Thread: Should MeeGo developers continue to publish info on this forum for maemo users (wrt Nokia device support)?
View Single Post
tswindell is offline tswindell
2011-06-13 , 22:19
Posts: 724 | Thanked: 1,255 times | Joined on Nov 2007 @ Cambridge, UK
Originally Posted by woody14619 View Post
And now I wildly diverge and hop into something I probably shouldn't:



As you said earlier, "If that's how you feel, then that is unfortunate."

I feel, like many, that MeeGo has taken too long to get to the meager point it's at right now. Despite your insistence otherwise, it still has several issues on the N900, many of which were talked about at the most recent conference. Even the presenters indicated that this is not ready for general consumption nor every-day use on the N900, yet. MMC vanishing at times, SMS not alerting, Wifi is unstable, and the accelerometer sensors are still not working. You'll note that I included links to the open bugs on the live bug database to indicate where I get my info on this from, since you've been claiming people aren't current on the status of DE/CE when saying things don't work.
You raise fair points, MeeGo up until 2 1/2 months ago on the N900 was at the whim of contributors who were mostly scratching itches and getting odd bits & bogs working. When Nokia got involved and created the N900 Community Edition project (previously Developer Edition), we suddenly got a huge amount of momentum, because for the first time we actually had clear goals and targets. And they were simple and achievable. So recently MeeGo for the N900 has become a much more active and viable option.

Originally Posted by woody14619 View Post
Again, I hope it improves, and that the bug count goes down. It's already surpassed the capabilities of many of it's predecessors on other platforms (OpenMoko comes to mind). But it's simply not solid enough for most people to switch over to for daily use right now. Saying otherwise is the same trap parents fall into claiming their kid is "special". In this case, the "special kid" is MeeGo and it just got a C-. Followed by a small chunk of the devel community is screaming "What?! It should have gotten at least a B+ or even an A!" You don't get to grade your own kid for a reason... (Even home-schoolers have standardized tests.)
I guess there's a misconception of what we're doing here. We've always said MeeGo on the N900 will never be ready for "end users" it's not yet and probably never will be a goal for the project. And that is probably fundamentally the issue when posting things about MeeGo on this forum. There are a lot of vocal users, who feel Nokia have burned them somehow and think we're trying to create something for them in MeeGo, well, we're not. When I talk about MeeGo on talk.maemo.org, I'm targetting the developers, we need people to port apps to the platform and help us make it more complete, so we're trying to attract more involvement from maemo developers and grow our community.

I've been in the maemo community a long time, and I'm sorry if I still think that this place is meant for those of us that have been using maemo for the past 5-6 years and developing for it, these are the people we're addressing when we talk about MeeGo, the goals have always been clear.

Originally Posted by woody14619 View Post
The same was said for Android. The same has been said about many systems with semi-closed bits. Open is open, closed is closed, mixed is mixed. Maemo and MeeGo are both shades of mixed, since as you noted, parts of both are only available via NDA. That's a reality that's yet to be broken (even by OM), since some hardware bits are closed by their very nature (e.g. GSM). MeeGo has a more open UI, great. But it's hardware level stuff is just about on par with Maemo as far as what's open and whats still under NDA (aka closed). Slant the glass all you want, in the end it's not completely open, and probably never will be.
Android was never said to have any kind of an open governance, you're completely at the whim of Google. As for hardware, got nothing to add to what has already been said

Originally Posted by woody14619 View Post
So... That's my say on the issue. Take it as you will. I don't suspect much will change here, even with the rash of points and suspensions going on. But at least I got my two cents in before being banned.
I think your post was one of the better constructively critical posts on the subject. And I appreciate the time you took to write it
 

The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to tswindell For This Useful Post: