So I was listening to the latest episode of The Linux Actionshow podcast today (Season 10, episode 9) and even though I am far from a Linux expert I found the following interesting e I want to see if I was even close to understand what was said

Based on their discussion, about the NITs, they said that Freemantle is the operating layer of the next NIT - but after that it will not be continued as after that Nokia is continuing with QT.

Does that mean that Freemantle in essence is being developed to run on N900 - and that's it?

to my understanding the underlaying libraries won't be changed, so I wouldn't call it DOA.

I think you're right but my understanding is that...uh..correct me if I'm wrong..is that Freemantle is not really an OS in the traditional sense but rather a presentation-layer running ontop of GTK developed apps.

What I gathered from listening to the show is that N900 is the only device that will use this presentation-layer (in much lack of a better word) and that Nokia is moving to QT and a different presentation layer.

I do believe though, to make things even more complicated [for me] that items developed in GTK or QT will still run on the later devices and 'all' that is different is that Freemantle will not be there.

Am I kinda-sorta understanding it correctly?

Note: This is from someone who two months ago thought that Linux was the name of a Penguin.

Good thing so many things will be fixed in Fremantle.

Drink!

[message to short]

Thanks for the pointer!

To answer your question: no. Fremantle brings a lot of new stuff that needs to run in real devices and needs to improve with the feedback of real users and developers. The success of Fremantle is needed for the success of Harmattan.

We have started sharing our Harmattan roadmap soon to clarify a couple of questions that were coming frequently: what is the toolkit strategy and what is the relation with Symbian.

It's also a good practice in open source platforms. Now the Qt path can work with clearer goals in mind, knowing that Maemo is going to be a platform with good support and a significant investment in innovation. And the GTK+ path can start considering what future they want for the Hildon contribution and what is the support level they want to achieve in Fremantle. Since Fremantle hasn't even seen the light as final version there is time to discuss and get organized.

You might be interested reading and listening the original source:

Maemo Harmattan: Qt and more

There is also another thread where this topic has been discussed:

Quim keynote on Maemo's switch to Qt as the main toolkit

If you have further questions please ask. Perhaps better in the thread above.

Fremantle (Maemo 5) is built on later versions of the same libraries which have been used in Maemo since the 770 was released in November 2005. This includes gstreamer, DBUS, gconf and the Gtk+ widget toolkit. Several UI features in Fremantle will use Clutter (for the first time) to give whizzy dynamic effects. In addition, we'll start seeing more third party apps written using a different GUI toolkit: Qt. They'll still be running on the same OS, though.

Harmattan (presumably Maemo 6) is built on many of the same libraries as Fremantle. However, the roles of Gtk+ and Qt are reversed: the core of the user interface will be written using Qt; though third party apps will still be able to use Gtk+. Similarly, Qt has a technology similar to Clutter for doing fancy transitions - necessary to have a compelling user experience in this day and age.

More information, including links back into the appropriate thread here can be found in this LWN feature article on the subject:

http://lwn.net/Articles/341391/

Fremantle is version 5.0 of Maemo. Maemo, is a wide range of different services, APIs and it is a OS in traditional sense. On a standard Ubuntu, you have a lot of different services, APIs, etc as well, and you put them on top of those, X and GTK+, and you run GNOME environment on top of this.

In Harmattan one of the aims is to replace GTK+ plus Hildon with Qt. Many of the same services and APIs will be there, but the default widget toolkit will change. - which probably means that Nokia will rewrite most things facing the user (UI, etc) on top of Qt instead of Gtk/Hildon.

What does this mean for a typical extras developer? Not much, - he can still develop his Gtk+/Hildon application, put it in extras - because Gtk+/Hildon, in Harmattan, would be on maemo.org extras. Same way some people extend the platform with custom libraries - by putting them in extras.

The difference is that Nokia is saying in Harmattan, - Qt is the toolkit we support/develop/etc. And I personally think that's a great choice to make. Targetting Qt specifically instead of a weird combo of Gtk+, with Hildon widgets on top, can only be a benefit - and allow us to put the Maemo platform (system daemons, APIs, etc) and our applications on a lot of different things - Maemo GTK+ is a bad mess for portability.

But, since Maemo is flexible, you can still develop your Gtk+/Hildon applications by simply depending on gtk+/Hildon libraries as usual and putting your application in Extras. The difference would be that gtk+/Hildon is now not part of typically installed SDK, but '3rd-party' and hosted in extras. This is how developers use Qt right now.

Does this mean that Fremantle is DOA? For many Nokia provided applications (user facing ones) - their time has maybe come. For all the new APIs introduced and existing ones, fixed bugs in system daemon A, B, C? No! They'll probably still be there in Harmattan (excepting maybe Clutter, but some may argue that this isn't a loss.).

So, what does it mean that GTK+/Hildon will be "community supported"? What does community want this to mean?

To me, it means that 'community' - our developers are still using these APIs in our applications. We can help out fitting Gtk+/Hildon to eventual Harmattan UI changes. This is already being done with Qt - fitting Qt towards looking/feeling like Hildon. And community is involved in this effort already. So, as long as there's an interest from community to run Hildon API applications on Harmattan, it would be possible to help out and make it happen. And it's probably easier than the Mer effort.

1:52:58! Any pointer (even if approximate) for the Maemo part?

A single use (once per device) OS with the majority of it's UI/presentational layer being replaced and those prior parts being deprecated almost as fast as it comes out spells out (to me) that Fremantle will be as stillborn as Diablo.

The kind ways of stating "no, it'll be continued to be supported by the community" yields no comfort from a future purchase because thrice over people have been limited to a Nokia device that has no clear method to upgrade to the next version using their re-appropriated machine due to either hardware or software limitations.

In this case, it's both. The feelgood speeches cannot deny that wholly. Fremantle will fix current issues in Diablo, require new hardware, allow the community to inherit some of it's architecture, while basically becoming a deadend itself shortly thereafter.