Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

Thanks for hiding behind a vapid, nebulous term as "business decisions" when honestly you've answered absolutely nothing other than announce a non-announcement. Simply put, make something happen or otherwise this is yet another non-announcement and indicative of that nothing productive in terms of prior iterations of so-called future-proof hardware and OS sold under the guise of fully-opensource will yet be another notch in the belt of marketing promise and lacking delivery.

I'm quite sure that the quotes of "fully open" are quite remembered by those that found out it wasn't. Please start with considering that first. Sell a fake promise, deliver something years later.

Way to go.

I quite understand this. I remember that we had to support SGI 320 and 540's back in the day. They had a firewire connection that was essentially useless due to licensing and SGI just simply was not going to pay Apple their fee per machine for licensing. It was just part of the chipset that came on those motherboards.

Guess what? You didn't find Firewire support advertised. Can't say the same for Nokia's claims (see above).

And now they can be used by a dead OS that you've all but killed?

Even unsupported would have encouraged 2 years of tinkering in advance to when Nokia decided to pull support.

This I understand. But where was this information when the machines were released?

I wish to complain about how you didn't announce any of this the day these machines came out and addressed it years later. Silence in this form for so long is misleading in quite a few ways.

When the next machine comes out; I'm quite sure you will have a few people wait and ask more educated questions that upon delivery of non-answers will result in a backlash of "Remember how they treated their prior customers..." due to prior claims made that were not followed through by Nokia.

Simply put, I hope that even you can understand that fully-opensource means just that. The N800/N810 were sold under that guise and it was a lie. My complaint is real, actual, and now louder due to revelations like this.

And my complaint is well inline with the rest of this thread. You just don't want to address it. And that's ok too... I understand that it doesn't quite fit into your connotation of "business sense".

And I know it never will.

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

I don't think I ever saw Nokia advertising the 3D chip in the N8x0 or their 3D capable graphics driver ...

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

...is an unprecedented Open Software win for Nokia.

So many companies let their software languish but also never let the community step up and become heroes because they won't share the old code, even though it is old and the company has moved on. Has Microsoft released the source code for Windows 3.1?

But Nokia is opening it up! Win!

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

absolutely spot on.
I've been grinning from ear to ear after hearing about this and really hope it comes through.
even though a driver may not be fully utilized and may be buggy and all of the possible problems that may come with it, it will be there to work on and expand and improve.

i personally think the n8x0 line are outstanding devices and can hold their own against many other machines, in just the same way the 770 has outlasted its sellby date, so will this generation.

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

This is really good news, many thanks Quim. I look forward to some hacking :)

@Gerbick: You're after continued support. It's not going to come from Nokia for whatever reasons (the fact that my phone has never had any updates and still does what I bought it for 2 years ago comes to mind).

Where you will get support is Mer, this is a project which is designed to keep the software running on our (now out-of-date) hardware up-to-date and running nicely and to experiment with new and cool software (3D comes to mind).

Depending on the design of the drivers, you may be able to hack them into working on Chinook/Diablo, but that's up to you, I'll be using Mer and looking forward.

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

I am worried about the technical issues (framebuffer size and all that). How are we going to get Clutter if it requires whole screen 3D acceleration, but the framebuffer cannot contain 800x480?

I guess it's still too early to worry about this. Let's celebrate!

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

I'm not doubting that. I just hope this community doesn't fracture like the Zaurus community had done before it.

It's a "win"... but at what level? Enthusiast level will benefit, no doubt. But it means nothing to an average consumer that has yet to install the ability to obtain root or the other hacks on this board.

In the meantime, I have to bone up and learn a ton more from you guys in the community.

However, I feel as if I can still voice my opinion in regards to Nokia treatment of this position - it just doesn't make sense to me.

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

Upon research, it was discovered that the 3D chipset was also present and speculation was that it was going to be utilized as well.

That speculation was community level; however words like "enhanced video" right after a chipset term like bluetooth added with the speculation... you're 100% right though.

Not advertised. But definitely speculated. I can take that blame though fully on myself for falling for the speculation. But it does exist, the chipset that is...

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

When I looked at this, the limitation on frame buffer was for the internal LCD controller, not the 3D accelerator which if I recall correctly can use internal memory. Now the problem is still how do you get the internal frame buffer out to the external LCD controller in a timely manner. This seems like it would limit total frame rate.

Frank

Re: The N800 has a 3D accelerator, right?
 

The problem is the hobbling and crippling for two years. Why did I buy something I was told was based on open-source (and I remember the tagline being marched out repeatedly by Nokia was "future proof because it's based on open-source") but then the gotchas are that just about every driver was closed and even some of the included applications. You only find out that it's PORTIONS of the system are open-source after you've already purchased and you read the ABOUT dialog or the paper documentation inside the box... but the promises of EVENTUALLY getting open-sourced drivers hangs some of us in there.. two years later we're only JUST being told that maybe we'll get the crippled video driver opened up.

I appreciate the opening up. I can not appreciate the distant amount of time it took to do so. Basically, the argument that this was the "right time" reads to me as "now that nobody wants that hardware anymore because we have these NEW chipsets that we're also going to close-source the drivers for..."

I also don't understand how it's a good business move either. I'm MORE likely to keep my old hardware now--and VERY VERY unlikely to want to buy the newer hardware... which I would LIKE to get, but the security and value and understanding of a fully open architecure is a much higher value to somebody like me, that has to configure solutions for people that are using the hardware, than the increased resources of the new hardware. The moment someone else DOES come out with a NEW piece of more open hardware, you KNOW I will pounce on it and so will the people I support and talk to.

Really, this is great news. It's just bittersweet news. I can't get TOO excited. It's like being told to be thankful you're getting table scraps. If you're hungry enough, there's no reason not to be thankful but... really? Is that the way to treat people who're ready to open their wallet to you?