worth some money.

I totally agree in that case.

I would happily donate to any project that is going to deliver a feature I want or even that already has. The trouble is, if you donate to an open source project there is a chance the developer will get bored or real work will get in the way.

Commercial on the other hand, it IS their real work so you pay them to implement a feature, they better do it. They also generally have more resources to throw at it and will not just do "the fun/interesting" bits, which any developer doing it as a hobby is likely to do.

Yes, OSS also supported sound cards which ALSA did not support. X.Org also still does not fully support some graphics cards. It is all a matter of 1) developer itch or financial incent 2) rarity of hardware or feature. If PA or KDE4 or ALSA doesn't cut it for you, you use the predecessor (legacy software) instead. There is nothing wrong with that, and there is nothing wrong with running an old, stable version of an OS. I also gave PA as example because it supports audio over network seemingly. There is no such thing for OSX or Windows, while PA is ported to OSX and Windows.

The thing is, I can't get it to work how it used to as they expect you to do it their way or be an ALSA GURU who knows how to hack it to work how you want. Granted Windows you might not even be able to change its behaviour at all, but then they are unlikely to release with the functionality missing like PA has.

[R-R]

If the hardware vendors can't make business then it's really game over. :) Their current business model is mostly based on licensing. It's a tough market of big investments that require big operations to be profitable. The competition is fierce. And still free software is doing some progress in that area as well, so someone is putting the brain to work with business models considering OSS.

Do you imply that hiding the hardware "API" (registers) will somehow prevent others from reverse engineering the chips to clone them? :)

I mean, with millions at stake, I'm sure they can afford a few IDA Pro (http://www.hex-rays.com/idapro/) hackers... Binary is source code after all, no matter how obfuscated you make it...
If a few kid can crack games, I'm sure dedicated people can reverse engineer anything!

So, what is the real advantage in locking down your hardware through some proprietary gate-keeping software when you benefit from it being used as widely as possible and you don't sell any software at all ?


If they were commodity you would find several options to choose at the same level or better. This happens in the traditional desktop, but it's still not the case in the mobile. The foundations and the API are all public so there is no hard obstacle for the free software community to commoditize them. As mentioned before, even Nokia is a contributor supporting directly or indirectly projects like Mozilla or Canola.

Well, there are a few browser (https://garage.maemo.org/softwaremap/trove_cloud.php?form_cat=91) available and a lot of media players (http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008/multimedia/) on maemo's repository... :)

[R-R]

Release early release often! (http://www.catb.org/~esr//writings/homesteading/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s04.html)

[Alex Atkin UK]

You lock it down you gain a competitive advantage. You buy yourself a few months leeway while they are hacking away trying to clone your device.

As was said earlier, if you don't do that they may even release a clone product before the official product itself launches.

I do not necessarily agree with the Release Early, Release Often for all software though. For one I wish KDE 4 had not come out until it was up to standard with KDE 3. Too many distros have adopted KDE 4 and practically dropped KDE 3, when 4 is just not ready yet. Had it not been "released early" they would have stuck with 3 that bit longer and avoided the ton of teething problems people have with 4.

I get it, you need people to test it. But surely there are plenty enough people willing to risk early software rather than forcing it onto an unwilling public. But this is getting off topic.

[R-R]

You lock it down you gain a competitive advantage. You buy yourself a few months leeway while they are hacking away trying to clone your device.

As was said earlier, if you don't do that they may even release a clone product before the official product itself launches.


I do not agree on this part but I've already said enough on the subject... :)


I do not necessarily agree with the Release Early, Release Often for all software though. For one I wish KDE 4 had not come out until it was up to standard with KDE 3. Too many distros have adopted KDE 4 and practically dropped KDE 3, when 4 is just not ready yet. Had it not been "released early" they would have stuck with 3 that bit longer and avoided the ton of teething problems people have with 4.

I get it, you need people to test it. But surely there are plenty enough people willing to risk early software rather than forcing it onto an unwilling public. But this is getting off topic.

Well, R.E.R.O. has nothing to do with bad naming/numbering choices...

It's all about giving access to the software early so to get as many eyes as possible on the code and fix things.
It's definitely not branding alpha version as final 4.0.0 product ready to be shipped! If KDE ****ed up, it's totally unrelated! :/

[qgil]

Do you imply that hiding the hardware "API" (registers) will somehow prevent others from reverse engineering the chips to clone them? :)

I mean, with millions at stake, I'm sure they can afford a few IDA Pro (http://www.hex-rays.com/idapro/) hackers... Binary is source code after all, no matter how obfuscated you make it...
If a few kid can crack games, I'm sure dedicated people can reverse engineer anything!

They make their money licensing and selling to companies like Nokia, who actually play by the business rules and won't create a team to reverse engineer their work. If you introduce a free software license to the mix you do need to have a look to your business plan in order to keep your profits or increase them.

In any case, feel free discussing the topic with them. :) Free software in the hardware adaptation layer is something that companies like Nokia would be also interested about.

Well, there are a few browser (https://garage.maemo.org/softwaremap/trove_cloud.php?form_cat=91) available and a lot of media players (http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008/multimedia/) on maemo's repository... :)[/QUOTE]

As starters, the serious browser alternatives would imply Webkit, which is not supported in Maemo and is not a trivial task to productize. Moving away from the Mozilla family is a deeper strategic move aniway, not worth if the only "problem" is the UI layer being not open source. And still, I haven't said the browser UI will be closed, or open.

For Media Players let's not forget that Python is not officially supported and productizing it is not trivial. MPlayer is a beast on it's own and there are many reasons not to ship it pre-installed. Probably the maintainers of MPlayer and the Maemo port would agree on this.

And still I believer the Maemo 5 browser and media player would beat these options in many aspects that are essential even if not so evident: performance, footprint, stability, etc.

But we shouldn't start discussing browser, media player or other specific app here. Looking forward to your Brainstorm proposals for browser and media player, listing the serious candidates for solutions and having their own threads for discussion. :)

[allnameswereout]

For one I wish KDE 4 had not come out until it was up to standard with KDE 3. Too many distros have adopted KDE 4 and practically dropped KDE 3, when 4 is just not ready yet.Stick with what works for you. Don't upgrade your OS if it works fine.

[lma]

In any case, feel free discussing the topic with them. :) Free software in the hardware adaptation layer is something that companies like Nokia would be also interested about.



See this (http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2009/02/04/#20090204-reflections_on_the_hardware_industry) blog post by Harald Welte, who has spent a lot of time discussing the topic with various (http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/linux/via/index.html) chip (http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2009/08/28/#20090828-helping_samasung_system_lsi) makers (http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2009/09/16/#20090916-st_ericsson_workshop). Selective quote:

So despite senior R&D management at the chip makers understanding those dynamics, and knowing that they could achieve superior product quality, reliability, security and encourage innovation - the companies don't do it until the requirements show up on the major buyers shopping lists.
[...]
As a chip maker, you first and foremost concern should be to sell as many units as possible. You don't care what kind of software your customers use. You don't care where they get their software from, or what development methodology they use. So if you can take any step to encourage more alternatives and more competition/innovation on top of your chip, you can only gain market share, but not lose it. And if you don't gain market share, well, you didn't have to make any investment. So no matter what you do, you can hardly loose anything.


Nokia may not be interested in licencing Maemo to third parties at the moment, however there are now several Linux-based options available for device makers and therefore increased pressure for hardware that works with Free drivers out of the box. There's also a manufacturer or two that makes their own chips as well as devices. I expect the situation to improve dramatically over the next year or two :-)

[ysss]

Yeah.. what does need to happen if, say, Motorola wants to make use of Maemo in one of their new device anyway?

[lma]

They would need to talk to Mer or roll their own distribution based on the open parts (and they couldn't call it Maemo for trademark reasons).

[R-R]

They make their money licensing and selling to companies like Nokia, who actually play by the business rules and won't create a team to reverse engineer their work. If you introduce a free software license to the mix you do need to have a look to your business plan in order to keep your profits or increase them.

In any case, feel free discussing the topic with them. :) Free software in the hardware adaptation layer is something that companies like Nokia would be also interested about.


I'm just confused by what you mean by licensing? How do you license hardware? Don't you just buy it? Or do you actually pay less if you don't use part of the chip or something? That would really be an awkward business model! :-)

[korbé]

Yeah.. what does need to happen if, say, Motorola wants to make use of Maemo in one of their new device anyway?

If Motorola wants to use "Maemo" on one of these phones, now they can.

For proprietary software/driver in Hardware layer:
They use their drivers for their hardware. This is not a problem.

For proprietary software in application layer:
They replace these proprietary software by FOSS equivalent. After Having redesigned the UI and, if required, add one or two fonctionalities and the same API.

In concluding, they will get a Maemo freer, more open and with more fonctionalities.

Nokia will not prevent copying of Maemo, even if it was 100% proprietary. The iPhone is an example: 100% proprietary and it exist Chinese copies.

Instead, Nokia should make "these copies" an advantage. This is why the GPL exists.

[ysss]

@korbe: Ok, you've lost my trust when you mentioned about chinese iPhone copies. None of those run Mobile OSX.

I'm not sure if this is the right soapbox to make use to shout out your agenda, btw.

[R-R]

An interesting point is GPL vs LGPL vs Some BSD/Apache/... licenses.

GPL for Maemo can work like it did for Qt and force competitors using your platform to only produce GPL apps and thus opening all their work to you because you control the API. The LGPL wouldn't give that advantage when you own all the source and can dual license to yourself.

Android though went in the other direction and used the Apache license which will allow carriers to embrace and extend Android, locking it down however they see fit for their own profit disregarding any previous contribution whatsoever. This will just create more apple-like lock-down in various carriers market.

Which for me is the worst of both world in a made to be expanded platform ...

[korbé]

@korbe: Ok, you've lost my trust when you mentioned about chinese iPhone copies. None of those run Mobile OSX.

I'm not sure if this is the right soapbox to make use to shout out your agenda, btw.

For the end user, this is OSX mobile or not, if it has the same appearance and same functionalities, it will not change anything for him.

[ysss]

@korbe: I think you need to get your enlightenment\education elsewhere.. so I'm not going to continue this thread of conversation too long. But what you alluded as 'the same' in the chinese iphones example are just:

- casing appearance
- icons and home screen arrangement
- apps skins

That's about it.

I think that's a far cry from the serious licensing discussions we've had.

[korbé]

@korbe: I think you need to get your enlightenment\education elsewhere.. so I'm not going to continue this thread of conversation too long. But what you alluded as 'the same' in the chinese iphones example are just:

- casing appearance
- icons and home screen arrangement
- apps skins

That's about it.

I think that's a far cry from the serious licensing discussions we've had.

I have talked about the iPhone to demonstrate whatever restraint selected, we can not prevent copying.

Then thid is better transform copy to an advantage.

PS: I admit, the iPhone is not the best example.

[qgil]

R-R, if you look at TI, Marvel, Qualcomm, Imagination, ARM and etc you will see that even if the visible business is to sell hardware, there is also business around drivers, patents, specifications, particular implementations...

It's a complicated world and, indeed, it's changing. The push of Intel to mobile hardware is part of that change as well, since they come with a different approach.

Going back to my point (Nokia is doing a lot pushing OSS and "gets it" quite well), you see that Maemo has already links with most of these players. If you see changes in the following years have no doubt that Nokia, Maemo, Symbian and Qt had got their contribution to the process.

[allnameswereout]

korbee... exactly 0 iPhone 'clones' run OSX. They run for example Windows CE. The cloning refers to the way the phone looks. The eye candy. No way, it refers to the features the phone provides. Many don't even have 3G! See this list for example. (http://gadgetophilia.com/top-10-iphone-clone/)

[korbé]

korbee... exactly 0 iPhone 'clones' run OSX. They run for example Windows CE. The cloning refers to the way the phone looks. The eye candy. No way, it refers to the features the phone provides. Many don't even have 3G! See this list for example. (http://gadgetophilia.com/top-10-iphone-clone/)

I don't say they are OSX. :confused:
Where have you read this?

[johnkzin]

same functionalities

Not even close.

[R-R]

R-R, if you look at TI, Marvel, Qualcomm, Imagination, ARM and etc you will see that even if the visible business is to sell hardware, there is also business around drivers, patents, specifications, particular implementations...

It's a complicated world and, indeed, it's changing. The push of Intel to mobile hardware is part of that change as well, since they come with a different approach.

Well i guess I'll have to go read a bit more about all this :-)


Going back to my point (Nokia is doing a lot pushing OSS and "gets it" quite well), you see that Maemo has already links with most of these players. If you see changes in the following years have no doubt that Nokia, Maemo, Symbian and Qt had got their contribution to the process.

Yep, I'm glad we've had this discussion, I get the feeling Nokia is going in the right direction somehow!

Cheers! :-)

[danramos]

Dammit.. where can I get these Chinese iPhones made with macodity parts?? ;)

[yukop4]

first off it is spelt open sauce and not open source -the sauce is obtained at low cost and used primarily to make the hardware more tasty while keeping the cost factor down-this dubious marketing stratergy is doomed because the sauce cannot keep pace with hardware development and rapid technology advancement leading to hardware using software that is defective -hardware companies escape crititism because it is after all "open sauce"

[R-R]

first off it is spelt open sauce and not open source -the sauce is obtained at low cost and used primarily to make the hardware more tasty while keeping the cost factor down-this dubious marketing stratergy is doomed because the sauce cannot keep pace with hardware development and rapid technology advancement leading to hardware using software that is defective -hardware companies escape crititism because it is after all "open sauce"

I sometime wish this forum had a rating system like slashdot so we could mod such comments as a boring redundant uneducated flamebait...
At least try trolling cleverly :rolleyes:

[SD69]

R-R, if you look at TI, Marvel, Qualcomm, Imagination, ARM and etc you will see that even if the visible business is to sell hardware, there is also business around drivers, patents, specifications, particular implementations...

It's a complicated world and, indeed, it's changing. The push of Intel to mobile hardware is part of that change as well, since they come with a different approach.



Indeed, the hardware level is a different world. As to Intel, they are embracing open source in several areas (and I think the Nokia/Intel cooperation will be a big ++ for advancing handheld computing), but I don't know that they are doing so in the hw adaptation layer (If they are). Not a criticism of Intel at all, it just seems that your comment implied that (or does "different approach" mean something else?)

[korbé]

A small but very good article by Glyn Moody to read carefully. (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/without-free-software-open-source-would-lose-its-meaning)

[korbé]

1 million.

The number of HTC G1 sold in U.S.A by T-Mobile.

Source [In French] (http://www.pointgphone.com/1-million-htc-g1-vendus-us-2368)

Yet it is equipped with Android, an OS that HTC's competitors can also install on their smartphones.

And this Android, except for some drivers and 4 applications softwares, are FOSS.

These 4 applications softwares proprietary are:
- gMail --> replaceable by a FOSS e-mail client.
- gTalk --> replaceable by a FOSS IM Client.
- Google Map --> require much work, but replaceable by a FOSS Map Software.
- Adroid Market --> replaceable by a package manager (ex: PackageKit) to provide FOSS softwares.

So we can say that the HTC G1 was sold with an OS almost pure FOSS to 1 million copies.

There are exist even "100% FOSS version" of Android.

If HTC can it, Nokia can it.

PS: Some people ask for an example with numbers, it is.

[javispedro]

Like if Android's OpenGL ES library was opensource.

Come on, stop this madness.

[johnkzin]

1 million.

The number of HTC G1 sold in U.S.A by T-Mobile.

Source [In French] (http://www.pointgphone.com/1-million-htc-g1-vendus-us-2368)

Yet it is equipped with Android, an OS that HTC's competitors can also install on their smartphones.

And this Android, except for some drivers and 4 applications softwares, are FOSS.

These 4 applications softwares proprietary are:
- gMail --> replaceable by a FOSS e-mail client.
- gTalk --> replaceable by a FOSS IM Client.
- Google Map --> require much work, but replaceable by a FOSS Map Software.
- Adroid Market --> replaceable by a package manager (ex: PackageKit) to provide FOSS softwares.

So we can say that the HTC G1 was sold with an OS almost pure FOSS to 1 million copies.

There are exist even "100% FOSS version" of Android.

If HTC can it, Nokia can it.

PS: Some people ask for an example with numbers, it is.


I'm not sure what point you're making with that set of data ... especially right now, when those 4 "Google Experience" apps have caused controversy in the Android camp (Google recently issued a Cease and Desist letter to one of the bigger Android hackers over those 4 apps).

So, it would seem that:
1) Android, even in its most vanilla form, is not 100% FOSS ... it has apps and components that are flat out "not open". Just like Maemo.
2) Nokia is being more open than Google about it ... haven't seen nor heard of a C&D letter to the Mer team, for example.

It would seem to me that you've just undermined your own argument against Nokia's positioning/etc. with Maemo.

[qole]

Nokia is working in exactly the opposite direction with the Mer team, trying to help them get access to the closed parts. So no, you will never see a C&D letter issued to the Mer team...

[Stskeeps]

2) Nokia is being more open than Google about it ... haven't seen nor heard of a C&D letter to the Mer team, for example.


That said, we are being very careful in Mer. Such as working with vendors on ways for us to use closed blobs and integrating them in images (http://wiki.maemo.org/Token_based_access_restriction) (this may be useful for the Diablo Community SSU project too). We do this because it is a longer lasting solution and gives us better relations with vendors.

But fair is fair - if you included copyrighted material you did not have a license to redistribute, you'll get a C&D. I think Google shot themselves in the foot over this matter though - instead of working out a way this could be useful. I mean, the users already have google apps on their device, why can't they keep them? Nokia went out of their way to work with us to find a solution for these issues and they should be applauded for this attitude.

What we try to do is making a way for the scenario of: if you own a device, you can remix the firmware you have and distribute it to other device owners. - or in Mer's perspective, have HW support blobs and the rest of the system 100% OSS and have things working out of the box.

[danramos]

I sometime wish this forum had a rating system like slashdot so we could mod such comments as a boring redundant uneducated flamebait...
At least try trolling cleverly :rolleyes:

I'd rate that suggestion as insightful and this message I'm writing as redundant. :)

[SD69]

1) Android, even in its most vanilla form, is not 100% FOSS ... it has apps and components that are flat out "not open". Just like Maemo. I'm not sure of this. As I understand it, Android is the OS only, not the apps, and the wifi component, etc., is open, AFAIK

It would seem to me that you've just undermined your own argument against Nokia's positioning/etc. with Maemo. Yes, lol on this one, :D

[korbé]

It would seem to me that you've just undermined your own argument against Nokia's positioning/etc. with Maemo.

No, because I mentioned the HTC G1 for this:
Yet it is equipped with Android, an OS that HTC's competitors can also install on their smartphones.



Like if Android's OpenGL ES library was opensource.

Come on, stop this madness.

Compared to the beginning of this thread, I try to be respectful and I bring good examples (with numbers if possible) to substantiate my statements.

Have I got a real debate in return?

No really, some people ignore me, others have talk at the limit of the insult and others change the meaning of my talk by fixing themselves on what I don't want mean for hide what I want mean....

Is it this? "Maemo.org, the Open Community"?

[allnameswereout]

Hehe, the whole THC UI called Sense is proprietary

[korbé]

Hehe, the whole THC UI called Sense is proprietary

HTC G1 haven't got this UI.

[allnameswereout]

1 million.

The number of HTC G1 sold in U.S.A by T-Mobile.

Source [In French] (http://www.pointgphone.com/1-million-htc-g1-vendus-us-2368)

Yet it is equipped with Android, an OS that HTC's competitors can also install on their smartphones.

And this Android, except for some drivers and 4 applications softwares, are FOSS.

These 4 applications softwares proprietary are:
- gMail --> replaceable by a FOSS e-mail client.
- gTalk --> replaceable by a FOSS IM Client.
- Google Map --> require much work, but replaceable by a FOSS Map Software.
- Adroid Market --> replaceable by a package manager (ex: PackageKit) to provide FOSS softwares.

So we can say that the HTC G1 was sold with an OS almost pure FOSS to 1 million copies.

There are exist even "100% FOSS version" of Android.

If HTC can it, Nokia can it.

PS: Some people ask for an example with numbers, it is.OK, so because you can replace Google Map with something free, you are happy. Now, you can replace Ovi Maps with Maemo Mapper. You can replace the Media Player with one of the many media players from extras/ repository. So what is your problem?

Can you not see Google does not open source these products for a similar reason as Nokia does not, can you actually not see 1) Google is much bigger than Nokia 2) Google earns money on its services and data mining which is much smaller for Nokia whereas Nokia sells end_product / hardware? 3) that the ethical question could be data mining versus closed source software?

The most popular custom Android mod got a cease & desist because it provided these proprietary Google applications while this is not allowed per license since written permission is necessary. If the open source alternatives would be better these proprietary applications would not have been included in the first place.

(Hmm and why does my spell checker accept Google with capital 'G' as word, but Nokia or Maemo with capital 'N' or 'M' not :confused: )

[allnameswereout]

HTC G1 haven't got this UI.That thing is not even marketed as HTC device here, but as a T-Mobile device, and the firmware reflects that. It is also a legacy device ie. not flagship anymore.

[korbé]

OK, so because you can replace Google Map with something free, you are happy. Now, you can replace Ovi Maps with Maemo Mapper. You can replace the Media Player with one of the many media players from extras/ repository. So what is your problem?



And some libraries?
And some elements of the interface?
Et...

[allnameswereout]

And some libraries?
And some elements of the interface?
Et...Which, what?

Anyway, instead of ranting I think you can better contribute and see why stuff is closed source, what the reasons are, if you can contribute to change the status, and so on. That project has been ongoing for a long time now... see e.g. http://wiki.maemo.org/Why_the_closed_packages

[korbé]

Which, what?

Anyway, instead of ranting I think you can better contribute and see why stuff is closed source, what the reasons are, if you can contribute to change the status, and so on. That project has been ongoing for a long time now... see e.g. http://wiki.maemo.org/Why_the_closed_packages


The only excuse that does not seem wrong on the link that you gives:
# Third party: Nokia does not own the code and therefore does not decide on the license.

I'm going to wait for the list about what is FOSS and what is not FOSS before deciding if I buy the N900 or not.

but now, when I see the openness of mind of some members of this community, I wonder if I'll participate.

[allnameswereout]

The only excuse that does not seem wrong on the link that you gives:If by wrong you mean factually incorrect, no.

If by wrong you mean my morals which are not in sync with Nokia commercial interests, yes.

...but we can post whole evening about this and nothing will change, and nobody will get wiser. What you want is based on your zealotry, and unfortunately for you it won't help you getting anything done. Think about it. If Stallman would have acted in your way he'd never have written GNU. ;)

As for you not buying the machine because of this. Unfortunate, but be my guest. I've seen many Linux and FOSS enthusiasts going insane over Nokia N900. Even statements like "most open device on market", etc.

[korbé]

If by wrong you mean factually incorrect, no.

If by wrong you mean my morals which are not in sync with Nokia commercial interests, yes.

...but we can post whole evening about this and nothing will change, and nobody will get wiser. What you want is based on your zealotry, and unfortunately for you it won't help you getting anything done. Think about it. If Stallman would have acted in your way he'd never have written GNU. ;)

As for you not buying the machine because of this. Unfortunate, but be my guest. I've seen many Linux and FOSS enthusiasts going insane over Nokia N900. Even statements like "most open device on market", etc.

This is why I want to join the Open Moko project next year.
But the Neo FreeRunner is an exceed material, then I search a phone / MIT as FOSS as possible.

If you can hack the N900 to install another OS, such as Mer on the N810, this will be a good modern platform to run Open Moko.

[allnameswereout]

Openmoko? LOL. Yeah, they have a fantastic track record...

Unstable connections, changed UI toolkit 3 times, religious wars on ML, no 3G. If I were you I'd wait for Mer on Nokia N900 instead. And instead of posting here help Mer project. Famous last words... :D

[korbé]

Nothing prevents me for helping MER and Open Moko.
I have time next year.

[javispedro]

Compared to the beginning of this thread, I try to be respectful and I bring good examples (with numbers if possible) to substantiate my statements.

Have I got a real debate in return?

Well, I rebated your statement... :D

And if you want "true" free Android: http://openandroidalliance.com/ , you may want to hang on there too.

[korbé]

If by wrong you mean factually incorrect, no.

If by wrong you mean my morals which are not in sync with Nokia commercial interests, yes.

I do not speak according to my convictions, but based on facts.

I develop my comments:

On this link, http://wiki.maemo.org/Why_the_closed_packages, we can see 4 important reasons: keep exclusivity software, IPR & licensing issues, security and third party software.

Look closer:

Keep exclusivity software: this is not required to sell a great many unit. The HTC G1 is an evidence: 1 million of unit sell in USA with not-exclusive Operating Système (Android). And there exist other examples (but we will not list them all, it would take too much space). I'll add that the N900 is an exclusivity to himself: there is not exist a mobile PC equivalent today.

IPR & licensing issues: The risk of having patents on technologies include in Maemo 5 is the same for present proprietary elements than for elements already FOSS. For example: The kernel Linux may also contain elements protected by patents or licenses unauthorized. In addition, SCO seems saved to the bankrupt, so they could try attack Nokia for using the Linux kernel. Yet Nokia uses the Linux kernel in Maemo 5.

Security: Well, Nokia sees us like children? :confused: We are enough responsible to realize that if we change the power management and it no works, is our fault.

Third party software: Here is the only valid explanation. Whatever elements proprietary of third party, as Adobe Flash and other codecs, can be proposed to install to the user when they need it rather than include them. As in Ubuntu.

So in the end, 1/4 of explanations are valid.

There exist another valid explanation for some drivers: If understanding how functioning a driver can understand the functioning, and therefore facilitates the copying, of an electronic component, it may be understandable.

But that, they don't speak about this in this link. :(

So why Nokia make it so?

An error of Nokia? :confused:

Especially if Nokia releases its work under the GPL, the problem announced by Qgil turns into an advantage and everyone will gain benefits: Nokia, the community of Maemo, Maemo OS and Maemo OS users. :cool:

[johnkzin]

The HTC G1 is an evidence: 1 million of unit sell in USA with not-exclusive Operating Système (Android).

The G1 does have exclusive software on it. And Google is actively defending that exclusive software.

I'll add that the N900 is an exclusivity to himself: there is not exist a mobile PC equivalent today.

If you consider the N900 to be an N810+phone+updates, then I'd counter that the G1 is, in fact, pretty much in the same category. My G1 does almost everything that I used to do with my N810 ... plus it's a phone. The only things the N810 did, but that the G1 doesn't do (which pretty much boils down to "VNC viewer"), are "nice to haves" not "platform defining features".

(and, there is actually a VNC viewer, I just haven't gotten it to work for me)

The N900 is definitely NOT "in its own exclusive product category" (which is what you seem to be trying to say). There are definitely other devices in that same product space.

[allnameswereout]

You forget the graphics hardware acceleration, the battery, and the GSM/GPRS which all have very valid reasons to be closed source. (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=338197&postcount=9)

[luca]

You forget the graphics hardware acceleration, the battery, and the GSM/GPRS which all have very valid reasons to be closed source. (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=338197&postcount=9)

Valid? Those are the pieces that, by being closed, won't let you replace the os.
If you don't have hardware acceleration, good power management, no gsm/gprs, you could as well buy a smartq instead of a nokia tablet.

[Luke-Jr]

You forget the graphics hardware acceleration, the battery, and the GSM/GPRS which all have very valid reasons to be closed source. (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=338197&postcount=9)
There exists no valid reason for software to be closed source. So, no.

[johnkzin]

There exists no valid reason for software to be closed source.

Other than "the person who wrote it, or sponsored the writing of it, wants it to be that way". Which is the only valid reason that needs to exist.

[allnameswereout]

Valid? Those are the pieces that, by being closed, won't let you replace the os.
If you don't have hardware acceleration, good power management, no gsm/gprs, you could as well buy a smartq instead of a nokia tablet.Even Open Moko had to pick hardware with only closed source driver because these were the only hardware which fitted the bill (IIRC power related).

In this case of Nokia they are hardware drivers which require closed source driver because else there would be no driver at all.

The choice is simple: either PowerVR driver or no hardware acceleration or no good graphics chip.

You can run another OS with Linux kernel just fine, or an OS which also supports this hardware.

There exists no valid reason for software to be closed source. So, no.:eek: if there is no valid reason whatsoever why on Earth does it exist? :D

[joenix]

You forget the graphics hardware acceleration, the battery, and the GSM/GPRS which all have very valid reasons to be closed source. (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=338197&postcount=9)

Since you're quoting my post, I can't but help replying.

First of all, I didn't say anything about GSM/GPRS. In fact, the GSM modem is supposed to be accessible through the Phonet protocol, which has an open source driver in the mainline kernel. It is true that Maemo 5 uses a proprietary phone stack on top of that, but then there still is Ofono, which is in an experimental stage for the moment, but is already shaping up nicely.

Secondly, I disagree with your statement that there are valid reason to keep these components closed. The security argument is a invalid in my eyes. There should be no way to really destroy your battery from the software side in the first place. Make your batteries secure by themselves. Sure, you can still wear down the battery by incorrect charging or the user could replace it with a non-standard battery, but those are the kind of dangers you should expect when messing with such things.

The only valid reasons I see is brand protection, which is a real issue for companies such as Nokia. Third-party drivers are problematic, but this something where a big player like Nokia can help change things. Let's hope they continue to do so.

[ewan]

:eek: if there is no valid reason whatsoever why on Earth does it exist? :D

Invalid reasons, obviously. Because it's possible, and to some people's advantage. This is the same reason that other undesirable things (for example, most crimes) exist - if I could get away with it it would be to my advantage to mug you and steal your stuff; but that's hardly a valid reason for actually doing it.

[R-R]

The only "valid" security argument is that in most legislation it's illegal to be able to "tune" a radio to operate on other specs which will not necessarily comply with the frequency/power in which they are authorized to operate.

(But limitation should actually be enforced in the firmware!)

[Luke-Jr]

The only "valid" security argument is that in most legislation it's illegal to be able to "tune" a radio to operate on other specs which will not necessarily comply with the frequency/power in which they are authorized to operate.

(But limitation should actually be enforced in the firmware!)
No. Regulations change, and vary by region. Such limitations must clearly only be in software. However, that is not a valid excuse to keep the source hidden. Modifying the source is not "tuning" a radio any more than hex editing a binary blob is. If it is illegal to distribute the source that could be hacked, it is also illegal to distribute a blob that could be hacked. The only advantage someone has with source is that they're less likely to do damage *accidentally*. Someone who intentionally wants to violate the regulations won't be stopped.

[Andre Klapper]

Keep exclusivity software: this is not required to sell a great many unit. I'll add that the N900 is an exclusivity to himself: there is not exist a mobile PC equivalent today.


Exclusivity can be kept for a longer time when not sharing your code.


IPR & licensing issues: The risk of having patents on technologies include in Maemo 5 is the same for present proprietary elements than for elements already FOSS. For example: The kernel Linux may also contain elements protected by patents or licenses unauthorized. In addition, SCO seems saved to the bankrupt, so they could try attack Nokia for using the Linux kernel. Yet Nokia uses the Linux kernel in Maemo 5.


Your elaborations are unrelated... Nokia works together with a variety of other companies - in software and hardware. It's often not Nokia only who can decide here. And even if some partial decisions are in Nokia's hands only, it still takes a while for lawyers to check code and potential issues before making it public. If you are a lawyer who's specialized in international law and covers several countries you will know.

In general there are different concepts for everything - open source vs commercial software, capitalistic democracy vs communism, mixtures of them (e.g. freeware).
It's the right and freedom of every company and individual to choose what they think is right for them.
I hope you agree with this.

In general "Open everything now!" talk is easy if you're not in a position that makes you responsible for the jobs of thousands of people if your company suddenly goes bankrupt because you gave away all your competitive advantage.

And still, Maemo5/Fremantle DOES have way more open source components than Maemo4/Diablo had. Nokia is on the right way, though it could sometimes really be a bit faster, but I guess that's normal with bigger companies.


"All opinions in this post are my personal opinions only, blah..." :-P

[korbé]

@Andre Klapper:

We can't use commercial models created for proprietary software with Free (as free speach) Software.

When doing and/or distributes Free (as free speach) Software, must conceive things differently.

Currently, Nokia distributes Maemo, OS containing a large number of Free (as free speach) Software, as a proprietary OS.

It's not a good sollution.

[attila77]

It's not a good sollution.

Good or not, it is the best solution available as of yet.

[korbé]

Good or not, it is the best solution available as of yet.

No, and I've proven several times.
Than it like or not to Fanboys

[Andre Klapper]

@Andre Klapper:

We can't use commercial models created for proprietary software with Free (as free speach) Software.

I can. So I hope your "We" does not also include me.

[Texrat]

No, and I've proven several times.


There's a difference between objective evidence and emphatic opinion.

[SD69]

Exclusivity can be kept for a longer time when not sharing your code.

Your elaborations are unrelated... Nokia works together with a variety of other companies - in software and hardware. It's often not Nokia only who can decide here. And even if some partial decisions are in Nokia's hands only, it still takes a while for lawyers to check code and potential issues before making it public. If you are a lawyer who's specialized in international law and covers several countries you will know.

In general there are different concepts for everything - open source vs commercial software, capitalistic democracy vs communism, mixtures of them (e.g. freeware).
It's the right and freedom of every company and individual to choose what they think is right for them.
I hope you agree with this.

In general, this is correct and understandable. But for software that is EOL, maybe not so clear. There's a difference between keeping EOL software locked in a room so that no one can use it, and letting others use it at their own risk. And an even bigger difference when the software is developed with the assistance of a community that deserves to at least be in the room.

This is not just my comment:
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3845#c11

[korbé]

I can. So I hope your "We" does not also include me.

Free software and proprietary software do not make the same ways, it don't distribute the same manner and, therefore, it is not profitable in the same way.
It's simple.

The use of 'WE' is owed to a bad translation from French into English. Excuse me.

[Andre Klapper]

Free software and proprietary software do not make the same ways, it don't distribute the same manner and, therefore, it is not profitable in the same way.

In that point I totally agree. However both can learn from each other. It's not that closed source is always something evil.

The use of 'WE' is owed to a bad translation from French into English.

:-) Not a problem.

[korbé]

There's a difference between objective evidence and emphatic opinion.

It is easier to qualify objective evidence to emphatic opinion than remit his own opinion in question and see the truth in the face.
Especially for those who are self-convinced that Nokia has chosen the best solution.

[korbé]

In that point I totally agree. However both can learn from each other. It's not that closed source is always something evil.


Deprive the user of certain important liberties for its own interest is not something wrong? :confused:

We haven't got the same conception of good and evil. (don't kill me :D )

[Texrat]

It is easier to qualify objective evidence to emphatic opinion than remit his own opinion in question and see the truth in the face.
Especially for those who are self-convinced that Nokia has chosen the best solution.

Wow, with completely objective declarations like that, who dares argue? :rolleyes:

[Andre Klapper]

Deprive the user of certain important liberties for its own interest is not something wrong? :confused:

Yes, people don't have always access to everything - That's life.
I also still decide myself who is allowed to enter my flat.
That's what I meant by personal freedom. :-)

[korbé]

Yes, people don't have always access to everything - That's life.
I also still decide myself who is allowed to enter my flat.
That's what I meant by personal freedom. :-)

The situation that corresponds most to Maemo is:

If the construction company that built your flat prohibit the access to some place on the pretext that this is for you don't steal their secrets of manufacture.

What would you say in this situation?

[Andre Klapper]

No, as I own the flat, while you don't own Maemo. You just got a license.

[korbé]

Wow, with completely objective declarations like that, who dares argue? :rolleyes:

I noticed that here, some people (like you), regardless of the evidence, if it remit in question the decisions of Nokia they refuse to hear (or see) reason.

So I will not tire me with these people, and concentrate on those who still have freewill.

[korbé]

No, as I own the flat, while you don't own Maemo. You just got a license.

And this is the problem with proprietary software.

With a Free (as free speach) Software, you got a copy and the licence defines your freedom (4 important freedom of Free (as free speach) Software and more).

With a proprietary software, you just got a licence to definit a very restricted right to only use.

[Andre Klapper]

Just to clarify copyright vs license: The creator always has the copyright on what I've created, and it's him/her who decides how weak or strong the license for other people is. It's his/her decision only as he/she created it, no matter whether it's music, books or software code.
Pushing the creator (e.g. me) into using a specific licence means reducing my personal freedom and pushing me into something ideological. And “Ideology is a brain disease,” to quote Jerry Rubin. Hence I'm happy that there are different licenses available, from weak to strong, and that the creator (Nokia, you, me, whoever) can choose.

I respect the creator's decision and can of coutrse question it.
If good arguments are provided creators revise their decisions. For example Carsten filed requests with very good arguments in Bugzilla to open the code of example statusbar-alarm-dbus-api (#4560). Hence Nokia has changed that code to open source.
That's how it works, and I like it.

[Andre Klapper]

With a Free (as free speach) Software, you got a copy and the licence defines your freedom.
With a proprietary software, you just got a licence to definit a very restricted right to only use.

EVERY software license defines your freedom, also licenses of proprietary software. The latter might provide less freedom for you (e.g. no access to the source code), but exactly that is the freedom of the creator of that software.

Now is your freedom more important than the freedom of the creator to choose the licence he/she wants?