Jolla phones: not so open
 

Well here's the bad news we've all been dreading about the Jolla phones:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/36...ngry-birds.htm

:(

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

First of all, sure, boring. secondly , we dont need a new thread for this, but now that we have we can use it. Not so strange. Tizen and jolla can't be more open than other OS like maemo or meego. Why? I don't even care to anwser this again.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

let's be honest here, shall we?
Maemo (MeeGo blabla...) never was profitable
N9 may have scratched it if it had been marketed aggressively enough, indeed, certainly with Nitdroid, but... how would that have looked, claiming they don't want to become another "Android OEM" maker and having (one of) their most successful device of the moment... mostly be used under Android :eek:
without Flop / Fart's burning hara-kiri NOKIA would have been able to go on supporting Maemo

the only reason Android is so successful is because it is so open.
the only reason i can be so open is because Google can afford to give it away.

again see opening remark, no way a startup will be able to sustain that business model.
period
end of discussion :confused:
end of dream... :(

open source is not a viable business model
never has been, never will be.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

-
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why the N9 is a whitefly with one blue eye and one green ...a rarity
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http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8...scabrancaa.jpg

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

did they make a green one after all ?!? :rolleyes:
thus, a 2nd red / magenta eye :p

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

I agree with the open source not being viable business model.

Though there was comment from Jolla that more than 200 000 phones would keep them alive, i don't see that impossible if the product will be actually good

What gives me some hope about Jolla is that these people at least seem to understand the market and know what it needs to get phone out to the market.
Proof of that would be if they truly could release device before years end, something that would be quite mind boggling for company like this.

If they can nurse the economy, community and can actually give us something amazing they might have niche covered. There's some truth on what the CEO said that the hardware is easy these days as most of the manufacturers just go shopping for the chips.
Jolla wont of course ever have things like PureView or custom chips like Samsung.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

The orginal Jolla thread has already degenarated into 100 or pages about the same matter. Lively discussion about semantics of few words in interviews, both fanboism and hatred before any product and the whole nine yards of convoluted interwebs miscommunication.

No need for a new thread.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

true!
i was thinking in terms of "manufacturer" with factory, design dptmt, Q&A, Marketing & Sales and tutti quanti :D
if they are just making a design based on an Open Source OS...
that's roughly what Google was doing with their Nexus, right?
and now they bought Motorola...
in fact the FOSS based design seems the only way to go for a startup indeed
only... will "it" happen again? :confused: :eek:

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

feel free... not to post :cool:

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

I think the wording is not entirely clear. "consumers are not able to ..." could mean "average consumer does not know how to ..." (meaning ultimately "they will not be required to know how to ...")

Or of course it could mean "we will not allow them to ..."

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Why not? Almost all Androids are hackable and flashable. I see no reason why it can be a consumer device and still be hackable and flashable.

I think the Finns have lost it. They have been drinking too much Koskenkorva and staid too long in the sauna. Only one brian cell left and unable to have two thoughts in the head at any given time. I guess this means no multitasking either, too difficult.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Okay, but the phones not being so open isn't anything new.

Maemo 5, not fully open.

Harmattan, not fully open.

Just as long as we don't have to jump through the kind of hurdles that Aegis brought along with it and Jolla allows Mer to be as open to create anything we (the community) wants just like it was on the N900 (Maemo 5), then I see no real problem.

Bring something like Aegis to the table... problem. And if I have to void a warranty to get that freedom, so be it.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

(edit: apologies to gerbick for using his post, but his interpretation is really the closest to sanity..)

This entire firestorm really seems to rely on the interpretation of something that can mean many different things and many different methods. Entirely blown too much out of proportion.

You'll have to wait for something offical on twitter, but in essence, it doesn't make much sense that Jolla is taking away freedoms they themselves use and have used to prototype their own systems on devices. Flashing own kernel and own OS and getting to keep both pieces if they break as a principle, is entirely fine with me, for example.

Read everything together in context (both text and target audience) instead of just those lines and things look darned much better.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

this.......... exactly this is the reason why are modern products of any kind so boring, so look-alike, so simple, so restricted.............

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Wasn't there some upcoming plan that jolla should help with some hosting of mer OBS or similar. And also there was some plan to setup an event with deevamo and jolla?

I think people here should stop draw theyr own conclusions before we knows better! But two things we know:

1. No hw company will EVER be fully open source
2. Jolla has already said they will work with the community in some way.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

wont be hacked?

i give it one day

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

They already said it will be more open than windows phone for developers, and they are using a lot of open source stuff so it would be pretty hard to block us from modifying, recompiling, and adding things even if they wanted to. Just saying it's pretty hard to do the security "right" if that's the intent.
They also said the UI will be customizable, which hopefully means we can build our own swipeUI clone or whatever we want.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

well said :D

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Full multitasking and customization is a go.
http://nokiagadgets.com/2012/07/16/n...asking-coming/

I would just chill at this point. There seems to be version where you are able to do this. How it will actually be restricted and so on. Jolla also seems to stay away from giving a picture on interviews that Jolla's phone will be just a nerd toy, stigma that didn't really serve MeeGo, N9, Maemo and N900.

I mean really, we don't know absolutely nothing yet.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Perhaps I'm getting old, but I can't get over how absurd that sounds :-)

It doesn't make any sense, but the thing is, if they did they wouldn't be the first ones, and such a move wouldn't be entirely unexpected from former Nokia or MeeGo people in the first place.

Where do you draw the line? Is it reasonable to void the warranty (again, not sure of the legality of this) if you install an entirely different OS? If you recompile the vendor kernel but with a software feature like IPv6 enabled? If you remove Big Brother anti-features? If you fix a bug in the email client?

And why is it appropriate that the people who can and want to do some of the above, the very people who write/test/debug a lot of the code that comes pre-installed on the device, be treated like undesirable second hand citizens?

Having non-free parts is one thing, but locking down the device to prevent tinkering is a whole different kettle of fish. I for one don't want to be a customer of such a company, even if I can jump through some hoops and obtain their Royal Highnesses' concession to modify the device (which I paid for and theoretically own) to do what I want.

I'm trying, but they still don't. If things are better than they seem, would it be unreasonable to ask them to make a brief statement re: device freedom to the audience that actually cares about the issue?

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

if you read the full interview, they mention 2 phones. first out the door is more locked down as you've stated, for the less technically inclined. second is likely to be more open, more of a developer device.

i suppose the idea is to push a mass market device first to build brand.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Open, closed, open, closed, open, closed, open, closed. Is It open? Is It closed? Open, closed, open...

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

with a hardware keyboard ?!? :-D

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

" We did not expect that people will misinterpret this statement. As for the open part: Just follow what we are doing with Mer and Nemo -- our development there is completely in the open, and try to figure out how we would benefit from working on community projects now, only to later annoy them with a locked phone ;)" posted by employee of jolla....
so, it is more-less like harmattan but seems like without aegis :D
guess more open than we figured :S

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Do you really want to own dinghy phones?

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

better than fruit phones

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

there will be developer mode so you can hack to your hearts content

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

always better then Titanic ¦-))))))))))))))))))))))))

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

1st:
Android isn't successful because it's open but because it's "end-user friendly" (whatever that means - most people can use it intuitively).
My father is a good example for this. He has a Galaxy S2 and has what is usually called "advanced computer skills": He can maintain his Windows PC, is clever enough to avoid the common PEBKAC problems and in theory knows how to code. But he hasn't coded himself for more than 20 years now, so he couldn't care less about his phone's operating system being open source.

2nd:
Google frequently fails to deliver the source code as required by #2 of the open source definition [1] and has to be reminded very often to release it.
Also, even though it's not strictly a failure in terms of the OSD #2 & #3 since these paragraphs only refer to the license Google's Android is (or at least has been in the past when I checked) technically designed to make derived works hard without ripping the whole system apart and putting it back together from scratch. For example in Android 2.2 it was not possible even on a rooted phone to load additional kernel modules simply because the /system partition where these modules HAD to be stored had virtually no free space left. Resizing the partition was not possible due to automated integrity checks that complained about wrong partition sizes.

bottom line:
Yes, strictly spoken Android is open source by the terms of the OSD once they released the source code. But if you don't go by the definition but by the spirit of open source Android is not open. Google only makes it as open as is required by the licenses they are obliged to respect. Unfortunately this kind of openness is worthless.

[1] http://opensource.org/docs/osd

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

They haven't released any specifications yet, and won't do until the time is right. Why say were going ship a device with X amount of RAM, Y GHz etc now, when there may be better options or more constraints nearer the time.

Full interview
http://www.ossimantylahti.com/2012/0...ging-director/

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

So by "your" definition OSD is worthless because it is not in accordance to the "spirit" of open source. Please....

Why is a thing popular? Android is popular because it is available and most brands have chosen to use Android as their main OS. That's the real reason.

Keyword is availability. Android is popular because it soars as the most available OS ever to have seen the light of day. More available in every sense of the word than Maemo ever was, not to speak of Harmattan.

That is another nail in the coffin for Jolla. They have no perception for the idea of availability (in a broad sense). Trust me!

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Jolla was very very clear that they would be releasing a consumer product,
ie one that is locked down.

Then they would also release an enthusiastic device, which would cater for the open source community.

The OSS device is not locked down, but rather, open

There are trying to cater for the mass market and then also cater for the hardcore OSS users.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

I don't care if it is hackable or whatever.If they succeed they will show what Nokia could've done with MeeGo.It just shows that MeeGo isn't all dead.And they might add support for custom ROM's if they really succeed (I think i wrote that correctly :) )

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

I think you need to learn to read between the lines here....
Read his comment again, there will be hackability there for those that want it & (ideally) know what they're doing.
It just won't be there OOTB, as it shouldn't be when you're targeting mass-market/mainstream.
I'd be surprised if they had a security framework as convoluted as AEGIS (or one at all), but that remains to be seen.

Oh and here is the original Jolla general discussion thread:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=85315
Let keep it there please, better to have everyone's thoughts/findings focused in the one place.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Source please?

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

I have to disagree. STOP reading between the lines. That's what's been going on with Maemo all the time. People pretending things are better than they actually are. Regarding Jolla, this is it. It won't become more open just because you want it to be more open, just because you have an urge to "read between the lines"

I mean this is totally wacko. A company (Jolla) who can't communicate straight, and a community that can't listen straight, not even when Jolla is communicating straight. I would believe you have learned from 5-6 years with Nokia, but no.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

No. All I'm saying is that strictly going by the OSD may be a necessary condition for a product to be open source but it can't be a sufficient one.
It's the same with all legal definitions. You may have high aims and you may even be able to write them down in a pretty precise way, but all that doesn't help if someone who is obliged to obey to the rules you wrote down doesn't really embrace your reason for formulating them in the first place. He'll always find a way around it so he can still point at your list of rules and say he obeys to all of them but at the same time he can use those tiny gaps that exist in every set of rules to do the exact opposite of what you as a person (not your sheet of rules) originally had in mind.
In that (and only in that) case I say someone's claim to obey to your rules is worthless if he doesn't really share your motifs.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

Have you been READING the main thread & comments from people involved in the project AND closely associated entities?
Apparently not......
No "wackoness" here, but thanks for the compliment, just inferring from what we know, and what has been explained.

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

it's @ facebook, Jolla Pioneer Fans, one of replies on post by Zerstörer Romero
i am not quite sure how to link posts from facebook though

edit:
i never said that Zerstörer Romero works for jolla, but that guy who works for jolla made comment on Zerstörer Romero's post in that group

Re: Jolla phones: not so open
 

He's not a Jolla employee and that facebook group is not official.