cfh11
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2010-06-07
, 16:50
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Posts: 1,062 |
Thanked: 961 times |
Joined on May 2010
@ Boston, MA
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#1
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2010-06-07
, 17:47
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Posts: 1,296 |
Thanked: 1,773 times |
Joined on Aug 2009
@ Budapest, Hungary
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#2
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2010-06-07
, 19:23
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Posts: 336 |
Thanked: 610 times |
Joined on Apr 2008
@ France
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#3
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The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to CrashandDie For This Useful Post: | ||
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2010-06-08
, 02:21
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Posts: 4,930 |
Thanked: 2,272 times |
Joined on Oct 2007
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#4
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The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to Benson For This Useful Post: | ||
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2010-06-08
, 02:42
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Posts: 11,700 |
Thanked: 10,045 times |
Joined on Jun 2006
@ North Texas, USA
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#5
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Texrat For This Useful Post: | ||
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2010-06-08
, 04:12
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Posts: 1,513 |
Thanked: 2,248 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ US
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#6
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No, it won't. It's a lot easier to write something meant to be open than to open something meant to be closed.
And I'm cautiously optimistic that that's exactly the path they're following -- Maemo 5 is certainly more open than the previous versions, and Meego is definitely shaping up to be more open yet. Given the relative difficulty of running old OSes on new hardware (if only because nobody cares to make it happen), I'd rather have a modern computer with a fully-open platform layer 2 years from now, than have a fully-open (even including applications) Maemo 5 at the same time, and be stuck running it on my N900.
And what does Nokia get, in return for this huge effort and expense, to open old closed-source components?
A measure of community goodwill, from the community surrounding the old device. So opening Diablo would greatly boost Nokia's trust with all the people who won't buy the N900 because they don't want a phone/are married to an incompatible carrier/are presbyopic and need a larger screen, as well as with the old guard who did upgrade. Much less (although still some) effect for people who got in at step 4.
I suppose they may feel some moral relief about no longer providing bugfixes, but corporations don't run on morals.
All in all, making Meego more open seems to have much better ROI.
And I'm cautiously optimistic that that's exactly the path they're following -- Maemo 5 is certainly more open than the previous versions, and Meego is definitely shaping up to be more open yet. Given the relative difficulty of running old OSes on new hardware (if only because nobody cares to make it happen), I'd rather have a modern computer with a fully-open platform layer 2 years from now, than have a fully-open (even including applications) Maemo 5 at the same time, and be stuck running it on my N900.
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2010-06-08
, 05:24
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Posts: 4,930 |
Thanked: 2,272 times |
Joined on Oct 2007
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#7
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First, is that you are of course looking at this from the current perspective. Let's time warp ourselves back to the introduction of Maemo. Maemo was pushed by Nokia as the open source alternative to other mobile platforms and encouraged it in that way (and others did as well). At various points along the way, people realized that Maemo wasn't going to live up to the open source promise. In that sense, we are not in the position, IMHO, of asking Nokia to open something meant to be closed. The community should be allowed to maintain software that was posited as being open and able to be maintained by the community.
Second, Symbian. Closed for many years and never described as open, and yet they did the heavy lifting necessary to open source it when there was no preexisting expectation that they would. It can be done.
The arguments being advanced for opening Maemo components is not ROI or morals. There is a history here and decision shouldn't be made based on a shapshot of today's circumstances. If so, then see my comments below.
Much the same thing could have been said two years ago -
"Maemo 4 is certainly more open than other platforms, and Fremantle is definitely shaping up to be more open yet. Given the relative incompatibility of the new OMAP chips, I'd rather have a modern computer with Fremantle 2 years from now, than have a fully-open (even including applications) Maemo 4 at the same time, and be stuck running it on my N8x0."
See how I did that? It seems like we are in danger of accepting a recurring pattern of using technology upgrades as the reason for abandoning the open source approach.
If so, when does the pattern end? What comes after MeeGo? This is the forced software upgrade roller coaster to which open source Maemo was supposed to be the alternative.
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2010-06-09
, 12:16
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Posts: 1,513 |
Thanked: 2,248 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ US
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#8
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Well, I'm afraid the arguments, coming as they are from multiple people, don't always line up nicely. If I understand it, your perspective is that "They said it would be open; they should do what it takes to fulfill that promise."?
If so, that's well and good for trying to persuade them that they should, but I'd suggest that expecting a corporation to keep a promise made several years ago is not an accurate way to predict what will happen. Fundamentally, I think ROI is the way to try to predict their actions -- you are expecting them to invest significant expense in making some current version of Maemo open-source, and the only reason they actually will do that is an expected return, whether that takes the form of consumer trust (because they're seen to be keeping their word), increased sales, or (if the promise of open-source were legally binding) simply avoiding a lawsuit.
Then again, I guess I should say I never came away from any of their advertising with the notion of any real promise to be completely open, as you apparently did. Maybe my corporate-mouthpieces-are-always-lying filter was tuned too high and blocked it, maybe it's just because I didn't really follow IT news that closely till I got my N800 (shortly after the N810 launch leak) and all the solid promises were before that; I don't know. But as I see it, the promises really don't mean much at this point. If they were made, and are broken, then they obviously weren't worth the $MEDIA they were $PUBLISHed on, and if they weren't then they're also of no effect.
I guess I never saw Maemo or open source in general as some alternative to upgrading. After all, I don't run Linux 2.4 anymore -- how would even a completely open system the eventual need to upgrade to support new hardware and new applications?
To me, the principal benefit of an open-source OS is the hackability, the ability to make it do as I wish now, not the expectation that I'll be able to run it on any new hardware, or that it'll remain useful on current hardware forever. To this end, some components matter much more than others, and it's perfectly acceptable to me that some parts (ones that I can simply skip using) may never be open.