http://lists.meego.com/pipermail/mee...ne/003253.html

The exchange between the "guest" and the combatative "Senior Product Manager - Nokia, Qt Development Frameworks" was rather interesting...

Meego appears to be sufficiently different animal from Maemo to earn a different set of missteps, but it remains to be seen if Nokia & Co will actually learn any lessons from the original Maemo missteps (which this thread was originally about).

As a mere advanded Linux user (like quite a few of the past and current ITT/Maemo.org members), I can only offer simple personal observations on the goings-on, with no real input on the behind-the-scenes decision-making.

The Maemo "community leaders" (or "representatives") have historically sided with either the actual developer-types or more often than not simply defended the Company.

Even qgil used to be a user and a hacker until he became Nokia's Chief Herder of Maemo Developers, understandably with a new set of priorities and command chains.

Users' input, I'm afraid, has always been extremely limited and that doesn't look to be changing with the Meego approach (where customers/users are expected to be other corporations).


I can only offer two simple observations:

1) Expectations

Expectations tend to be what determines our level of satisfaction or happiness. Neither Maemo users or developers would seem to have had their minimum expectations (Linux-standard openness, continuity, gradually improving usability, support etc.) fulfilled.

Many simply left due dissatisfaction while others remained and desperately (and mostly unsuccessfully) tried to address the perceived shortcomings.

2) Hardware companies controlling "open" software platforms

The original (garage skunkworks-style) Maemo effort was quite unique by carving a little nest within Nokia's traditionally secretive and proprietary garden. When the 770 emerged out of the blue, Nokia's PR managers mouthed the right phrases about openness but little else had changed. Nokia were a Humongous Phone Company after all! The existing engineers had little awareness about pesky complications such as open drivers or accepting user feedback and for the old-school executives any device was only to be focused on until the next device to be promoted came along.


The open-source community (both developers and users, oh and the environment too, let's not totally forget...) tends to expect longer attention spans and at least enough openness to be able to support itself beyond the fast-churning corporate product cycles.

The corporations, which expect to continue controlling the "new and open" software eco-system to their strategic benefit, focus on achieving higher short-term (even quarterly) profits and profit-margins while device designs (hardware and software) remain a somewhat secret competitive asset. In that short term approach accommodating the wider eco-system or pleasing existing end-users is deemed immaterial to the financial bottom end.

The new Meego structure attempts to cater to corporate customers (incl. corporate developers) rather than the traditional developer and user communities. It's "open-source for ivory towers".

What the old communities can now expect as the best case would be to reorganize themselves outside the corporate structures (such as the so-called "Maemo Community Council") and figure out which of the existing or perhaps emerging open or semi-open platforms to rally behind. (past track record can be an advantage or handicap)

What I do however now know from personal experience is that a platform or community controlled by a hardware company (or conglomeration thereof) will not cater to my needs or expectations.

Maybe it will be one of Meego's Linux cousins with slightly different set of priorities? Maybe some smaller hardware companies are willing to go the "vanilla route" by simply providing open enough hardware and using open community-built software (perhaps under support contract)?

I actually have "Intel inside" my desktop and notebook machines thanks to open drivers and open, community-supportable OS.

(While all my family's dumb and semi-dumb phones have, until now, been exclusively by Nokia)

My remaining expectation is to enjoy that experience with handheld, net/notebook and other low-powered devices (with and without cellular radio!) and ARM platform, although open graphics remains a question mark (chief culprits being Nvidia and Imagination).

Don't read too much into that, it's more of a result of MeeGo not living up to it's 1.0 versioning, combined with living on the edge, more than anything else.

That is not a lone thought there, follow http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?t=441 about one such train of thought. Plus, you can alway thank rants of yours truly if you feel it helps put more weight behind more community/maemo.org focus on meego.com (your maemo.org login works there via http://maemo.org/openid/ )

Do we not have a better chance to get something in return for a more focused request, like "finish TFM" or "open Phone" rather than influencing general directions, like "openness"?

No That has been tried with Maemo before.

http://www.allaboutmeego.com/news/it...name_new_f.php
Time to reserve you usernames.

Done, Chief :-)