Re: Ask the Council!
 

@Estel what you said makes so much sense and i for one would fully support such a course of action. I would gladly give donations of £5 a month towards future support of the maemo community. I just think, we should build the foundations for our OWN open community, whereby the members have the final say and not nokia.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

What concerns me is the "define 'promised'" part from Nokia's representative. Here is some exact language relating to the Council mandate

I've forwarded it and asked for a response.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

maybe slightly off-topic:
I think if we would actually be able do do things like that we should leave Maemo as a platform completely.
Let's face it, Maemo as a software platform is so full of compromises and flaws that it's not worth using it when designing a new mobile device from scratch. The only argument that speaks for Maemo is that it's still the best platform out there because it's the only one which is half-way free and half-way alive.
There is this wild mix of software from different Debian releases somehow patched together in order to make it work. If that wouldn't be the case projects like kernel power or CSSU wouldn't even be necessary because their features would be part of the standard distribution. Porting all these problems to a completely new device doesn't seem as a good idea to me.

If we'd ever be able to design and produce our own N900 successor the software platform should be something that already exists and that's absolutely free (as in freedom). In my (biased) opinion the best idea would be to start as a Debian sub-project like there was Debian-eee for netbooks when they were new, which eventually was integrated into the Debian distribution completely. Of course when it comes to the user interface Maemo could be a role model in many aspects but if there is a platform that could actually be used as a fork source it should be Openmoko.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

Still not fixed.
Also problem with kernel-power packages in maemo interface is not fixed too.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

sulu: there is a project to get debian on n900. Can't remember the site. It's worth checking as the creator tracks hardware support in the kernel. He logs when it was incorporated into main tree, when support is due to be merged and what components are developed outside main tree.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I know. You surely mean this site:
http://wiki.debian.org/pkg-n900

The problem is that for most of the N900's hardware there are only closed drivers. Up to now there isn't even a properly working X-server under a native Debian installation. The N900 might be pretty open for a phone but if you compare it to normal PC hardware it's one of the most locked down systems that exist.

But even if one could manage to integrate all the proprietary firmwares into a standard Debian kernel one might get a running system but the result would have nothing to do with what Debian stands for (e.g. DSG). Technically the result would be pretty close to running Easy Debian on a Maemo that has no other software installed.
The reason to get a native Debian running on the N900 is not a technical one (Easy Debian does a pretty good job here) but an idealistic/politic/religious one (whatever you like to call that). And that can only be fulfilled if either the existing drivers are released under a Free license or the specs of the hardware are published so that the community could write its own Free drivers.
Therefore I think if one designs a new platform from scratch one should make sure to use hardware that can run on Free drivers completely. If that's the case we don't need an operating system anymore which is closed in many aspects itself.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

sulu: I had the elektranox site thats linked to in the page you gave.

https://elektranox.org/n900/kernel/status.html

With regards to X, omap-drm is slowly coming together but doesn't support HW accel 3D

Re: Ask the Council!
 

I agree that there is a great benefit to a Debian-rebase. I don't see the binary blobs as such a big blocker though. There is form for this - things like the Nvidia binary blobs et al and of course the non-free section. We would still of course need our own kernel package though to maintain the binary interfaces until that magical day when we have enough OSS shims and replacements to update.

For all the things I might disagree with regarding the way Nemo/Mer plans does things, the hardware adaption model seems a sensible and practical one. Finding a way to manage those within the Debian infrastructure is the only way to give continued life to Maemo 5 by ensuring it can run on more devices than just the N900. Multiple kernels and binary blobs are the unavoidable price to pay for that.

Re: Ask the Council!
 

@Android_808:
Thanks for providing that link again! It made me have a closer look at the project and it seems like some things have changed to the better since I last checked.

Of course from a technical point of view the non-free blobs are not a blocker, but I'm one of those Debian users who don't use the system only for technical reasons. Therefore I'd appreciate it if a Maemo replacement on the N900 could run on free drivers only. But of course I'm aware that won't happen over night.
On the other hand having an extra kernel sounds pretty ugly to me because this way the project would never become part of the regular Debian distribution. I'd favor using the Debian mainline kernel plus something like a firmware-n900 package in non-free.
Frankly I have no interest in keeping Maemo alive just for its own sake. For me it has always been just a stopgap to run (Easy) Debian on this little "subnetbook" called N900 which just by chance happened to be able to replace my regular cellphone.

@some moderator:
I guess it's time to split this subthread before it get's completely off-topic. :o

Re: Ask the Council!
 

What a surprise ;) Please, try to catch DocScrutinizer and guly on IRC, about independent-repos progress. I'm quite out of IRC, due to tight personal schedule.

/Estel