maemo.org - Talk - View Single Post - Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!

abill_uk	2012-07-05 , 05:34
Banned \| Posts: 3,412 \| Thanked: 1,043 times \| Joined on Feb 2010	#50

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

I probably shouldn't actually reply to the angry people here...

But I did fix the Wikipedia article so it clearly states that it was developed by Nokia and improved upon by the Maemo Community.

You don't have to have all the source code to develop FOR the OS, otherwise no one would be able to develop for Windows. On the other hand it's nice to have the source code to develop ON the OS. But closed drivers hardly matter, otherwise there wouldn't be anywhere near as many video games for Linux that use 3D acceleration, because the current open source drivers for Linux pretty much stink on Linux.

Look at how many improvements CSSU has made on Maemo5. The main reason we want the sources to the binary driver blobs is so that we could update the kernel and make it easier to add new features that way. I'm not even a programmer, and I know that.

I could be incorrect, but Hildon itself is open source, which means all the UI stuff could be tweaked, fixed, etc. I wonder if porting it fully to gtk3 or qt4 or 5 would be beneficial.

Really the big thing is to get Hildon / Fremantle ported to use other hardware, in which case again the closed source binary drivers wouldn't stop that, unless the target platform(s) also have closed source binaries.

There already has been a ton of work done to reverse engineer binary blobs to make them open source, like the battery monitor. The open source version actually works much better on my newer N900, which had a horrible bug where it'd be fully charged, but as soon as I disconnected the cable, it said it was completely drained until I rebooted it. The battery patches fixed that!

I think the CSSU project has been phenomenal. Nokia won't help us, they really can't. So crying to them for source code won't do any good. The ones you should be crying to are the hardware manufacturers that they outsourced parts from. They are the ones with the ability to say "sure, we'll give our code to the community."

slaapliedje

Well well well someone listened and acted, thankyou for that and putting the wiki right !!!.

I have always seen the problems from early on when i joined this community back in feb 2010, and for Nokia to know this community was to develop for the device they manufactured without giving them full access was from my point of view not only stupid but very wrong.

It is the same telling an engineer to populate a pcb with all components and then tell him "oh you are not allowed a soldering iron or solder !!!" rediculous in anyones eyes.

From the start this community had no choice but to reverse engineer component drivers that shouuld have been open to them right from day one, does that not tell you something????.

I am not an angry person believe it or not but i do believe strongly in getting fundermentals right and that is the reason i started the thread to get Nokia to give source, that in turn brought out a lot of truths and arguments and proved to me it was all wrong from the start, Nokia should have developed a device with 100% open component drivers before the idea of a, in this case, a Maemo community to further develop the device in question... the N900.

What should have happened that never did was the council of this community to approach Nokia and call on them to arrange with all 3rd party manufacturers to let open there components for this community, that way this community would have had a fighting chance.

Qgil from the start working with this community knowing full well the problems that occured all the way down the line and never said or did anything to sort out the problems of all the closed source, this is why i have always said it is a joke to get a community involved in further development of Maemo knowing full well the very device to be developed further had many closed components.

Essentially anyone who has a grievence is not allowed to address it direct IF it means bad talk will occur and try to protect the likes of Qgil by either banning, deleteing posts or giving infractions and what for? .... what a joke this community has turned out to be and all because of Nokia and the way they have treated this community right from the start.

The ideal situation never happened... here is the N900 that you can develop and work on, it is completely open and here is the Maemo source code to be getting along with, that way your software and hardware engineers can have everything you need for this development.

Meego is the same as in the N9 that has closed components, stskeeps ridiculed development by saying exacty what was wrong and could do nothing about it because of legal commitments.

The Meego development got so far then stopped, you need to ask yourself why this happened as it was never completed in any way or form for any device, Nokia pulled the plug and the rest is elementry as we all know the situation about Nokia.

It is a crying shame that so many developers got together on this community, realised the problems and in turn slowly left one by one untill only a handfull exist on here today.

I am old school and strongly believe in getting fundamentals right because without them it all falls apart and THAT is exactly what has happened on this community now facing closure because of Nokia who are the problem from the start for many reasons.

IF it had been all open from the start a completely different community would have existed with much success in development of both Maemo and Meego.

SO mr texrat and mr chemist, stay with your stupidity of banning and deleting and giving infractions only to take care of people like Qgil who must not be bothered or talked bad of aye !!!!.

I will watch what happens from here on and always feel sad that it could have been far far different.

Nothing angry about me only sorrow that what could have been is not.