Notices

I am starting this thread to provide knowledge on some of the good work that is happening around Maemo and it's integration with CSSU. More of a food for thought thread information you maybe completely unaware of.

As many will know some of the community developers have re-written stock applications. For the users of these they are providing us with small bug-fixes, portrait support and in many cases much needed extra features.

However a debate has come over including these in CSSU.

The current applications I am thinking of includes:-
Open Media Player
Replacement Worldclock
Qalender
camera-ui2 (aka nicocam)

While many including myself wouldn't mind these replacing the stock application in the future, it can be seen as un-FOSSlike to force these versions on everyone if they are happy with the stock version.

So why I am brothering to tell the community?
Well I am concerned that having the FOSS-alternavites and stock applications installed together long term is a pointless waste of resources.

Also for some of the applications to work or be fully working they need to replace there stock counterparts. Take OMP/MP for example in maemo "applications with name mediaplayer has special permissions in OHM and alsaped" This issue has to be fixed in maemo however alsaped is closed.

Is there a solution?
Yes, by the mammoth job of breaking up the stock metapackage, you could be free to install which version you like. However "as soon as you nuke the metapackage completely, you need to make sure *all* your inter-package dependencies are comprehensive, complete and correct"

There could then be a "FOSS-alternative" metapackage or repository to pull them from individually.

To look at the source of this discussion please see #maemo-ssu logs for Thursday and Friday.

http://mg.pov.lt/maemo-ssu-irclog/%2...07-24T21:53:17

For now there is no problem with them being included into CSSU-Devel repository, however IMO we need to look at the broader picture.

I would applaud some kind of split into cssu-bugfixes and cssu-foss.

Cssu-bugfixes would contain bugfixes, while cssu-foss would also include enhancements and foss alternatives. Hop on the train of choice: just no cssu, bugfix or enhancements/foss.

The current cssu situation (some replacement included like camera-ui2 and the calculator) has led to endlessly repeating discussions on IRC (mostly involving the same person btw).

Let's break that vicious circle, even if it means more repositories to maintain (stable/test versions, but also thumb2?)

And I would not mind busybox-power being included.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

I think that CSSU is a software product. And a product needs a vision and a target.

Keeping closed unmaintained applications in a product when current, maintained applications exist is a wrong policy IMO.

Debian releases new versions every couple of years with new and updated default software. Of course one can change them afterwards, but the project people choosing for their users what they feel is the best greatly affects the success and continuation of the project.

And in the end, if the ultimate goal is the user's choice why not ship an empty CSSU and require the user to install all apps one by one? Why are the apps chosen by Nokia (with clear commercial interest in mind - cherry anyone?) better than what the cssu guys choose? I for one trust the cssu devs more than nokia to choose for me.

Choice is king but this argument can work the same until we ship empty phones and leave everybody create their distro from scratch. Unlimited choice, which probably results in a non-working environment. On the other end of the spectrum is apple, who (correctly) believes that "our customers pay us to make some choices for them" and do not allow the user to use alternative apps, and even disallow "apps that replicate built in apps functionality" from the app store. We should be somewhere on the left side of this, but a well chosen set of default apps that can be changed is in my opinion the golden ratio.

Not all their users have the time or even think about to break the metapackage and test alternatives to see for themselves that they are better. Let's use our collective wisdom to provide them with a better product. It's not depriving them of choice, they can always revert.

This will have a positive effect on the community too. When people get updates to many more applications, and have a constantly up-to-date phone there are more chances they'd contribute. Moreover, we give more credit and gratification to the replacement-apps developers and more users for their apps, giving them incentive to continue.

Hello fellows and thanks again for this article but i would draw to your attention that cssu is still facing problems and conflcts which causes reboot loop and ends up reflashing the device to previews condition

As for me I installed the cssu updates and upgrades and ended by serveral reboot and couldn't restore the back up so i had to reflash to make it works normal so please before anything attempts,

just check the cssu again and make sure no bugs for conflicts

thanks

I would strongly support (as if i 'support' any project...) the "FOSS-alternative" metapackage inside a separate repository to avoid long lasting fight with stubborn repo managers or package devs / CSSU-devs.
There is the thumb2-metapackage as a fine example.

I am happy the response here has been positive.

I also agree the the opinions and ideas above. I hope we can make a step forward now the repositories are in working order.

I think if given the option most users even none TMO users, would like and benefit from the FOSS replacement packages; when considered stable. Obviously this is IMO.

I think the current position of nicocam and calculator in, everything else out is confusing and is having negative effects on the hard working community developers of these rewrites.

Split the CSSU into a 'standard' and an 'extra' edition.

what about the camera and gps issue guys any answers

if there is no soluction just help us to return it to stock camera version it works 100%

Open Media Player and World clock replacement are stable enough to put in extras devel. I tried Qalendar once and it was good but i haven't used it much so can't say anything. beside Camera-Ui is not as stable as Nokia camera ui is. needs more work and also picture quality is not that great and also limited to 85%.

beside can't we replace filemanger with filebox or hamster filer ? or its just too early ? and is default file manger is open source or closed ?

I think your getting a little mixed up.
We are talking about replacing them via CSSU, currently some are in extras-* and some are in CSSU-*.

The file manager is not a re-write and therefore IMO should not be replaced, however I would like to be able to remove osso-filemanager and replace for hamsterfiler.