Maemo 5 Reveals its Features [Archive] - maemo.org

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 13:46

Oh, and it looks like it's now official: no Maemo 5 for the current tablets.

Now, that said, let's just jump right past the "whining and complain" stage and move straight to the "let's do something about it" stage, shall we? :)

Say whatever you will about there not being official support for current tablets with Fremantle (I'd, personally, prefer it if you took your complaints to customer care where it's more likely to get to the ears of the people who make these decisions), but Fremantle is more more open than previous releases, which means the community is significantly more enabled (and encouraged) to see to providing their own support this time around.

This early release comes with an invitation to build variants based on Maemo 5 compatible with existing hardware like the N800 and N810. Maemo SW can't promise commercial quality for such configurations but through maemo.org we are able to collaborate at a community level with technical support, license changes and code.

tso

2008-12-08, 13:57

Now, that said, let's just jump right past the "whining and complain" stage and move straight to the "let's do something about it" stage, shall we? :)

all for that, as long as we dont get a "resources" split down the road...

luca

2008-12-08, 14:26

Fremantle is more more open than previous releases, which means the community is significantly more enabled (and encouraged) to see to providing their own support this time around.
Given that a competent staff working full time on it has basically given up with omap2 (they say due to the difficulty of maintaining compatibility) I'm skeptical that a yet-not-so-big community can fill the void.
I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 14:28

Given that a competent staff working full time on it has basically given up with omap2 (they say due to the difficulty of maintaining compatibility) I'm skeptical that a yet-not-so-big community can fill the void.

You say that like they've got unlimited resources and free time. . . .

Un27Pee

2008-12-08, 14:31

I hope we don't stick with Diablo on the N810, at least change the name, Glad that there will be some collaborations to allow further development on current devivecs

eiffel

2008-12-08, 14:40

I hope we don't stick with Diablo on the N810, at least change the name
"Elephantia" is available.

luca

2008-12-08, 15:08

You say that like they've got unlimited resources and free time. . . .
No, I said it like the community (the part of it able to do it, so I'm not included) is very small and it has even less resources and free time (which maybe could be better used to improve the debian port and tap into an immensely bigger community).
I've said it then and I'll say it again: I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.

Reggie

2008-12-08, 15:31

Nokia has just announced the new Maemo 5 SDK. The 100% open source pre-alpha release is currenlty aimed at platform developers allowing them to take a peek at the new Kernel as well as new components coming to Maemo for the first time, notably OMAP3 support, cellular data connectivity, high-definition camera support, and harware-based graphic accelleration.

A new revamped UI and a new media application framework is expected to be released soon, taking advatage of the new OMAP 3 architecture, as well as the built-in graphics acceleration. Because of this, support for OMAP2 devices (Nokia N800, N810) will not be officially provided. An invitation is extended to developers however, to build variants of Maemo5 that would work with the older devices.Read the full article. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/2008/12/08/maemo-5-reveals-its-features/)

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 15:39

No, I said it like the community (the part of it able to do it, so I'm not included) is very small and it has even less resources and free time.

Nokia decided not to push an official backport for a variety of reasons, most of them business related, but none of which include "completely impossible". Your argument seems to be that Nokia simply doesn't have enough resources to do it, but the reality is more "it doesn't make good business sense to devote the amount of resources it would require (and thus take them away from Fremantle proper) to develop an official backport".

The community has a number of advantages over Nokia in pushing their own backport. First, they're not hindered by any of Nokia's "quality" or "support" requirements, so they're free to make shortcuts and implement hacks where necessary that Nokia isn't. Second, they're crippled by long release pipelines. Third, and finally, they can dedicate their free time to whatever they want to and don't need to focus on Fremantle.

All of this makes the community faster, more agile, and more capable of getting the job done than Nokia.

(which maybe could be better used to improve the debian port and tap into an immensely bigger community)

Debian is a dead end for a mobile platform. You'll never see battery life on the same level as Maemo, and it really doesn't provide the answers and solutions you think it does.

Mer (http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer_Blueprint) is the direction to work towards, not trying to shoehorn a server- and desktop-oriented distribution into a mobile device it was never intended for.

Stskeeps

2008-12-08, 15:56

For good measure..
"A new revamped UI and a new media application framework dubbed "Ohm" "

It's not a media application framework. It's Open Hardware Manager (http://ohm.freedesktop.org/wiki/).

hyartep

2008-12-08, 15:58

i am really sorry nokia decided to break api and support for (older) hardware once more, despite their promises.

i'm afraid i am not able to trust them, that maemo5 and the next device will be supported for at least 2 years.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 15:58

A new revamped UI and a new media application framework dubbed “Ohm” is expected to be released soon, taking advatage of the new OMAP3 architecture, as well as the built-in graphics acceleration.

Also note that there's no new UI in this release. :)

i am really sorry nokia decided to break api and support for (older) hardware once more, despite their promises.

API breaks have little to do with hardware support here.

i'm afraid i am not able to trust them, that maemo5 and the next device will be supported for at least 2 years.

Was 2 years the promise? No. It was 2 releases.

luca

2008-12-08, 16:10

Your argument seems to be that Nokia simply doesn't have enough resources to do it, but the reality is more "it.

Hey, it's not my argument (I'm not knowledgeable enough on the low level details to have an opinion), it's their announcement that says so: The revamped UI relying on graphics acceleration and the new functionality built around the new supported hardware made it too complex to keep the compatibility between both architectures.

For the rest of your comment I just hope you are right (regarding maemo, not debian)

Khertan

2008-12-08, 16:11

Things like that could not be well understand by many people ...

.... i can just hope ....

Reggie

2008-12-08, 16:11

It's not a media application framework. It's Open Hardware Manager (http://ohm.freedesktop.org/wiki/).

Corrected. Thanks!

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 16:11

I'd also like to emphasise, again, that this release is not intended for consumption by users or even application developers. It is targeted at platform developers only. So please keep that in mind when making judgements about it. :)

Frank Banul

2008-12-08, 16:14

Oh really?

API breaks have little to do with hardware support here.

We expect an API break between Maemo 4 and Maemo 5, mainly due to the OMAP3 support, the hardware-based graphics acceleration and the changes in the Desktop UI and the Realtime Communication framework. (http://maemo.org/news/announcements/first_maemo_5_sdk_release_targeting_platform_devel opers/)

OMAP3 would be hardware, hardware-based graphics acceleration would again be hardware. The other two would seem to be software. 50% > little in my opinion.

Frank

hyartep

2008-12-08, 16:14

Was 2 years the promise? No. It was 2 releases.

1. i know the promise was for 2 releases. however, there were no 2 releases (i do not consider fix as release) (and main reason for diablo was to ease updates - unfortunately, there will be none except for critical fixes).

2. i consider 2 years as standard time for support of software release.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 16:17

Hey, it's not my argument (I'm not knowledgeable enough on the low level details to have an opinion), it's their announcement that says so: The revamped UI relying on graphics acceleration and the new functionality built around the new supported hardware made it too complex to keep the compatibility between both architectures.

For Nokia, but, like I've said, the community isn't bound by the same limitations as Nokia. So the complexity involved is reduced—we don't need to support everything they'd have to support, and our support level in certain areas doesn't have to be up to Nokia's level. We can ship a distribution with DSP-accelerated OpenGL rendering, or just stripped of OpenGL dependencies, but Nokia can't.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 16:32

Oh really?

Yes, really.

We expect an API break between Maemo 4 and Maemo 5, mainly due to the OMAP3 support, the hardware-based graphics acceleration and the changes in the Desktop UI and the Realtime Communication framework. (http://maemo.org/news/announcements/first_maemo_5_sdk_release_targeting_platform_devel opers/)

OMAP3 would be hardware, hardware-based graphics acceleration would again be hardware. The other two would seem to be software. 50% > little in my opinion.

Stuff like GTK breaks don't have a thing to do with hardware, and OpenGL support is still a software issue (drivers, remember?). OMAP3-support isn't really an API issue, but a capability issue.

Frank Banul

2008-12-08, 16:45

allnameswereout

2008-12-08, 16:49

I just had a look at http://repository.maemo.org/unstable/fremantle/maemo4.1.1_vs_5.0prealpha_content_changes.html

Is there a reason why some packages have -debug and other -dbg? Most are called -dbg, but there is also hildon-application-framework-debug.

I wonder what is non-free about libspeex1.

Aside from this, what was promised is delivered... :)

allnameswereout

2008-12-08, 16:52

I think there is a common theme here. Nokia claims hardware is 2 out of 4 of the reasons for API breakage. GA claims rightfully so that it's not really hardware differences for the breakage. It's a business decision. Call it what it is and move on.

FrankWell, surely the packages will be compiled with optimized settings for OMAP3. If you read the announcement you'd notice Quim invites the community to backport to OMAP2/N8x0.

Nokia is just not going to put energy into this. Can't blame them, they sell hardware (and services). Not Maemo 5.0...

neatojones

2008-12-08, 16:59

Frank Banul

2008-12-08, 17:01

Does the compiler settings difference mean even if the community back ports Maemo 5 to OMAP2 that Maemo 5/OMAP2 applications would need their own repository?

So we would end up with an application being compiled (potentially) for:
Maemo 5/OMAP3 (OS2009?)
Maemo 5/OMAP2 (OS2009HE?)
Maemo 4 (OS2008)
Maemo 3 (OS2007)
Maemo 2 (OS2006)

Frank

Peter@Maemo Marketing

2008-12-08, 17:13

Nokia is just not going to put energy into this.

Actually, we will be supporting this community project. We don't just send an invite and then disappear.

We have various things that are being worked on right now to help the community such as defining license terms in a way that the community can build and use variants. We also made much more components open source than ever previously in order to support this activity. There might be still components that the project need in order to succeed and we will try to make them available too. What we can't do within the next months is put lots of people working on the kernel and lower layers to make the backport. That is too complex to be feasible without delaying the work on the lead device. But even that we don't want to influence the ongoing work for the lead device of Maemo 5, we did get help from the core development team to make this pre-alpha SDK happen. In this case, it was a fix needed to run the Maemo 4 UI on top of Maemo 5 software stack. Small but valuable things.

allnameswereout

2008-12-08, 17:28

What does "cellular data connectivity" mean? I thought we already could already connect to cellular devices and cellular data networks. I'm missunderstanding something because I doubt he's saying that these are going to be able to be used as day to day cell phones.Short version: On-board, data-only HS*PA on the new Maemo/'NIT'.

Long version: This means, as sneak-peaked on the Maemo summit september 2008, that the device running Maemo 5 (as codename its usually called 'N900') might have cellular data connectivity on-board, without using a protocol to tether such as BlueTooth and without using an external device such as a phone.

Peter@Maemo Marketing

2008-12-08, 17:32

Short version: On-board, data-only HS*PA on the new Maemo/'NIT'.

We will be supporting on-board HSPA i.e. both HSDPA and HSUPA.

neatojones

2008-12-08, 17:49

So, basically, reincarnated WiMAX and SIP (or something similar) will still be required to call others. Now, that you mentioned it, I remember a discussion about that back in Sept.

lardman

2008-12-08, 18:04

So there are a number of reasons for the break - greater processing capabilities of the OMAP3 platform (including support for hw acceleration of OpenGL, though this is something that might be possible for our OMAP2s with either some reverse engineering or some words in the right places, I am ever hopeful). This means that the new UI may be too much for our OMAP2 devices (though we should have a damn good try when it's finally released, closer to the device release date).

Next issue with supporting the OMAP2 platform is the addition of the hi def camera and always-connected HSPA. I imagine this will fundamentally change the applications that are provided and the way the device is used. I can understand Nokia not wanting to release a version for the OMAP2 devices which is hobbled and whose apps don't work as designed, etc.

We can still try to get a decent version working on the OMAP2, it won't be perfect (which is why Nokia aren't wanting to do it officially), but we should be able to get something pretty decent - either "Diablo on steroids" (current ui), or if we manage to make/steal ;) a driver perhaps even the new UI. Many of the new apps probably won't work very well (crap camera, not always-on connectivity), but at the very least we should benefit from the back-end changes (library updates, messaging, etc.)

I should add here that Nokia are keen to support our efforts to do this, by the licensing changes that Peter mentioned, and by opening up components that we might need to get this working. They are behind this, but not for official releases.

So, let's get cracking and see if we can get a Fremantle (with Diablo-ui) running on the OMAP2 tablets :) and in the fullness of time, we can give the OpenGL version a try too!

lcuk

2008-12-08, 18:38

oooooh yeah!

firstly, a big thank you to the guys within Nokia who have actually delivered on part one :)

As for backports or alternatives, I am with you all the way on that lardman, lets see where we can get to. We have seen marked improvements in many technical areas this year and the DSP ogl stuff sounds like an interesting bit of lateral thinking :)

one thing, even with always on hspa we cannot assume always connected ;)
We wouldn't want our users to be up the creek without a paddle with no connection for normal apps. This is doubly so if we are considering a port to other non devices with lesser capabilities.

bring forth the hardware!!

hyartep

2008-12-08, 19:09

Nokia is just not going to put energy into this. Can't blame them, they sell hardware (and services). Not Maemo 5.0...

well, i bought my tablet, because they promised they would make at least 2 proper OS releases.

btw - nokia do not sell hardware, they sell products.
as for services - who will buy service for abandoned product?

i hoped, that with n800/n810 still supported, they could provide lo-price product along with "powerfull" and probably pricier "n900".

qole

2008-12-08, 19:10

Was 2 years the promise? No. It was 2 releases.

...And do you now believe that they've lived up to that promise?

Picklesworth

2008-12-08, 19:11

So there are a number of reasons for the break - greater processing capabilities of the OMAP3 platform (including support for hw acceleration of OpenGL, though this is something that might be possible for our OMAP2s with either some reverse engineering or some words in the right places, I am ever hopeful). This means that the new UI may be too much for our OMAP2 devices (though we should have a damn good try when it's finally released, closer to the device release date).
...

Something tells me the iPhone Linux project could get us a decent reverse-engineered PowerVR driver down the line, so I too am holding out hope. Major shame to see the N810 WE being forgotten, given that it released with Diablo so has seen none of the big upgrades. It's beyond me why Diablo would implement an on-device flashing utility if it's going to be unused. Good luck proving me wrong and surprising us all with a Fremantle backport that supports the N8*0!

Even if the UI stays the same (or gets simpler / lighter), I would be pleased with some of the new technologies being fit in like PulseAudio and a new version of Telepathy. (Speaking of which, will Fremantle finally package telepathy-butterfly? It has always been beyond my understanding why nobody has done so).

qole

2008-12-08, 19:14

So it looks like the kernel is 2.6.27, so the first thing we need to do is get that kernel (and any associated drivers, such as WiFi) running under Maemo 4.

gonzo1082

2008-12-08, 19:16

kinda makes me want to sell my n810w and wait for the n900 to come out. any guesses on release dates?

hyartep

2008-12-08, 19:43

Something tells me the iPhone Linux project could get us a decent reverse-engineered PowerVR driver down the line, so I too am holding out hope.

unfortunately, i am not hopeful, we could get decent hw 3d support.

some chips are designed to be unusable without some secret knowledge. this info you receive only if you licence the technology.

nokia probably wanted to save money and considered 3d support unimportant at the time, so they decided not to licence 3d, imho.

(the same way you could in the past buy multi-processor workstation, with only one cpu working, another cpu(s) where only functional after "upgrade", even if it was only sw upgrade)

bow

2008-12-08, 19:59

gonzo1082

2008-12-08, 20:15

i feel somewhat cheated since i just bought my n810w. i guess that's what i get for not doing as much research into the device before buying.

bow

2008-12-08, 20:27

i feel somewhat cheated since i just bought my n810w. i guess that's what i get for not doing as much research into the device before buying.

Whilst I see your point on one hand I have to say, on the other hand, you've got the benefit of having just tapped into a fairly mature ecosystem of good apps, and can look forward to at least half a year of use before any new hardware comes along. If you'd waited, you'd be without for that time.

The existing software and hardware is -good- and won't get any worse for having a newer, shinier bigger brother. And I think there's going to be a lot of community-support for the n810we for quite some time, seeing as how there's a lot of n8x0-s out there already, in the hands of loving owners.

I've enjoyed every single day with my n800, and if I lost it, I'd buy another one directly, even knowing that the "n900" is on (the far) horizon. It's that good.

Hope you enjoy your new machine as much as I've enjoyed mine, and that the cheated feeling eventually goes away! They're lovely little toys!

wazd

2008-12-08, 20:27

Great news, just right time for my blog superpost =)

deeteroderdas

2008-12-08, 20:27

i feel somewhat cheated since i just bought my n810w. i guess that's what i get for not doing as much research into the device before buying.

Why? Does your n810w do what you want it to do now? Will it stop doing those things when the N900 is released?

I can't count the times I've bought a laptop or television, dvd player, etc, where something better didn't come out (often for the same or less $$$) a month or two later. But what I bought scratched an itch when I bought it and continued to do so for quite a long time.

It's the nature of electronics in general, and computer systems are extremely vulnerable to this "planned obsolescence".

gtaguy

2008-12-08, 20:30

I am a new user of these nokia tablets.
3 weeks ago i finally bit the bullet and decided to buy the n810. IT cost me almost 500.00 after taxes :eek:
then a week and a half ago they release the wimax edition.:eek: .
I go and i look at the nokia website for the tradeup program and all i can get for my tablet now is 120 american dollars.:eek:

Now i am reading on this board (which by the way is top notch) that the next version of the software will come out but will not be supported by the current tablets hardware.. :eek::mad:
Apart from the fact that i am loving every minute with the tablet, I can't help feeling dupped in everyway.. sure i might have been one of the last ppl reading these forums to purchase a nokia tablet , late , way late in the game but there has to be some understanding from the manufacturer.. If not a promise of future compatibility with the hardware , atleast one hell of a price break on thier "old and soon to be outdated hardware"...

as for the researching of this device .. i exhausted myself learning as much as possible on the features.. but never did i encounter a website , blog, review indicating that this hardware is about to become obsolete..

polossatik

2008-12-08, 20:37

I'm really curious about the "license" change....
I got the feeling in the thread about using maemo on the (open)pandora there was not much understanding about my reservations, but it looks like this was picked up after all...
nice...

tso

2008-12-08, 20:39

(the same way you could in the past buy multi-processor workstation, with only one cpu working, another cpu(s) where only functional after "upgrade", even if it was only sw upgrade)

iirc, IBM used a similar "trick" with their server products.

wanted to upgrade to more cpus or something? they send over a tech to move a jumper to enable said cpus...

kortsi

2008-12-08, 20:53

We will be supporting on-board HSPA i.e. both HSDPA and HSUPA.

What about voice support? I really, really hate carrying both a tablet and a phone. A tablet + a headset would be much better...

eiffel

2008-12-08, 21:28

...never did i encounter a website , blog, review indicating that this hardware is about to become obsolete..
That's because your hardware isn't about to become obsolete.

All we're seeing now is a pre-alpha of part of the new software. The new hardware won't be out for ages. Who knows? Six months, nine months, a year? There are going to be loads and loads more N810s sold before the new hardware comes out.

So enjoy your N810!

Regards,
Roger

Benson

2008-12-08, 21:31

What about voice support? I really, really hate carrying both a tablet and a phone. A tablet + a headset would be much better...

Nokia has stated that the first iteration will not have voice calls, but VOIP is always possible. They left it open to voice later, but it was not clear to me whether that will be a hardware or software issue.

deeteroderdas

2008-12-08, 22:21

Texrat

2008-12-08, 22:25

No, I said it like the community (the part of it able to do it, so I'm not included) is very small and it has even less resources and free time (which maybe could be better used to improve the debian port and tap into an immensely bigger community).

I highly doubt your supposition is true.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 22:30

...And do you now believe that they've lived up to that promise?

No, qole, I do not. :rolleyes: Did the content of my post say I did?

If we're going to revile Nokia for not providing official support, we should at least do it accurately.

Texrat

2008-12-08, 22:30

.. i exhausted myself learning as much as possible on the features.. but never did i encounter a website , blog, review indicating that this hardware is about to become obsolete..

That's because, as others have pointed out: it isn't.

A new device does not make your current one cease to work.

New firmware does not cause your current OS to expire.

Since the N810WE just came out, it and the regular N810 can look forward to at least another year's official support and who-knows-how-much unofficial (community) support.

I have to say I am extremely frustrated with the abuse of the word "obsolete". I wish people would throttle down a bit.

EDIT: the proper term you're looking for is supersede(d). But don't worry; I used to work with documentation professionals who confused the two every day. :D

Matan

2008-12-08, 22:31

lardman

2008-12-08, 22:46

I've asked about that and was told that it will be possible to provide a binary to return the battery information for use in the Diablo-on-steroids/Fremantle effort.

b-man

2008-12-08, 22:46

It looks like the news made it to Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/08/maemo-5-os-gets-pre-alpha-release-specs-beyond-your-wildest-ima/), as expected...

harpgliss

2008-12-08, 22:54

Hi,

I have never bought a pda or equivalent thinking I was going to be able to upgrade the OS for the life of the device.

I do know there have been representations of this being available for the IT but at the same time, but as other have said, if it does not happen, your device works as well as it did.

One of my favorite devices is my TH55 Clie and it has been out of production for years and still does what it was designed for today as it did when first bought.

Yes, it would be great to have updates forever but just not practical.

If you dislike the direction of things, speak with your credit card and buy something else.

Enough people do this, it will make statement.

My post here is not to say the arguments in this thread, both sides, are not valid.

I just have a different look on the subject.

David

keitai

2008-12-08, 22:55

Show me where in the alpha SDK source is the code to read N800 battery level or to control charging of battery, , or please, please, please, stop this talk about "community porting Fremantle to N800/N810".

I find it soo paradoxical that Maemo community (ok, _some_ people in the community) feel so betrayed when there is some closed code somewhere. Yet In the other end we have Iphonelinux team that has reverse engineered a 100% closed system with no docs, and is already booting Linux on it.

"Bwaa, the wifi driver is closed, we can't maintain a community edition"
"Ok, heres a open wifi driver"
"*crickets*"

Would the same thing happen if charging would suddenly go OSS?

If, in fact you have something like MER or deblet already pretty much working from the already open bits, you are going to be in a much better negotiation position to discuss howto redistribute/open up the remaining legacy stuff.

Stskeeps

2008-12-08, 22:58

Show me where in the alpha SDK source is the code to read N800 battery level or to control charging of battery, , or please, please, please, stop this talk about "community porting Fremantle to N800/N810".

Okay. Let's bring some sanity into this thread.

1) It's pretty decently understood how to get this information out of whatever chip takes care of it. You can find small utility programs laying about for that.
2) Nokia has actually been quite nice and provided a hald-addon-bme, in a nice seperated deb. Show your model number and you can download it. I used it in Deblet. It plugs in even my own custom compiled HAL, and shows itself as a battery like on any laptop PC.
3) http://wiki.maemo.org/Objective:Maemo_variants

From here (http://maemo.org/news/announcements/first_maemo_5_sdk_release_targeting_platform_devel opers/):

Quote:

This early release comes with an invitation to build variants based on Maemo 5 compatible with existing hardware like the N800 and N810. Maemo SW can't promise commercial quality for such configurations but through maemo.org we are able to collaborate at a community level with technical support, license changes and code.

--
Quote from Peter@Marketing:

"
Actually, we will be supporting this community project. We don't just send an invite and then disappear.

We have various things that are being worked on right now to help the community such as defining license terms in a way that the community can build and use variants. We also made much more components open source than ever previously in order to support this activity. There might be still components that the project need in order to succeed and we will try to make them available too."

Have you any idea how much of a favour Nokia is doing for us right here? They're actually saying, - yes, we're interested in helping you out, yes, we'll look at what (you say) needs to relicensed to accomplish this goal. What we really need is to get organized and get started and start finding out how much we need Nokia to do.

I'm sitting neck deep in hildon building right now, and I'm quite happy with the things Nokia has open sourced just now. A community edition is -definately- in reach. They even did us a huge favour and ported hildon-desktop (diablo UI) to maemo 5 APIs (we owe a guy there a good couple of beers).

They'll even release OHM, as a replacement for closed MCE and DSME. So, things are definately going in the right direction. No, a 100% open source distribution probably isn't possible, without tiny binary blobs that would probably be redistributable/"only usable on tablets.". But that's a quite minor thing compared to what Nokia has released to us.

We'll release some more information on the Mer project and how to participate, soon enough once the dust has settled.

But for now, look at http://picasaweb.google.com/meizirkki/NokiaN810Mer , http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/mer-loadadv.png , http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Reconstructed , http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer_Blueprint , http://launchpad.net/m-r and
http://jaiku.com/channel/reconstructedPOC - it really is possible to get things running in a sane manner.

tso

2008-12-08, 23:20

I find it soo paradoxical that Maemo community (ok, _some_ people in the community) feel so betrayed when there is some closed code somewhere. Yet In the other end we have Iphonelinux team that has reverse engineered a 100% closed system with no docs, and is already booting Linux on it.

first off, the iphone is the media darling. do anything with it and you have instant status in the tech world.

end result, more interest and more eyeballs.

second, unless nokia brings out a surprise in a ssu, there are some closed source parts that either have a bothersome bug (connectivity applet not seeing saved networks) or cant be tinkered with (browser ui, basically the software giving the tablets a reason to exist in the first place).

funny thing is, had nokia left us with chinook, im not sure as many would be calling foul...

gene.cash

2008-12-08, 23:20

Man, as long as it runs Python & pyGTK, has a nice high-resolution screen, couple-days battery life and fits in my pocket, I don't care if it runs by magical fairies.

I'm keepin' my N800 running Bora, TYVM. I don't see an advantage to any of this other fancy stuff to justify buying a new device, especially if it costs me in battery life.

I'm still shocked my touchscreen still works and has never need recalibration. Palm sure as hell never could manage that one.

lardman

2008-12-08, 23:29

I'm keepin' my N800 running Bora

Hmm, Diablo is significantly better, why not upgrade?

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 23:32

I'm keepin' my N800 running Bora, TYVM. I don't see an advantage to any of this other fancy stuff to justify buying a new device, especially if it costs me in battery life.

Why is the world would it cost you battery life?

You do realize the OMAP3 is significantly more efficient than the OMAP2, right? It consumes almost exactly the same amount of power as an OMAP2 for 2-3 times the performance. Which, of course, means that for any given task you'll be getting to idle 2-3 times more quickly on OMAP3 than when performing that same task on OMAP2, and that means your CPU will be spending significantly more time idle (and, thus, not consuming power).

With ARM CPUs, your goal is to get to idle as quickly as possible (race-to-idle) because when you're at idle, the CPU is off and not consuming power (in fact, the OMAP3 consumes even less power at idle than the OMAP2). So assuming power consumption per clock doesn't rise, you'll get better battery life from a faster CPU that spends more energy for shorter periods of time than a slower CPU that spends less energy for longer.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-08, 23:33

Hmm, Diablo is significantly better, why not upgrade?

Let's not open that can of worms (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23147), OK? ;)

lma

2008-12-08, 23:43

"Bwaa, the wifi driver is closed, we can't maintain a community edition"
"Ok, heres a open wifi driver"
"*crickets*"

This is completely wrong of course. Go read bug 677 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=677)/2006 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2006) where a long-standing (since Mistral at least) critical (crashing the entire machine and corrupting data) bug was fixed practically as soon as the sources became available and made thousands of 770s usable again even after Nokia had officially abandoned them (guess what, you still can't get an official Nokia firmware image containing the fix - it's either Hacker Edition or patch-it-yourself).

Thanks to everyone involved BTW!

tso

2008-12-09, 02:18

To bad there is no community fix for wsod...

smilerliu

2008-12-09, 04:09

I really don't get the negativity... So what if Fremantle won't run on our old N8x0-s? For my beloved n800, Diablo does the job, letting me read ebooks, listen to music, watch videos, rdesktop onto my server to do stuff on a powerful machine, etc. I'll be able to go on doing all those things even if my n800 never ever gets another upgrade. Sure, diablo ain't perfect, but it ain't all that bad either, and the software we already have for it is great.

Do we only want OS-s that run on obsolete hardware? Backwards compatability is nice in theory, but rarely really works out. I want great new hardware, and great new software to run on it, optimized to run on that hardware. If that means
having to eventually stop -upgrading- my old machine, so be it.

Look to the possibilities and the future, not to the past!

It's all about the support. Once maemo5 is out, the developers (either from Nokia, Skype, etc or from the maemo community) will stop working to develop/compile/patch for maemo4. Then we have at least one serious problem: security. I don't know what others think, but I would never input serious passwords/credit card numbers in an OS if no one is patching the security holes (BTW, this is why I would never install the vim-7.0 available in the extras repository; not sure whether the security flaw from the official release is patched, but don't want to risk it).

I think why so many people are complaining is because they are doubtful about how much support the maemo community can provide without Nokia's "official backport". Is the community able to deliver a stripped-down (I don't really care much about the new eye-candy UI) version of maemo5 for N810? If not, can the community continue to fix serious problems (especially security related) in Diablo? Only time can tell...

fragos

2008-12-09, 04:26

From my perspective what would make me most happy is to see the applications I use, e.g. GPE family, continue to improve on my N810. I will look to an N810 replacement when it's no longer capable of doing the basics I need from a digital assistant. WiFi meets my mobile networking needs without sending me to the poor house and controling my useage and choices the way cell carriers do.

gerbick

2008-12-09, 05:32

Despite feeling like I've been somewhat burned with my prior 770/N810 purchases, this is honestly exciting news.

Can't wait to see what the community and Nokia comes up with.

qgil

2008-12-09, 06:13

It's all about the support. Once maemo5 is out, the developers (either from Nokia, Skype, etc or from the maemo community) will stop working to develop/compile/patch for maemo4.

There are more 4.1 maintenance releases in the pipeline. The Diablo future is quite open at the moment, and most of the possible scenarios include some kind of interaction with / ownership of the Maemo community.

There is no need to hurry. Maemo 5 has still a long way before it becomes the main reference. Let's look at the new code, let's detect the Nokia obstacles in the community way and let's find the most reasonable solutions. Stskeeps, GeneralAntilles and others are already doing this (and they didn't even wait for yesterday's release, btw).

Matan

2008-12-09, 08:52

Okay. Let's bring some sanity into this thread.

1) It's pretty decently understood how to get this information out of whatever chip takes care of it. You can find small utility programs laying about for that.
2) Nokia has actually been quite nice and provided a hald-addon-bme, in a nice seperated deb. Show your model number and you can download it. I used it in Deblet. It plugs in even my own custom compiled HAL, and shows itself as a battery like on any laptop PC.
3) http://wiki.maemo.org/Objective:Maemo_variants

1) I know there is such a utility, I wrote it. But we don't even know if BME uses this voltage(?) ADC reading, or reads mAh directly from battery (it does have three terminals).

2) It works with your custom compiled HAL. Will it works with my system using Fremantle HAL and libraries? Will it works with someone else's GCC5 compiled system? If Nokia wants to see a thriving system programming community they need to give us source or information, not binaries.

3) Thanks for this pointer. It clearly shows that there are quite large stumbling blocks left by Nokia for "community system". The binaries necessary for system operations need to be distributable. I don't see any progree in that direction for the three years that this subject is coming up. Is it legal to distribute a Deblet image containing hald-addon-bme?

pycage

2008-12-09, 09:42

To bad there is no community fix for wsod...

When WSOD happens, the hardware breaks, and there's no fix except for replacing the LCD controller.

lardman

2008-12-09, 09:54

2) It works with your custom compiled HAL. Will it works with my system using Fremantle HAL and libraries? Will it works with someone else's GCC5 compiled system? If Nokia wants to see a thriving system programming community they need to give us source or information, not binaries.

No they don't need to give us source, this would be the ideal, but it probably won't happen due to the hardware being used in other devices. Further down the line, when it's no longer in any current device then perhaps.

In the meantime Nokia have made available the HAL plugin and have said they can and will provide other binaries as needed. Note that the Nokia developers do have other stuff to do (and this support is not official), so I would expect that the major projects such as Mer would have binaries available, but not that everyone can email and say I want a binary for such and such libc/kernel version.

That might not be a problem anyway depending on how the binary is structured, assuming the ARM ABI doens't change again for a while.

3) Thanks for this pointer. It clearly shows that there are quite large stumbling blocks left by Nokia for "community system". The binaries necessary for system operations need to be distributable. I don't see any progree in that direction for the three years that this subject is coming up. Is it legal to distribute a Deblet image containing hald-addon-bme?

Did you read Peter's post earlier, Nokia are changing/have changed the licence agreement to enable the closed parts which are needed to be distributed in custom/community images.

Stskeeps

2008-12-09, 10:10

This is completely wrong of course. Go read bug 677 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=677)/2006 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2006) where a long-standing (since Mistral at least) critical (crashing the entire machine and corrupting data) bug was fixed practically as soon as the sources became available and made thousands of 770s usable again even after Nokia had officially abandoned them
Thanks to everyone involved BTW!

Since we're trying out a 770 port of Mer too, could some of you 770 users send me the collected works of patches for cx3110x for 770? It might come in handy. ( carsten.munk at gmail.com )

Khertan

2008-12-09, 10:45

lma

2008-12-09, 12:50

Since we're trying out a 770 port of Mer too, could some of you 770 users send me the collected works of patches for cx3110x for 770? It might come in handy. ( carsten.munk at gmail.com )

http://www.fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/ has several kernel patches relevant to the 770 (although not so much cx3110x). I think https://garage.maemo.org/projects/kernels/ was supposed to collect all the community kernel patches in general, but I don't see anything there at the moment.

On cx3110x specifically you may also want to include (it'd be nice if someone did) the patch from bug 2504 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2504).

umberto_soprano

2008-12-09, 15:02

Nokia has stated that the first iteration will not have voice calls, but VOIP is always possible. They left it open to voice later, but it was not clear to me whether that will be a hardware or software issue.

That's in my opinion a mistake.
Most of the people (at least in Europe) has a single SIM card associated to a voice+data plan, and it would be *really* annoying to switch it between phone and NIT.

tso

2008-12-09, 15:09

When WSOD happens, the hardware breaks, and there's no fix except for replacing the LCD controller.

sorry, forgot to properly mark my sarcasm...

sarahn

2008-12-09, 17:57

Maybe I'm behind the curve here, but the lack of qtopia seems like a glaring omission. Is it DOA or still coming?

smilerliu

2008-12-09, 18:00

There are more 4.1 maintenance releases in the pipeline.

This is good to know. I hope Nokia can keep fixing critical/security bugs in maemo4 for another 12-18 months, ensuring that a user who just uses the core functionalities (i.e. without using the extras and other repositories) can have a secure and smooth experience. This is the way to show that Nokia is responsible to its customers, and it should not be a big burden for Nokia considering that there are not many packages in the core of maemo4 (i.e. without anything in the extras repository).

I'd like to emphasize the importance of fixing security issues in maemo4. Someone mentioned before that it's OK not to update maemo4 because if it works when you purchase it, it will always work. This is not true, because the device will interact with the potentially untrusted parties in the network. If a security bug is discovered in MicroB or Telepathy, an attacker can craft special packets/web pages to compromise the device, which would not happen when you purchased the device and the bug was not known yet.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-09, 18:10

Maybe I'm behind the curve here, but the lack of qtopia seems like a glaring omission. Is it DOA or still coming?

More like dancing around somewhere way out in left field. Qtopia? I'm gonna assume your confusing it with Qt, which is available in Extras. . . .

benny1967

2008-12-09, 18:19

That's in my opinion a mistake.
Most of the people (at least in Europe) has a single SIM card associated to a voice+data plan, and it would be *really* annoying to switch it between phone and NIT.

I don't get it:
Having only one SIM is the best reason why you wouldn't want to have this one SIM within your tablet rather than within your phone. Even if the future tablet had voice call capability: It'd be too big and clumsy to replace a phone. Also, the touch screen is not exactly what I'd be looking for in a phone...

convulted

2008-12-09, 18:22

More like dancing around somewhere way out in left field. Qtopia? I'm gonna assume your confusing it with Qt, which is available in Extras. . . .

Adopting that tone really does nothing to attract people to help out in the community. Just my 2c.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-09, 18:28

Adopting that tone really does nothing to attract people to help out in the community. Just my 2c.

What tone? There was a tone?

It is just impossible to shake these trolls. Please, seriously, find something better to do with your time.

Oh, this time there's a tone. Can you tell the difference? :rolleyes:

qole

2008-12-09, 18:35

umberto_soprano

2008-12-09, 18:39

I don't get it:
Having only one SIM is the best reason why you wouldn't want to have this one SIM within your tablet rather than within your phone. Even if the future tablet had voice call capability: It'd be too big and clumsy to replace a phone. Also, the touch screen is not exactly what I'd be looking for in a phone...

So let me understand: we will have on-board HSPA, but we'll still need to get around with two devices and (probably) two chargers. Moreover, we'll be forced to subscribe a second plan for data on the NIT.
So where's the advantage? Ah yes, we'll spare some bluetooth juice...
mmm... Does it sound so convenient?

I'm doing an average of just a voice call per day (or two). I would be VERY glad about having everything in the NIT and finally leaving the phone at home.

lcuk

2008-12-09, 18:46

Just look again at GeneralAntilles face when you think he is being grumpy. How could anyone with a beatific smile like that have a tone?

http://internettablettalk.com/forums/image.php?u=1121&dateline=1226960772

the transformation from mole to gan to raving n8x0 eating monster seems kindof apt :)

the smiling face kinda fills in the ??? in the underpant gnomes plan.

umberto_soprano

2008-12-09, 18:52

What tone? There was a tone?

I'm (mostly) lurking this forum since long time, and I read many times people complaining about your attitude or tone.
You may keep believing they're all stupid trolls or you may start to wonder why this happens only and exclusively to you. It's your choice... :)

lardman

2008-12-09, 18:55

So let me understand: we will have on-board HSPA, but we'll still need to get around with two devices and (probably) two chargers. Moreover, we'll be forced to subscribe a second plan for data on the NIT.
So where's the advantage? Ah yes, we'll spare some bluetooth juice...
mmm... Does it sound so convenient?

You don;t have to buy an HSPA card, you can indeed continue to use Bluetooth if you so desire. Personally the two cards fits nicely as I have no data on my mobile phone plan but can get a HSPA card for ~£5/month so I understand.

I don't really want my tablet to be a phone, but to have an always-on connection will be great and really useful.

YMMV of course ;)

mobiledivide

2008-12-09, 19:09

Just look again at GeneralAntilles face when you think he is being grumpy. How could anyone with a beatific smile like that have a tone?

http://internettablettalk.com/forums/image.php?u=1121&dateline=1226960772

lol perfect...when you think GA is being rude to you look at that smiling picture and your day will brighten up immediately.
(GA does a lot of work for the community for free so he is much appreciated by many of us)

benny1967

2008-12-09, 19:15

So let me understand: we will have on-board HSPA, but we'll still need to get around with two devices and (probably) two chargers. Moreover, we'll be forced to subscribe a second plan for data on the NIT.

two devices, chargers,... yes, most likely. the same way my digital camera and my tablet are two devices and have their respective chargers each. nothing extraordinary here.

2nd data plan: probably no. i have my HSDPA-phone with me, anyway, and as long as i can connect via bluetooth (and i hope a lot i still can), i don't see why I should subscribe to a 2nd plan. so it's nice to know I could insert a SIM if I wanted, but I guess I won't. (depends on what A1 offers, though. if it's really, really cheap, why not?)

One thing is completely out of the question, though: that a tablet could ever replace my phone. too big, too expensive, breaks too easily, can't be with me all the time. These facts won't go away even if Nokia adds GSM voice calls.

umberto_soprano

2008-12-09, 19:28

two devices, chargers,... yes, most likely. the same way my digital camera and my tablet are two devices and have their respective chargers each. nothing extraordinary here.

You make voice calls with your tablet (skype, gizmo). You have a SIM card in your tablet. You have HSDPA on the box. You cannot make voice call through your SIM plan. That's doesn't sounds logical to me.

2nd data plan: probably no. i have my HSDPA-phone with me, anyway, and as long as i can connect via bluetooth (and i hope a lot i still can), i don't see why I should subscribe to a 2nd plan. so it's nice to know I could insert a SIM if I wanted, but I guess I won't. (depends on what A1 offers, though. if it's really, really cheap, why not?)

You're in Austria too? I've A1 as well. Doesn't seems to be so data-oriented so far.

One thing is completely out of the question, though: that a tablet could ever replace my phone. too big, too expensive, breaks too easily, can't be with me all the time. These facts won't go away even if Nokia adds GSM voice calls.

Me, and at least another poster in this thread would leave our phones at home. As you said, it's nice to know I can make that call if I need.

benny1967

2008-12-09, 19:39

I've A1 as well. Doesn't seems to be so data-oriented so far.

Given the current roadmap/schedule for an "N900" and the development of the mobile market right now, who knows what they'll offer when the N900 is out. (After all: A1 is going to launch HSPA+ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_HSPA) in june 2009. They'll have to support this launch with a more data-oriented portfolio.)

(Writing this I'm beginning to wonder if the N900 will support HSPA+...)

Texrat

2008-12-09, 23:26

Texrat

2008-12-09, 23:28

You may keep believing they're all stupid trolls or you may start to wonder why this happens only and exclusively to you. It's your choice... :)

Actually there was a poll, and I got picked as an egotistical jerk too, so there. :p

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-09, 23:31

I'm (mostly) lurking this forum since long time, and I read many times people complaining about your attitude or tone.
You may keep believing they're all stupid trolls or you may start to wonder why this happens only and exclusively to you. It's your choice... :)

See, it's one thing if I'm actually being a sarcastic jerk (it's fun, often productive, and I do it sometimes to keep myself entertained :p), but entirely another when I'm actually interested in helping somebody and I get flamed, which seems to be happening quite a bit lately.

Either way, people need to get over it and stop trying to make every thread I post in about my "attitude". Just keep it to yourself, or PM me if it bothers you so damn much.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-09, 23:33

On to more productive things, has anybody taken a look at some of the other stuff in there besides the kernel and Hildon? A large part of this release is for Nokia to collect feedback on the architecture before it becomes too late to push some changes, so if you've got opinions (hopefully productive ones backed by evidence or experience ;)) then let 'em loose.

All note that this is a really big move for a company like Nokia and arguably a first in this industry. A positive outcome here will do a lot to convince Nokia of the usefulness of the Open Source way.

munky261

2008-12-09, 23:37

As much as I agree with you umberto.... its just not necessary to say that a fish swims. lol

qole

2008-12-10, 00:14

Benson

2008-12-10, 01:07

Me, and at least another poster in this thread would leave our phones at home. As you said, it's nice to know I can make that call if I need.

Count me in, as given a T-mobile HSPA rollout in my town, I'd definitely ditch my phone for daily carry, though I'd carry it in my backpack when going where I might need emergency GSM access.

As long as T-mobile has only EDGE here, I'd have to look into pricing again, but I think it's pretty much a toss-up for me whether to keep T-mobile EDGE with the hassle of a separate phone, or spend more for AT&T 3G.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-10, 01:17

As long as T-mobile has only EDGE here, I'd have to look into pricing again, but I think it's pretty much a toss-up for me whether to keep T-mobile EDGE with the hassle of a separate phone, or spend more for AT&T 3G.

On that note, does anybody know how much AT&T is likely to charge for data? I'm paying $20/mo for data now, and I believe it'll only be $30/mo for a data plan for the tablet, but I'm not sure.

Texrat

2008-12-10, 01:22

My work AT&T data plan (while I still have it) is $35 per month unlimited, I believe. But that could be a corporate rate...

munky261

2008-12-10, 02:14

I understand that the N810 wont be officially supported in the new OS, but will all of the apps have to be recompiled as well, as most had to be from chinook to diablo?

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-10, 02:24

I understand that the N810 wont be officially supported in the new OS, but will all of the apps have to be recompiled as well . . .

Yes, there will be API breaks for Fremantle.

. . . as most had to be from chinook to diablo?

Nothing had to be recompiled, most of the transitional pain was due to the new autobuilder. Of course, now that we have the source packages for most everything, it means we wont have to wait for the developers to recompile next time around (well, barring API breakage).

mobiledivide

2008-12-10, 02:35

On that note, does anybody know how much AT&T is likely to charge for data? I'm paying $20/mo for data now, and I believe it'll only be $30/mo for a data plan for the tablet, but I'm not sure.

Well the PDA personal plus plan is $30 a month so you would have to assume that would be the rate but the fine print reads

"Prices reflect a $5/month discount for voice and require that an eligible wireless voice plan be activated and maintained on the same device. Stand-alone versions of these data plans are also available for an additional $5/month."
So it seems like it would be $35 a month for unlimited data only with no voice. It would be nice if you could use the medianet unlimited for $15 on the N900.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-10, 02:42

So it seems like it would be $35 a month for unlimited data only with no voice. It would be nice if you could use the medianet unlimited for $15 on the N900.

Hrm, that's rather disappointing. I may have to stick with MediaNET. :/

sarahn

2008-12-10, 07:21

More like dancing around somewhere way out in left field. Qtopia? I'm gonna assume your confusing it with Qt, which is available in Extras. . . .

I tried to search for qt on this forum but can't because it's too short.

qt wasn't in this list: http://repository.maemo.org/unstable/fremantle/maemo4.1.1_vs_5.0prealpha_content_comparison.html

and given Nokia was supposed to be porting qt, that was awfully surprising, especially since clutter is supported and clutter feels a little... unfinished to me.

Also isn't qt in extras-devel not extras? Thanks for the pointer though.

I don't see extras or extras-devel yet for fremantle either. Granted I haven't even installed it yet.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-10, 07:57

qt wasn't in this list: http://repository.maemo.org/unstable/fremantle/maemo4.1.1_vs_5.0prealpha_content_comparison.html

Obviously, because Fremantle isn't shipping official Qt support.

and given Nokia was supposed to be porting qt, that was awfully surprising

Nokia is porting Qt, the results of which are available right now in Extras. But for Fremantle Qt will only be community supported, the official support will come with Harmattan. This means a Qt Garage project and distribution through Extras (much like Python).

especially since clutter is supported and clutter feels a little... unfinished to me.

Unfinished how, exactly? Are you referring to the example Clutter UIs available or the actual toolkit? Either way, recall that this is only a pre-alpha.

Also isn't qt in extras-devel not extras? Thanks for the pointer though.

I didn't make a differentiation because it isn't relevant here. They've got somewhere in the ballpark of 6 months to polish it up and move it to Extras. Give it time. :)

I don't see extras or extras-devel yet for fremantle either. Granted I haven't even installed it yet.

Setting up Extras for Fremantle means setting up the autobuilder for Fremantle, which isn't just a "flip the switch" sort of task. Especially given that this pre-alpha isn't targeting application developers or users, it may take a few weeks to get Extras set up.

Again, these things take time. This is a very early pre-alpha release intended to give platform developers and those folks interested in the platform architecture a jumpstart on Fremantle, and for Nokia to begin collecting feedback about it from them. This release is not intended for application developers, nor is it intended for users. From your questions, it sounds like you're more of an application developer, so you're gonna want to wait for a later alpha release or the beta release around March-May.

This is not a finalized 1.0 release ready for general consumption, so don't expect everything that will be in the final product to be here yet, and don't expect everything that is here to be 100% polished.

If you want to get started with Qt right now, my recommendation is to start with the Qt page (http://qt4.garage.maemo.org/) on Garage and go from there.

lma

2008-12-10, 09:57

A new device does not make your current one cease to work.

New firmware does not cause your current OS to expire.

No, but that's not the issue. There are certain features in the current firmware that don't work as advertised. The (implied, perhaps mistakenly) assumption was that we would report these and they would be fixed in the lifecycle of the products (note that this is different to how the rest of the industry works, where if features are broken you just return the device for a refund and go buy a competitor's product instead).

The objection most of us are having is that the current device/firmware combination still doesn't work as advertised and it's (now officially) never going to get fixed.

This is orthogonal to the openness argument by the way. I do think that the Maemo team are mostly picking the right battles to fight with the resources they have available. I also think that Nokia has provided a terrible after-sales experience, even after they were promising that they learned from the 770 and this wouldn't happen again. In other words, I love maemo but I don't trust Nokia as a vendor that much anymore :-(

lardman

2008-12-10, 10:15

The objection most of us are having is that the current device/firmware combination still doesn't work as advertised and it's (now officially) never going to get fixed.

And if it gets fixed unofficially, would that be good enough? Assuming we can get a decent-ish Diablo-on-steroids out, you'll have a far better chance of fixing any problems you see yourself, or persuading others that they are important and fixing them en-mass.

I can (sort of) understand your frustration (though I have various devices that have limitations/problems which get very very infrequent firmware updates, which usually cause more problems than they solve too).

qgil

2008-12-10, 10:26

(note that this is different to how the rest of the industry works, where if features are broken you just return the device for a refund and go buy a competitor's product instead).

If you buy a Nokia Internet Tablet and you think there is something wrong with it you can exercise your customer rights - business as usual in the consumer electronics industry.

Filing bugs and get them eventually fixed in updates goes in addition to (and not instead of) the guarantee of the product.

pycage

2008-12-10, 11:25

The objection most of us are having is that the current device/firmware combination still doesn't work as advertised and it's (now officially) never going to get fixed.

Well, AFAIK, the internet tablets are advertised for mobile internet. They do that very fine compared to other mobile devices and even support Flash, which is very uncommon for mobile devices.
The devices were never advertised for mobile office or as a laptop replacement. They can be used for that and somewhat work, but fixing the OS to make the devices more useful in this direction has nothing to with fixing the software to do what it was advertised for.
Most people don't even install any applications and just use the tablet for surfing. Works as advertised.
Firmware updates for anything else than serious bug fixes (e.g. N800 corrupting SDHC cards) are nice to have and actually happen, but they're not required to make it "work as advertised".

Matan

2008-12-10, 11:42

Firmware updates for anything else than serious bug fixes (e.g. N800 corrupting SDHC cards) are nice to have and actually happen, but they're not required to make it "work as advertised".

The problem is that the 770 shows us that even serious bug fixes (e.g. 770 corrupting MMC cards) do not deserve firmware upgrades once the next device is out.

Texrat

2008-12-10, 12:42

No, but that's not the issue.(

It most certainly was the issue with regards to the post to which I responded.

Gorgon

2008-12-10, 13:43

On that note, does anybody know how much AT&T is likely to charge for data? I'm paying $20/mo for data now, and I believe it'll only be $30/mo for a data plan for the tablet, but I'm not sure.

This is a good question to ask as far as data plans. ATT has the media net unlimited plan for $15/month that I use on my Nokia E71 and N95-4. Win/Mo phones and Blackberry phones and iPhone (or anything with a qwerty that they sell that they consider a PDA) are charged $30/month for unlimited data. These plans are coupled with voice plans. If you look at their web site they only only truly have ONE plan that doesn't include voice and that's the DataConnect plan designed for laptop HSDPA cards and they charge $60/month for that. I would love to see a $15 or $20 plan but it may be that the only way to add cheap data is to add a line to a family plan for $9.99 and add the $15 media net plan to it for a total of $25 plus taxes. But by the time the "N900" is released ATT may have changed their plan pricing so we'll have to wait and see.

BoxOfSnoo

2008-12-10, 14:13

Well, AFAIK, the internet tablets are advertised for mobile internet. They do that very fine compared to other mobile devices and even support Flash, which is very uncommon for mobile devices.
The devices were never advertised for mobile office or as a laptop replacement. They can be used for that and somewhat work, but fixing the OS to make the devices more useful in this direction has nothing to with fixing the software to do what it was advertised for.
Most people don't even install any applications and just use the tablet for surfing. Works as advertised.

You don't think mobile Internet includes email? It would be nice if Modest were fixed, so it could work as advertised. Oh yeah here on the box it says "Internet calling with web camera..." Cool! only that's not completely true, is it?

I dunno about you but my mobile Internet experience starts with typing something in... hmm, can't quite do that without falling over a long standing finger-keyboard bug in MicroB. (That Mr. Abel acknowledges on bugzilla).

Benson

2008-12-10, 14:31

Oh yeah here on the box it says "Internet calling with web camera..." Cool! only that's not completely true, is it?It seems completely true from here. Absence of explicit qualifiers (such as "with other compatible software") does not negate obvious implicit qualifications. (At least I assume that's where you think it's untrue...)

BoxOfSnoo

2008-12-10, 15:11

It seems completely true from here. Absence of explicit qualifiers (such as "with other compatible software") does not negate obvious implicit qualifications. (At least I assume that's where you think it's untrue...)

It works for you? Cool, you have google chat on your device, let me fire up google chat on my desktop and you can explain to me how you got it working!

Or do you need compatible software *and* compatible hardware? Wow, that's kinda against the whole intent of the Internet isn't it?

I say it's not *completely* true because in actual use cases, it does not function. I include Gizmo in this, because when I tried it was unusable as a videochat device. With profound proprietary hooks like that in the device you better believe they should mark something on the box. Someone before mentioned the word "disingenuous"?

If you want more picky, the next column on the box calls it a webcam. Go to something like mebeam.com and tell me if the webcam works on... you know, the web.

TA-t3

2008-12-10, 16:12

Well, AFAIK, the internet tablets are advertised for mobile internet. They do that very fine compared to other mobile devices and even support Flash, which is very uncommon for mobile devices.
Internet isn't an alias for 'world wide web'. That's just a single service. For a rough idea about how many there are, try 'cat /etc/services' on your Nokia.

Certainly email is a major, important part of 'mobile internet'-ing.

sarahn

2008-12-10, 16:30

Nokia is porting Qt, the results of which are available right now in Extras. But for Fremantle Qt will only be community supported, the official support will come with Harmattan. This means a Qt Garage project and distribution through Extras (much like Python).
Ok. When I see articles talking about nokia porting qt back from april, and they own the gosh-darned thing, it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to think they might be officially supporting it by now and not just as a "community project."

Unfinished how, exactly? Are you referring to the example Clutter UIs available or the actual toolkit? Either way, recall that this is only a pre-alpha.

I was looking at the toolkits they have running on top of it (tidy?) and that's more minimal than what I expect. If I really wanted to build a very rich UI from complete and total scratch it's fine, but that is not what I'm targeting.

I didn't make a differentiation because it isn't relevant here. They've got somewhere in the ballpark of 6 months to polish it up and move it to Extras. Give it time. :)
What if someone wanted to try installing it? Do most people keep extras-devel available all the time? :)

From your questions, it sounds like you're more of an application developer, so you're gonna want to wait for a later alpha release or the beta release around March-May.
That's the hat I'm wearing right now for this project, so yes. However I'll want to run this on an n900, not an n8xx, so I want to know what is and is not going to be "officially" available. Sounds like qt isn't guaranteed to be well supported enough to use out of the box for fremantle and that's what I wanted to know.

allnameswereout

2008-12-10, 16:42

Gorgon

2008-12-10, 16:50

Usually, 'unlimited' means 'limited but we won't tell you the limit'. If you'd download fullspeed (3.5 mbit) on 3G 24/7 you'd burn about 886 gbit (110 GB) a month. Try it out for fun and profit, but most ISPs will either: 1) contract you with a 'special offer' or 2) cap the crap out of you. You've been warned.

I assume this was in response to the data services discussion. You are correct that the service is truly not unlimited. ATT caps their "unlimited" media net plan at 5GB as far as I know. Not sure about their other services. I usually only burn a couple hundred MB a month.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-10, 17:59

Ok. When I see articles talking about nokia porting qt back from april, and they own the gosh-darned thing, it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to think they might be officially supporting it by now and not just as a "community project."

Considering that Nokia hired the primary Qt on Maemo guy to work for Maemo Software, I'd say they're putting plenty of money on it. Honestly, though, there are a ton of very talented people currently working on Qt for Maemo. Just because it doesn't happen to be "blessed" this time around, doesn't suddenly make it useless ****. Personally, if I were one of those people working on Qt, I'd be more than a little offended to hear somebody pass judgement about it without even using the damn thing.

I was looking at the toolkits they have running on top of it (tidy?) and that's more minimal than what I expect. If I really wanted to build a very rich UI from complete and total scratch it's fine, but that is not what I'm targeting.

The new Hildon isn't out yet, so the toolkits you see available now aren't the ones that will be available later. Again give it time and wait for a release that you're actually the intended audience of. :)

What if someone wanted to try installing it? Do most people keep extras-devel available all the time? :)

Extras-devel isn't the end of the world, and, yes, a lot of people keep it enabled all the time. Why don't you try it and see? I think you're likely to be pretty impressed by how well Qt works on Maemo at this point.

They'll push it to Extras when it's ready, of course, but perhaps you should consider actually talking to the people involved? They're listed on the Garage project page I linked in my last post.

That's the hat I'm wearing right now for this project, so yes. However I'll want to run this on an n900, not an n8xx, so I want to know what is and is not going to be "officially" available. Sounds like qt isn't guaranteed to be well supported enough to use out of the box for fremantle and that's what I wanted to know.

See, now you're jumping to more conclusions based on assumptions and bad data. Python is a community-supported toolkit, and it's perfectly usable out-of-the-box (ever tried Canola?). So your argument that community is synonymous with "wont work out-of-the-box" is bunk.

Let's step back, try taking a look at what's available right now (which I think you'll find quite satisfactory), then maybe come back in a few months when the beta is out and see what you think then. I'm quite certain you'll be more than satisfied.

qole

2008-12-10, 18:11

A large part of this release is for Nokia to collect feedback on the architecture before it becomes too late to push some changes, so if you've got opinions (hopefully productive ones backed by evidence or experience ;)) then let 'em loose.

I'd love to do that; what can I do? Is it just a case of picking through the source code, or is there something I can actually run and test? And if there is, what do I need to make that happen?

This is a very early pre-alpha release intended to give platform developers and those folks interested in the platform architecture a jumpstart on Fremantle, and for Nokia to begin collecting feedback about it from them. This release is not intended for application developers, nor is it intended for users.

So, nobody answered my question. Does that mean that there's no practical use for this SDK except to show that Nokia is serious about open source? Who are these platform developers? What exactly do they develop? Can you give me an example?

lcuk

2008-12-10, 18:29

So, nobody answered my question. Does that mean that there's no practical use for this SDK except to show that Nokia is serious about open source? Who are these platform developers? What exactly do they develop? Can you give me an example?

me, I will be playing specifically towards liqbase!

I will be getting it all installed this weekend hopefully.
I want to see how things sit and once I do that I'll do some testing with clutter on my laptop and see if its buildable on both.

of course it would be easier with a device, but it will do for now.

The alternative to diving straight in with clutter is ensuring my app as it stands builds (I dont think i can run it though, i've never been able to get it working in the past in emulation).

If I know it *builds* on the new device it makes life easier, but if there are missing libraries due to changes I will need to adapt and make ifdefs in code.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-10, 18:34

So, nobody answered my question. Does that mean that there's no practical use for this SDK except to show that Nokia is serious about open source? Who are these platform developers? What exactly do they develop? Can you give me an example?

People who develop platform stuff (https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?classification=Maemo%20Official%20Pl atform). Kernel, application framework, SDK, system libraries, etc.

Yes, there's plenty of practical use for this release. Both for people directly involved in development, and for folks interested in the architecture (upstream, etc).

In particular, how about Mer (http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer_Blueprint)? . . .

qgil

2008-12-10, 19:50

I'd love to do that; what can I do? Is it just a case of picking through the source code, or is there something I can actually run and test? And if there is, what do I need to make that happen?

You can go to http://maemo-sdk.garage.maemo.org/ and get the release candidate SDK+ running in your PC with the Fremantle rootstraps. File bugs if you find any problem (including documentation not good enough for starters). Open a thread here giving your impressions.

It would be good to have feedback from application developers using the current official SDK. What is better, what could be improved, what is missing.

If you never used the Maemo SDK before you are encouraged to start with this one instead. The content is just the same and the entry level should be much lower. Still not the best and easiest tools for newcomers but they will come as well at some point.

Even power users willing to follow the Fremantle release themselves can try installing it now and see how the newborn looks like in your emulated environment. The sooner you get familiar with this the easier will be for you to install applications as soon as they come and help testing them.

anidel

2008-12-10, 22:16

There are more 4.1 maintenance releases in the pipeline..

When ???? :)

Christtmas gift?

:-p

Benson

2008-12-11, 01:33

It works for you? Cool, you have google chat on your device, let me fire up google chat on my desktop and you can explain to me how you got it working!

Or do you need compatible software *and* compatible hardware? Wow, that's kinda against the whole intent of the Internet isn't it?The issue is software. It's a matter of protocol only, not hardware related; there's simply a dearth of proper software on all platforms except the tablets. Since the desktop client doesn't support video at all, it should be unsurprising that it does not support it with a specific remote endpoint. I'm not sure what you consider the "whole intent of the internet", but I don't see how this is against it.

While the native software was, AFAIK, only able to support video tablet-to-tablet (due to complete absence of jingle-video support in other software, including Google's own) till last year, with rtcomm comes SIP video interoperability with 3rd party software (including eyebeam and x-lite), so it's definitely fulfilled now.

I say it's not *completely* true because in actual use cases, it does not function. I include Gizmo in this, because when I tried it was unusable as a videochat device. With profound proprietary hooks like that in the device you better believe they should mark something on the box. Someone before mentioned the word "disingenuous"?So using Google's protocol, and having no interoperability because Google can't be troubled to implement their own protocol, is "profound proprietary hooks"?!

I say it is completely true because in actual use cases, it does function. I don't include Gizmo in this, because I don't use Gizmo; Internet Call works fine for me, and I think the use cases in which it doesn't work are not reasonably inferred from the marketing statements.

If you want more picky, the next column on the box calls it a webcam. Go to something like mebeam.com and tell me if the webcam works on... you know, the web.Well, picky's good, but I'd rather be correct; I'm actually gonna go for both here, though. Webcam is a word, and as such it has a meaning independent of its etymology. Generally, it refers not to videoconferencing at all, but to live uploading of images (or, lately, streaming) for viewing over the worldwide web (which, BTW, is a concept of interlinked hypertext, and doesn't properly apply to a Flash-based star-topology service). Still, proper webcam functionality also does not exist out-of-the-box on the tablets, which is actually a stronger argument that "webcam" is misapplied here. (Basic webcam functionality is available by third-party software, of course, e.g. motion.)

Clearly, though, the problem is an abuse of terminology, rather than intent to deliver a genuine webcam defeated by bugs or incompleteness.

lma

2008-12-11, 01:48

If you buy a Nokia Internet Tablet and you think there is something wrong with it you can exercise your customer rights - business as usual in the consumer electronics industry.

Filing bugs and get them eventually fixed in updates goes in addition to (and not instead of) the guarantee of the product.

Hardware faults, absolutely. For instance, my N800 is currently undergoing warrany repair for the touchscreen sensitivity issue (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1069) and will eventually, hopefully one day find its way back to me. That kind of thing can happen to early adopters, no biggie and not your problem.

The software side isn't so black and white though. Let me pick one of my personal pet peeves as an example (no, I'm not going to touch the GPS topic with the proverbial bargepole): the hardware keyboard language switching bug (2501 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2501)/3407 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3407)). This is a feature that definitely doesn't work as described in the documentation, looks like a software bug (although if not I would like to know before the warranty runs out) and probably not that hard to fix at that (but see below). Would it have been preferable/more reasonable from your point of view to return the device immediately or report the bug along with any relevant information I could find and wait for a fix as I have done?

In any case, at least now we know where we stand with respect to firmware updates for current devices. Disappointing, but a better position to be in than last week.

And if it gets fixed unofficially, would that be good enough? Assuming we can get a decent-ish Diablo-on-steroids out, you'll have a far better chance of fixing any problems you see yourself, or persuading others that they are important and fixing them en-mass.

Yes, definitely. In fact I'd love pointers to where I should start looking for fixing the above bug, but the only reference to a specific package (hildon-input-method-plugins) is to something that doesn't even exist in binary form yet, including Fremantle.

I can (sort of) understand your frustration (though I have various devices that have limitations/problems which get very very infrequent firmware updates, which usually cause more problems than they solve too).

Don't we all. Anyway, I think I've vented enough already, I'll shut up now :-)

neatojones

2008-12-11, 04:13

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-11, 04:26

It seems to me that when considering a realistic timeline for the release of this device, a better option than HSPA would be LTE. It'd really suck if I go out and buy an HSPA device only to find a LTE edition to be released Q4 09 or Q1 '10. In the long run, LTE would be much better and be supported by the most networks (in the US anyway).

I think you're being just a touch optimistic about LTE deployment. If we're talking a Summer 2009 release, then it's gonna be, what, 2 years before you get any decent sort of coverage with LTE? Whereas with HSPA you get strong coverage in practically all metropolitan areas and slow, but available coverage almost everywhere else right now. Really, what's the real advantage going to be with LTE? It's not as if we're maxing out 802.11g in any way shape or form now.

mobiledivide

2008-12-11, 04:50

neatojones

2008-12-11, 05:11

I think you're being just a touch optimistic about LTE deployment. If we're talking a Summer 2009 release, then it's gonna be, what, 2 years before you get any decent sort of coverage with LTE? Whereas with HSPA you get strong coverage in practically all metropolitan areas and slow, but available coverage almost everywhere else right now. Really, what's the real advantage going to be with LTE? It's not as if we're maxing out 802.11g in any way shape or form now.

Maybe your just being a touch optomistic about the actual release date of Maemo 5. Recent analysts have been *claiming deployment in some areas as soon as late 2009. There was very limited Wimax availability at the time it was announced as well (I'd say there still is). I really think (I'm sure you'll disagree...since I don't remember you really agreeing with well...anybody:rolleyes:) that it's the better choice (even if you can't use it for a few months) since you'll be more limited with HSPA than LTE with regards to speed, carrier, bandwidth, max downloads, etc. And I think it's going to happen sooner than you think because big companies like Verizon have so much of their future vested in it.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-11, 05:25

Maybe your just being a touch optomistic about the actual release date of Maemo 5. Recent analysts have been *claiming deployment in some areas as soon as late 2009.

Mind backing that up with more than just forum speculation? The beta release is scheduled for March-May 2009. Don't tell me you seriously thing it'd take another 6-7 months after that to kick a device out the door.

There was very limited Wimax availability at the time it was announced as well (I'd say there still is).

By "it" I'm assuming you mean the N810W. It's a niche product, and not really much of an argument for launching your platform's primary product with a dead-weight data modem. You think there was a bad reaction when people found their email client didn't really work, how bad do you think it'd be if you had to wait 6 months for that much-touted cellular connectivity to work?

I really think that it's the better choice (even if you can't use it for a few months) since you'll be more limited with HSPA than LTE with regards to speed, carrier, bandwidth, max downloads, etc. And I think it's going to happen sooner than you think because big companies like Verizon have so much of their future vested in it.

Perhaps when it's actually rolled out, but until it is it's another WiMAX situation. That's one thing for a niche product like the N810W, but completely another for the platform's primary device. Anyway, what makes you think the next tablet after RX-51 wont have LTE?

(I'm sure you'll disagree...since I don't remember you really agreeing with well...anybody:rolleyes:)

Can you try to argue your points without making it personal? It really doesn't help your case.

neatojones

2008-12-11, 05:54

Can you try to argue your points without making it personal? It really doesn't help your case.
The remark seems to have made the case I intended.

But, regarding the speculation, I'm sure you know how to work google and have your own trusted IT news sources so I'll leave you to that. But, you might want to check into the new LG handset chip for LTE that was recently announced and the Verizon announcement from Dec 9 stating it plans to begin deploying LTE in 2009. Specifically, look into discussions by people who I'd say would have a better knowledgea about this than you or I. Namely, the executive vice president and CTO of Verizon Communications stated, "We expect that LTE will actually be in service somewhere here in the U.S. probably this time next year."

I agree that people might not appreciate not being able to utilize all of the devices capablities right away, but this happens all the time. For many phones GPS or other features are turned off until a new ROM is produced. I understand your point, but on the other hand software such as email is a little different than a hardware feature.

By the way. I was right... I was making a joke because I knew you would disagree.

Benson

2008-12-11, 06:01

Well, WiMAX vs. LTE is not completely settled yet, and with the HSPA+ upgrade path, I just don't see LTE being a more broadly compatible choice than HSPA anytime soon. Moreover, it's my understanding that dual-mode LTE/UMTS solutions aren't readily available any time soon, so an LTE device would probably be a long time in even catching up to the N810W in terms of possible geographic coverage.

Anyway, no matter which decision would be best, Nokia's made it quite plain that the decision has been made already, and that HSPA won.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-11, 06:09

But, regarding the speculation, I'm sure you know how to work google and have your own trusted IT news sources so I'll leave you to that.

Either you have something to back up your claim of Q4 2009 or you don't. My trusted sources would indicate a release date much earlier than that. So it seems we're at an impasse.

By the way. I was right... I was making a joke because I knew you would disagree.

In that case, you meant to use one of these: :p ;) :) and not :rolleyes:

All you proved is that I disagree with you, which stands to reason when you make rather extreme claims about release dates and put forth somewhat specious arguments as to why your way is better than Nokia's way.

neatojones

2008-12-11, 06:17

Either you have something to back up your claim of Q4 2009 or you don't. It occured to me that you missunderstood me. I was stating that LTE is supposed to go online in Q4, not the N900.

The LTE discussion was all over the IT headlines a few days ago. It's not a lack of a source, it's simply a matter of the fact that I'd assume you already have a trusted source for your news.

Here is number one in my google search about LTE and Verizon: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/121008-verizon-aims-for-lte-deployment.html?fsrc=netflash-rss

I don't really feel the need to prove anything to you. It IS my opinion that LTE would be the best choice in the long run. I don't think nor would I expect Nokia to always agree with me. As an aside, I also see it as a reasonable option that they could release a version with LTE support later on similar to the release of the Wimax edition when the LTE becomes more established. Also, I expect the N900 to be delayed, the reasons for which I won't discuss right now.

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-11, 06:24

It occured to me that you missunderstood me. I was stating that LTE is supposed to go online in Q4, not the N900.

That would explain it. Apologies for the misunderstanding. :) In that case, I wouldn't worry overly much about a 6-month-later tablet release.

neatojones

2008-12-11, 06:34

That would explain it. Apologies for the misunderstanding. :) In that case, I wouldn't worry overly much about a 6-month-later tablet release.
Sorry. It's my fault since I wasn't clear. I suckered you in on the defensive by my mischievous remark and confusing wording.

lardman

2008-12-11, 09:59

Yes, definitely. In fact I'd love pointers to where I should start looking for fixing the above bug, but the only reference to a specific package (hildon-input-method-plugins) is to something that doesn't even exist in binary form yet, including Fremantle.

Point taken, well for the community supported version it will either need to be available in source form (or as a Nokia provided binary) and if the latter and it's still broken it will be on the list to be replaced.

Texrat

2008-12-11, 13:28

As an aside, I also see it as a reasonable option that [Nokia] could release a version with LTE support later on similar to the release of the Wimax edition when the LTE becomes more established. Also, I expect the N900 to be delayed, the reasons for which I won't discuss right now.

Nokia has invested in LTE technology on the network side, sooo... do the "math". ;)

allnameswereout

2008-12-11, 14:08

Before LTE we get HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA).

nilchak

2008-12-11, 14:29

Clearly, though, the problem is an abuse of terminology, rather than intent to deliver a genuine webcam defeated by bugs or incompleteness.

I think you are trying (hard) to twist the argument to suit your initial point here. Lets be objective and accept deficiencies where there are - even from the marketing speak point of view.

The way you write that last paragraph about webcam and etymology and word definitions and all that - its befitting a Washington polictical spin-master indeed - so high-brow and twisted I couldn't understand the intent ofthe statement itself :D

Kudos!

Stskeeps

2008-12-11, 15:03

(apologies for cross posting, thought this was relevant for the followers of this thread.)

For those of you interested in the project to amongst others, bring Fremantle components to N8x0(w) (and possibly 770 - we had X working + hildon booting last night) and continuing to have active OS development for these devices, we're having a bootstrapping meeting Sunday to get the project kicked off.

There's need for all sorts of people, ranging from artists(themes, icons, artwork), packagers, general developers, people with interest in user experience on tablets, to kernel/initfs hackers - and all of these exist in the tablet community.

More information can be found in this thread (http://internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25524)

deadmalc

2008-12-11, 16:27

Texrat

2008-12-11, 17:28

I think you are trying (hard) to twist the argument to suit your initial point here. Lets be objective and accept deficiencies where there are - even from the marketing speak point of view.

The way you write that last paragraph about webcam and etymology and word definitions and all that - its befitting a Washington polictical spin-master indeed - so high-brow and twisted I couldn't understand the intent ofthe statement itself :D

Kudos!

I completely disagree. I found Benson's post to be very objective. What he appears to be "trying very hard" to do is enunciate clearly in order to avoid misinterpretation of meaning and motive. Looks like the latter fell short with at least one reader... :rolleyes:

allnameswereout

2008-12-11, 19:43

Not to point to the obvious here, but the US lags behind Europe (esp. UK) with respect to mobile broadband usage (or so we are told). Hence why the iphone sales in europe were much better once the 3G version arrived.
I reckon it is more likely to have an n900 then an n910x when whatever x is (looks like it isn't wimax) given in europe the investment of the 3G infrastructure the providers have.
(I believe that the old iphone caused problems because stations had to be retrofitted with edge technology, when they were already HSDPA (or what ever 3.5G is, I get confused with all these names!)The first iPhone, exclusively sold together with a ATT contract, allows max EDGE which is an extension to GSM/GPRS and slower than later released HSDPA standard. The first iPhone was not sold in Europe. In Europe many telcos have already rolled out HSDPA before the first iPhone was released. The iPhone 3G can be bought without a bundle because of legal obligations in [some] European countries. However, the App Store does not include the tethering application because ATT does not allow this. As seen on a recent presentation by Nokia, Nokia has a market penetration of ~ 50% in Europe and Asia; in US only approx 10%. The upgrade path after HSDPA and HSUPA is HSPA+ which is rolled out in Australia, and now also starting to be rolled out in Sweden and Denmark. After that its time for LTE deployment.

benny1967

2008-12-11, 20:13

The first iPhone was not sold in Europe.

It was sold in Europe. Not very successfully, but still...

memson

2008-12-15, 00:45

Okay. This is the same BS Sharp pulled with the Zaurus SL5500. "Look, look, cool geek device". Then, bam, discontinued. "No worries" said the community, we can use the source from the Open version of the Qtopia project... except what actually happened was:

1) Trolltech carried on on their own merry dance, did some cool things with Qtopia - even released a ROM for the SL5500.... except there was no software available for the ROM because the ABI was broken.

2) Sharp released most of their source, but left various parts closed (e.g. the SD Card driver) which then basically screwed the community. A lot of hacks went in to then support the legacy driver in later versions of community OS projects.

3) Opie was born - a forked Qtopia... except it never really worked properly. There were a lot of driver issues and general weirdness. They also based it on a version of Qtopia that didn't have the Sharp 3.10 ROM changes in to, and it was annoyingly missing key features because of that.

4) Sharp released a backport of the SL5600 ROM and labelled it 3.10. At first Opie used the same basic ABI and it was cool, and apps could be shared. Then Opie moved to the more modern 3.X line of GCC, and the 3.10 ROM was orphaned - even though it really was the better ROM IMO.

5) Another X based version of the ROM with whatever GNOME had as their older mobile platform was released and was completely incompatible with everything else.

The community was fragmented. The OS stagnated because the binary drivers became a really big issue in keeping the platform alive.

This is exactly what i see the N8x0 platform turning in to. Sucks. If I wasn't using the N800 for doing some mobile Mono based dev work, it would be on eBay as I type. I'm simply NOT willing to go through the total ******** that goes along with this situation. Give me a development platform I can install on my operating system of choice - without using a VMWare or similar emulation layer, and things might be different. However, being a Windows (day job) and Mac (home) bod, I'm not happy to use LINUX. Thank goodness Mono is now usable!!

memson

2008-12-15, 00:52

GeneralAntilles

2008-12-15, 01:21

Okay. This is the same BS Sharp pulled with the Zaurus SL5500. "Look, look, cool geek device". Then, bam, discontinued.

Except we don't have binary drivers, Nokia is dedicated to providing support to the community edition and Maemo is way more open than anything Sharp ever shipped.

lardman

2008-12-15, 09:24

The community was fragmented. The OS stagnated because the binary drivers became a really big issue in keeping the platform alive.

And the Zaurus community is still alive and supported by the Angstrom distro (based on OE). The Sharp Zaurus sl-5x00(D) now has a 2.6.x kernel (despite all the Sharp release kernels being 2.4.x) and afaik the c7x0 devices now have some working hw acceleration (again working from no docs).

5) Another X based version of the ROM with whatever GNOME had as their older mobile platform was released and was completely incompatible with everything else.

This is GPE, nothing to do with Gnome, except that it used an X server rather than drawing directly to the fb like Qtopia/Opie did.

allnameswereout

2008-12-15, 12:02

Having seen the N97 being shown recently at the Barcelona event - a N9xx that used the same hardware design would be really nice. Pocketable, touch screen designed for fingers. Qwerty keyboard. Nice camera. Nice multimedia. Imaging, an N970, N97 running Maemo! That would be interesting.

Ehm, that is exactly what the N900 will have: pocketable, touch screen designed for fingers (Maemo 5 will focus on this), qwerty keyboard I admit we don't know, nice camera *check*, hs*pa *check*, nice multimedia *check*, and probably quite some diskspace as well. Imagine a N900 being a lot like N97! That would be interesting!

I don't understand why you're so excited about Mono. I rather see full Java support.

You're right that Sharp abandoned the Sharp Zaurus 5500. But this was also simply too slow, and there was still community support. Regarding N8x0 the only thing which slows down a community edition is the WLAN driver (which is now although incomplete also open source). Something like PowerVR is a bummer, I admit, but the way I see it Nokia is learning from the past so I give them the benefit of doubt. Besides that, I simply welcome the better performance. Welcome? I'm rooting for it! :)

Khertan

2008-12-15, 13:28

I don't understand why you're so excited about Mono. I rather see full Java support.

Doesn't understand too ...

Imagine a N900 being a lot like N97
I hope not ... i prefer that they keep the current display size...

To be honest i think there will be a break in the community ... but look at Palm OS device ... you can't update the system, and there is also many break in the api (in two way).

But i hope Mer will be a success ...

memson

2008-12-17, 11:53

I don't understand why you're so excited about Mono. I rather see full Java support.

Mono is the future :-)

memson

2008-12-17, 12:32

And the Zaurus community is still alive and supported by the Angstrom distro (based on OE). The Sharp Zaurus sl-5x00(D) now has a 2.6.x kernel (despite all the Sharp release kernels being 2.4.x) and afaik the c7x0 devices now have some working hw acceleration (again working from no docs).

Angstrom was console mode only on the Collie when I left the community. Opie was "dead".

This is GPE, nothing to do with Gnome, except that it used an X server rather than drawing directly to the fb like Qtopia/Opie did.

Ah,, GPE, that was it. Maybe the logo confused me - look at the Gnome logo side by side witht he GPE one. Remove the thumb... hmmm...

Khertan

2008-12-17, 12:50

Mono is the future :-)

We aren't the 1rst april !

pycage

2008-12-18, 13:09

Mono is the future :-)

Yeah, I remember Miguel saying this back in 2003. He must have meant the distant future, because it's already five years later now... :P

Khertan

2008-12-19, 05:18

Hum ... no alarmd in the actual sdk ? not integrated yet ? or does it have been deleted ?

qgil

2008-12-19, 06:22

Not integrated yet. Will come with improvements.

qgil

2009-01-13, 08:20

Answering eiffel (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=256789&postcount=44):

> For example, knowing that the screen resolution, screen size and
> included browser are no worse than the current ones would be
> enough.

The Maemo 4.1 browser is still performing quite good compared to the alternatives fitting in your pocket and of course the browser shipped with Maemo 5 will be much better.

There are different opinions about what is better and worse about screen resolutions and sizes. Maemo has a flexible UI that can handle many resolution sizes and X/Y combinations. 800x480 is serving well the compromise between computer & Internet experiences and users pockets and eyes and keeps being the default assumption.

Hardware details to be shared when a new devices is announced.

eyco

2009-03-18, 17:02

whan can we upgrade to the maemo 5?

qole

2009-03-18, 17:06

whan can we upgrade to the maemo 5?

We won't be able to "upgrade" to Maemo 5. We will either have to get a new device (to be released sometime this year) or use Mer (http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer) to get many of the Maemo 5 features on the current devices.

ackbar

2009-03-19, 05:11

We won't be able to "upgrade" to Maemo 5. We will either have to get a new device (to be released sometime this year) or use Mer (http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer) to get many of the Maemo 5 features on the current devices.

That will make me REALLY ANGRY. All those bugs marked closed / Fixed in fremantle but won't be available to current owners.

benny1967

2009-03-19, 07:44

That will make me REALLY ANGRY. All those bugs marked closed / Fixed in fremantle but won't be available to current owners.

you have every right to be angry about this. i am, too. especially since nokia already treated me this way when i had my 770. they suddenly dropped support (with no good reason, although they tried to make up some excuses) and announced new OS-updates would be for the N800 only. there was an uproar, nokia said they'd learned from it and promised not to do this again. now here we are.

on the one hand, it shows nokia still thinks of the tablets as "embedded devices", similar to phones where the firmware is tightly connected to the hardware. they still, after all these years, haven't understood their own products.

on the other hand, this time it's a little different:
the number of alternative operating systems for the tablets grows. many are not end user ready, but make good progress. most importantly, there's mer, a project supported by nokia. mer will be as close to fremantle as you can get, but very independent from nokia's management decisions.

so while i'm angry, too ("fool me once,... fool me twice,..."), i make up excuses for nokia (they sure had to cut costs, too. maemo seems to be doing well inside nokia ATM, but probably the responsible managers face cuts in their budgets as everybody else nowadays). and i take comfort from following mer's steady progress. these guys are doing a great job, and probably they'll deliver what nokia can't.

fanoush

2009-03-19, 08:48

they suddenly dropped support (with no good reason, although they tried to make up some excuses) and announced new OS-updates would be for the N800 only. there was an uproar, nokia said they'd learned from it and promised not to do this again. now here we are. Not only they did it again, they did it even worse this time :-) There was Elephanta OS version planned/promised for N8x0 which was later canceled. They never promised OS2007 for 770. They did promise (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=57892#post57892) longer roadmap for N8x0 than delivered. Also there are now unconfirmed hints (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27348) that there won't be any more Diablo update so we are left with half broken version with many bugs not present in Chinook. One needs to choose from two OS2008 versions both with different set of bugs in two main applications (browser, email client).

Still, they did many things really well and are opening more and more stuff which indeed helps. Supporting Mer effort is far more effective than doing any hacker editions of OS inside Nokia.

SD69

2009-03-19, 12:18

there's mer, a project supported by nokia.

mer is a great project. We should have cautious optimism here about the level of support from nokia. AFAICT, we are still waiting for them to release some components and some vital 3rd party elements, such as flash, for use in mer.

benny1967

2009-03-19, 12:48

i should have said "encouraged" rather than "supported", maybe. - well, i'm still optimistic, you see. don't know why. :D

GeneralAntilles

2009-03-19, 16:52

AFAICT, we are still waiting for them to release some components and some vital 3rd party elements, such as flash, for use in mer.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Nokia and everything to do with Adobe. If you want to see it, bug Adobe.

i should have said "encouraged" rather than "supported"

No, "supported" is the right term (actually, "is supporting" would be even better).

SD69

2009-03-19, 17:39

This has absolutely nothing to do with Nokia...

:confused:

Here is a direct quote from qgil:

"We asked the Mer team to list the *3rd party* closed source packages they need, since they don't belong to Nokia and therefore we need to make sure the owners are fine with the deal.

For instance, Flash belongs to Adobe and Skype belongs to Skype Inc. The agreements signed with these companies are framed for official releases going through a quite demanding quality process. If Nokia would let the Mer team (or whoever) grab those binaries for other purposes then those agreements would be in trouble, affecting e.g. the negotiations for Fremantle."

qole

2009-03-19, 17:59

Yeah I made an @ss of myself and got the Mer team angry at me, because I was all confused about what components were being discussed, and what Nokia was offering, and what the Mer team was asking, and, well, everything; I mouthed off (http://internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=261575#post261575) about stuff I didn't understand. One good thing that (perhaps) came of my thick-headedness was qgil's excellent explanation (http://internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=261619#post261619), quoted by SD69 above.

GeneralAntilles

2009-03-19, 18:14

"We asked the Mer team to list the *3rd party* closed source packages they need, since they don't belong to Nokia and therefore we need to make sure the owners are fine with the deal.

Your accusation seemed to be that Nokia wasn't really helping much, giving 3rd-party stuff as an example. In the end, the decision to allow distribution of the licensed 3rd-party components doesn't belong to Nokia, it belongs to the owners of those 3rd-party components. Nokia's doing what it can to make it happen, but any lack of progress isn't to be blamed on Nokia (as you did).

sjgadsby

2009-03-19, 18:22

...any lack of progress isn't to be blamed on Nokia (as you did).

And likely, end-user pressure on the third parties will be more effective than pressure on Nokia for non-Nokia components. In other words, Nokia telling the third parties, "Hey, our users want this," will have more meaning if the third parties also hear from actual users who, yes, "want this".

luca

2009-03-19, 18:36

And likely, end-user pressure on the third parties will be more effective than pressure on Nokia for non-Nokia components. In other words, Nokia telling the third parties, "Hey, our users want this," will have more meaning if the third parties also hear from actual users who, yes, "want this".

But since both nokia and the third parties already have our money, they won't really care.

qole

2009-03-19, 18:37

It would be very helpful if someone posted some way of doing what sjgadsby suggests. How would we go about contacting these folks and showing our support?

sjgadsby

2009-03-19, 18:51

But since both nokia and the third parties already have our money, they won't really care.

Since Skype, for example, gives away their client and sells service for it, wouldn't they have at least a slightly higher potential for profit from Mer users by having the client on the platform then by not?

GeneralAntilles

2009-03-19, 19:48

Since Skype, for example, gives away their client and sells service for it, wouldn't they have at least a slightly higher potential for profit from Mer users by having the client on the platform then by not?

They distribute the binary themselves, anyway, so there isn't actually a licensing issue with Skype.

SD69

2009-03-19, 19:49

It would be very helpful if someone posted some way of doing what sjgadsby suggests. How would we go about contacting these folks and showing our support?Conventionally, you would set up a non-profit (Mer Foundation, etc.). Contacting people like Skype is easy if you are professional about it. You wouldn't have to show "support"; the Mer Foundation would be in a position to directly license from Skype (or whomever).

SD69

2009-03-19, 20:03

Your accusation seemed to be that Nokia wasn't really helping much, giving 3rd-party stuff as an example. In the end, the decision to allow distribution of the licensed 3rd-party components doesn't belong to Nokia, it belongs to the owners of those 3rd-party components. Nokia's doing what it can to make it happen, but any lack of progress isn't to be blamed on Nokia (as you did).I didn't accuse Nokia of not really helping much, nor did I blame them for lack of progress. I said "cautious optimisim". Try reading my statements (and statements of others) without any predilection.

YoDude

2009-03-19, 21:59

I didn't accuse Nokia of not really helping much, nor did I blame them for lack of progress. I said "cautious optimisim". Try reading my statements (and statements of others) without any predilection.

Perhaps GA should have used the word "imply" instead of "accuse".

The bottom line is whatever rights Nokia negotiated for the use of third party code are not transferable.

BTW dude, and statements of others???

Who are you speaking for?

Conventionally, you would set up a non-profit (Mer Foundation, etc.). Contacting people like Skype is easy if you are professional about it.

Are you also a Lawyer? Have you ever tried to negotiate with a corporation for code on behalf of a not for profit or non profit organization having 0 (zero) assets? How did that work out for you?

Just wondering. :)

lardman

2009-03-19, 23:21

Well one can always hope that a presumed future Skype-for-Fremantle would run as-is on Mer-for-omap2. At least that's the sort of thing I'm hoping for (and not just for the closed source stuff).

Bundyo

2009-03-19, 23:29

Unless it is compiled with optimizations for the newer processor...

attila77

2009-03-19, 23:47

Unless it is compiled with optimizations for the newer processor...

There was no new relase since December 2007 and nothing on their forums and bugtrackers suggesting the Maemo port is alive. It seems they had a deal with nokia to provide skype for the N810 and that they did, and not an inch more. They did not manage even say a 'sorry' or 'working on it' for the appaling lack of features (and the faulty ones). So, no messages while talking, no DTMF tones, no file transfer, no video, no cpu idle when idling, and the list goes on... After such a track record, optimizations for a new processor would be nothing short of a miracle (for me).

qole

2009-03-19, 23:55

I can't seem to chroot into the Alpha Maemo 5 SDK rootfs, as provided by Nokia, from the tablet. I just get a "Invalid Instruction" when I try.

I didn't pursue that idea any further because I assumed that binaries compiled for OMAP3 must not be compatible with the OMAP2 chipset. Was I wrong? Is the problem the way I tried to get the rootfs? Should I try the instructions (http://maemo-beagle.garage.maemo.org/alpha.html) given for building a rootfs for the Maemo on Beagleboard project?

Bundyo

2009-03-19, 23:58

There was no new relase since December 2007 and nothing on their forums and bugtrackers suggesting the Maemo port is alive. It seems they had a deal with nokia to provide skype for the N810 and that they did, and not an inch more. They did not manage even say a 'sorry' or 'working on it' for the appaling lack of features (and the faulty ones). So, no messages while talking, no DTMF tones, no file transfer, no video, no cpu idle when idling, and the list goes on... After such a track record, optimizations for a new processor would be nothing short of a miracle (for me).

But they did with the OS2007 version of Skype.

Benson

2009-03-20, 00:04

Well, it looks from here like Skype-for-N8x0 is dead and abandoned, but there have been some noises about Skype working on a generic client for ARM netbooks. It's possible that such a project is underway, and that it would be able to run on the RX-51, and probably the N8x0 as well.

I really have a hard time seeing Skype let the RX-51 go without Skype, though; with HSPA data connectivity, but no voice service, it's the ultimate VOIPphone to date, and if Skype is available like on the N8x0, they automatically pick up most of that business. If it ships with no Skype client available, I think a lot of folks will take the plunge to find a SIP providers and use SIP + Google Voice, and many of them will find it better and leave Skype forever. I just hope this means a decent and flexible ARM Skype client, not a lame repackaging of the existing binaries.

(Speaking of Google Voice, it's good to finally see some progress -- I've been signed up for ages to be notified as soon as GrandCentral opens back up.)

attila77

2009-03-20, 00:48

I just hope this means a decent and flexible ARM Skype client, not a lame repackaging of the existing binaries.

Are you sure about the ARM port ? They seem to be concentrating MID efforts on Intel. And even there, they go as far as to openly say the MID version will not have PulseAudio support as it is 'not required' by the MID devices. VOIP applications on a RX51 are a natural fit for Skype but their commitment to Linux is flaky at best even on the desktop (seriously, will we ever see 64 bit packages ?). Me, I expect a too little too late approach on ARM netbooks, and then if they *do* come through it will be a pleasant surprise.

Benson

2009-03-20, 02:00

Are you sure about the ARM port ? They seem to be concentrating MID efforts on Intel. And even there, they go as far as to openly say the MID version will not have PulseAudio support as it is 'not required' by the MID devices. VOIP applications on a RX51 are a natural fit for Skype but their commitment to Linux is flaky at best even on the desktop (seriously, will we ever see 64 bit packages ?). Me, I expect a too little too late approach on ARM netbooks, and then if they *do* come through it will be a pleasant surprise.

No, I'm not sure -- "heard noises about" is all. The MID (Intel branding for N8x0-like devices) port is a definite reality, and definitely x86 only.

qole

2009-03-20, 03:16

...And even there, they go as far as to openly say the MID version will not have PulseAudio support as it is 'not required' by the MID devices...

I would love to see your source for that. Because if they aren't supporting PulseAudio, that suggests they aren't going to be making a version for Maemo 5... Unless they do some hack using PulseAudio's compatibility mode...

...that's pretty disappointing news.

GeraldKo

2009-03-20, 04:24

If there's no Skype on the new NIT hardware, no new NIT for me; or else I buy the new NIT and find a different VOIP, and Skype can kiss my *** goodbye.

BTW, I've tried Sype-through-Fring on my girlfriend's iPod Touch, and it just hangs.

benny1967

2009-03-20, 07:26

Skype and Nokia today announced a partnership that will bring the world's leading Internet communications experience to the Nokia range of mobile computers. Under the terms of the cooperation, Skype(TM) will be integrated into Nokia devices, starting with Nokia Nseries. The Nokia N97 flagship device will be the first to incorporate the Skype experience in the 3rd quarter of 2009.
nobody says maemo here, but if you look at the wording ("range of mobile computers"), it's not completely unlikely that the next maemo device is covered by the same deal. if not, there could have been a similar deal before. skype will not refuse to write a specific client if they get payed for it.

tso

2009-03-20, 10:38

i would love to see someone lean on skype to get some kind of generic access going. as it stands, they are the microsoft of voip...

lcuk

2009-03-20, 10:45

nobody says maemo here, but if you look at the wording ("range of mobile computers"), it's not completely unlikely that the next maemo device is covered by the same deal. if not, there could have been a similar deal before. skype will not refuse to write a specific client if they get payed for it.

thats a good quote to dig up.
but looking at the dates, we may not see skype until the 3rd quarter of 2009...

attila77

2009-03-20, 12:24

I would love to see your source for that. Because if they aren't supporting PulseAudio, that suggests they aren't going to be making a version for Maemo 5... Unless they do some hack using PulseAudio's compatibility mode...

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=265301&view=findpost&p=1181271

There is no PulseAudio support in the MID client as this isn't currently required for any of the MID devices, however the next Linux desktop client will likely have this

So, my guess is either wrapper or a longish wait until pulseaudio support trickles down from the (already a year late) linux client.

Stskeeps

2009-03-20, 12:29

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=265301&view=findpost&p=1181271

So, my guess is either wrapper or a longish wait until pulseaudio support trickles down from the (already a year late) linux client.

There's also ESD wrapper for PulseAudio, you know ..

attila77

2009-03-20, 13:00

There's also ESD wrapper for PulseAudio, you know ..

Yes, there is/was also an ALSA wrapper for PulseAudio and still, there were times you had to jump through hoops to make ALSA Skype work with it. I take nothing granted with regard to Skype on Linux anymore :(

allnameswereout

2009-03-20, 13:09

and Skype can kiss my *** goodbye.That might be ideal. Then you can settle with open protocols such as SIP.

BTW, I've tried Sype-through-Fring on my girlfriend's iPod Touch, and it just hangs.Try Nimbuzz. Recent versions support Skype.

If you read the announcements and read what the Skype spokesman says he refers to Symbian. AFAIK its a native port; not J2ME. And even then, J2ME is not available for Maemo. IIRC Skype for Linux is a Qt application. It might as well be ported to Maemo instead.

Jaffa

2009-03-20, 13:15

The bottom line is whatever rights Nokia negotiated for the use of third party code are not transferable.

Given Nokia have not yet responded to the requests completely, you sound awfully sure about the "bottom line" without having been party to any negotiations, discussions or contracts.

SD69

2009-03-20, 17:29

Are you also a Lawyer? Have you ever tried to negotiate with a corporation for code on behalf of a not for profit or non profit organization having 0 (zero) assets? How did that work out for you?

Just wondering. :)No. But I don't see why a Mer Foundation couldn't get code from the likes of Skype for the reasons stated in post #183. SW licensing is about providing a benefit to both licensor and licensee, which I have been involved with successful licenses in a variety of different situations. I don't see how one party being a non-profit changes the basic proposition that much.

(non-profits, including a Mer Foundation, can have valuable assets - and a good mobile OS can be a valuable asset)

GeneralAntilles

2009-03-20, 17:37

No. But I don't see why a Mer Foundation couldn't get code from the likes of Skype for the reasons stated in post #183. SW licensing is about providing a benefit to both licensor and licensee, which I have been involved with successful licenses in a variety of different situations. I don't see how one party being a non-profit changes the basic proposition that much.

It'd be a lot easier and more effective for people to bother them as customers.

SD69

2009-03-20, 18:37

It'd be a lot easier and more effective for people to bother them as customers.I would agree that the customerbase is the more important factor (see post #183).

glabifrons

2009-03-20, 18:43

The mention of a java version of skype (above) made me think about the possibilities of java on the new platform.
I've played with Jalimo on my N800 and it's nice, but not being hildonized, it can't do what I need (freemind without a keyboard for one example, not running so slowly I want to cry for another).

To the point:
Has anyone heard any news at all about whether or not Nokia is (finally) willing to license Jazelle (Java directly on the OMAP3 hardware) for Maemo 5/RX-51?
This could really make it a fantastically versatile and powerful platform... imagine hardware accelerated Android (just one example), not to mention all of the software that would immediately become available/usable.
Is it really that expensive that, given a mass-produced product, the price is too large of a percentage of the resulting device to be feasible?

(I searched around a bit and couldn't find anything... sorry if this has been discussed since the N810 was released)

allnameswereout

2009-03-20, 21:15

The current Skype client for S60 is written in J2ME. J2ME is not full Java implementation. It is a stripped/embedded version (Mobile Edition).

Skype client for Linux requires Qt (http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/).

If you read the news about Nokia & Skype partnership (http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2009/02/nokia_and_skype_partnering_in.html) it is integrated in the OS, and it will be included in the N97 firmware. Is J2ME by default installed on Nokia N-Series?

Skype is also porting to Android and Mobilin (http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2009/01/skype_on_android_and_intel_mid.html). But these are 'light' versions.

So at least part of the code is cross-platform, and its ported to ARM, and the full Linux version uses Qt. Perhaps a full Linux version ported to ARM is not far-fetched.

In any case, I don't mind that they want to profit on their infrastructure but I do think its nice to be able to pick your own VoIP client. Thats why I suggest SIP and open IM protocols like Jabber.

YoDude

2009-03-20, 22:33

Given Nokia have not yet responded to the requests completely, you sound awfully sure about the "bottom line" without having been party to any negotiations, discussions or contracts.

You're right. As a matter of fact I am privy only to what I have read here. Maybe what I should have said was...

From the looks of it mister. That dang horse is dead. Why should we still beat it?

BTW, all rights to the above post are reserved (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_rights_reserved). :)

Jaffa

2009-03-20, 22:37

The mention of a java version of skype (above) made me think about the possibilities of java on the new platform.

There are two areas of possible interest with Java on the tablets:

A platform for developing new applications.
Running pre-existing applications.

The latter doesn't really interest me (although I expect middleware like equinox to work without modification; and... it does). However:

I've played with Jalimo on my N800 and it's nice, but not being hildonized, it can't do what I need (freemind without a keyboard for one example,

...makes me think you want the latter. Certainly there's auto-Hildonisation for SWT apps but, IIRC, Freemind is Swing. Running the Swing to SWT port under Freemind might provide promising results, though.

Has anyone heard any news at all about whether or not Nokia is (finally) willing to license Jazelle (Java directly on the OMAP3 hardware) for Maemo 5/RX-51?

No, I've not heard anything (I haven't checked, presumably OMAP3430 still supports Jazelle?)

This could really make it a fantastically versatile and powerful platform... imagine hardware accelerated Android (just one example),

Agreed (on the platform front[1]), however since Android uses its own Dalvik bytecode and VM - which has already been optimised for quick execution in a low-resource environment, and is incompatible with Java bytecode - Jazelle would make no difference to Android performance.

[1] Remote debugging. Code hot swap. IDEs like IntelliJ, Eclipse, NetBeans. Rich class libraries. <drool/>

lardman

2009-03-21, 00:11

Agreed (on the platform front[1]), however since Android uses its own Dalvik bytecode and VM - which has already been optimised for quick execution in a low-resource environment, and is incompatible with Java bytecode - Jazelle would make no difference to Android performance.

I seem to remember that Jazelle on the later ARM chips (i.e. not the ones in our N8x0 machines) can execute arbitrary machine code for each/any bytecode instruction, so it might still be usable (though we still don't quite know how it works and it's protected by patents and the like so I, for one, am not too bothered to dig into it any more)

lma

2009-03-21, 11:19

I seem to remember that Jazelle on the later ARM chips (i.e. not the ones in our N8x0 machines) can execute arbitrary machine code for each/any bytecode instruction

Interesting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Thumb_Execution_Environment_.28Th umbEE.29: (emphasis mine):

ThumbEE, also known as Thumb-2EE, and marketed as Jazelle RCT (Runtime Compilation Target), was announced in 2005, first appearing in the Cortex-A8 processor. ThumbEE provides a small extension to the Thumb-2 extended Thumb instruction set, making the instruction set particularly suited to code generated at runtime (e.g. by JIT compilation) in managed Execution Environments. ThumbEE is a target for languages such as Limbo, Java, C#, Perl and Python, and allows JIT compilers to output smaller compiled code without impacting performance.

Although realistically (like "vanilla" jazelle, vfp, m-shield and so on) we may not get to see this in action before the chips are obsolete...