Thread: Get Microsoft to release the goddamn files
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reinob is offline reinob
2015-10-30 , 09:12
Posts: 1,808 | Thanked: 4,272 times | Joined on Feb 2011 @ Germany
#23
Originally Posted by szopin View Post
Do not mistake contractual obligations for the 'will of a company'. Neither Nokia, nor MS wants to keep us around, MS just has to. On the other hand they are trying to be more like Google from the old days, open source happy and community building happy (until they can F that all and concentrate on closed source gapps once everybody believed they are kewl). Which doesn't exactly stop anyone from taking advantage of their open source PR happiness. Hey company X, you state you are for FOSS and even throw a party for debian, why not give us sources. Get a journalist or two on that and maybe we can see results (but apathy and disbelief trumps everything anyway, nevermind)
The problem is that one common reason for keeping software closed is because you don't even own the copyright. Obvious example is the flashplayer for Maemo. Nokia was allowed to distribute it, but could not single-handedly decide to open source it.

If Microsoft were to release the source code of whatever closed bits Maemo has, they would need to ask every single one of the copyright holders for permission (and this is assuming the source code is even available, either to Microsoft or to the original developers).

In short: it ain't gonna happen. Full stop.

For all I care the future, even for the N[eo]900, is either Mer/Nemo or some debian adaptation. We're lucky that the N900 sort-of-works with upstream kernel (though still a lot needs to be done). This puts us in a very very special situation compared to basically every other handset being sold.
 

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