Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

Oh come now.. I'm FatalSaint - you know me ;). You don't think I tried? I had the full SDK on my computer, compiled my own ROM's that I flashed on my own phone (I didn't get involved with xda-dev's as much as I did here with the N810 though.. I wanted to test waters first) - I wrote one or two tiny apps just to get a feel for it.

... I hated it. Like I said.. I'm just not a Java person I guess. The whole experience was just totally unique to that one specific OS and the vast majority of it totally useless in every other aspect of computers not Android related. The Java isn't even Java.. it's a specialized Java.

Anyway.. long story short: Yes, I've been there. Didn't like it.. far prefer dealing with Maemo and it's quirks over Android and it's. That is, of course as you said, my personal opinion and preference however.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

No, you won't be able to. As I said, we're not going to get a gNewSense-like distro soon. But Ubuntu-like (with propietary firmware, 3d drivers, ...).

Well, Mer was made by -- guess who -- "the free software community". Not Nokia, not the council, not me.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

So... what is the definitive answer regarding what the council represents then?

I mean, I've thrice stated that I have, rather incorrectly for far too long about who and what the council can/cannot do. I mean, seriously I could be still wrong (ok, I admit, I KNOW I am still wrong) and thus my questions.

Anidel stated earlier something that... seems to be pretty darn accurate.

Exactly, the Maemo.org Council HAS Nokia's ear on the community: the Maemo.org community. Not the Nokia "community" of customers.

If that's the absolute truth, then we're good. I can understand that.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

I think the takeaway of this thread for me is the lack of a proper customer relationship channel for "power users". Nokia Customer Care, while nice, generally does not do much more than regurgitate what's in the user manual. Besides the fact that the n900 is kind of off the grid and many of them haven't even heard of it let alone use one :eek:

The frustrating part is that it's not just us pounding our fists on the table saying "we want answers!" - we could offer a ton of useful feedback to Nokia.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

Are you being sarcastic?

There was not a single closed source blob in Mer - where on -earth- did you get from that we were having lack of openness?

What?

WHAT?

Now I'm just offended. Matan's point that a image with limited functionality without a blob doesn't spark much interest (due to much of the hardware adaptation needing this), does apply to Mer.
Which is ironic cos it's the same people who don't understand that the real world sometimes gives us lemons (blobs) and there's not a damn thing that can be done about it.

And I'll reiterate daperl again (not exact words):

Isn't the lesson from X86 distributions clear? You're only as good as your drivers, proprietary or otherwise.

But lack of openness??. WTF. We had all work happening in the open, mer-chatter for workstreaming, gitorious, OBS projects where everybody could submit to, IRC channel where people -still- hang out. We might have had functionality issues, but don't you dare to claim we did not have openness.

I'm really considering adding '127.0.0.1 talk.maemo.org' to my /etc/hosts tonight so I can actually do what I'm supposed to instead of wasting my time arguing with people with too much of entitlement disorder.

Talk is cheap, go contribute instead. I've had enough of people who talk, talk, talk and talk and do nothing.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

Forgive my lack of clarity, Gerbick. I wasn't in any post specifically meaning you personally are posting ire and anger. But there are a lot of people here who are. I did not realise you were interpreting my comments to be aimed at you individually.

I continue to maintain that expending energy posting complaints here that rightly belong to Nokia customer support or feedback is wasteful and unhelpful. Nor is it useful to blame the Council for not doing what Nokia should be doing themselves.

I do wonder whether it is worth the Council sending Nokia a letter complaining about the lack of adequate customer/consumer feedback organs, since that lack seems to be impacting negatively on the community.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

Much Love Stskeeps.. take a step back for a second.. I believe (I'm sure dan will clarify) what he meant was Mer was halted because of the lack of openness of Maemo and the N8x0 series drivers and other components that Mer never successfully was able to get working adaptations for.

That is how I interpreted him, though. I don't think me meant Mer itself was not open.. it was just not viable because the parts it needed weren't.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

I didn't think initially that you were; however I've been pointed out as being uncivil to you somehow where I wasn't.

I'll accept your apology in the hopes that you accept my apology that I could have made you think I was being angry at you. I'm not angry at all. Just hope that people will walk away from this thread and the council will state clearly things that... as a 3 year ITT/TMO member I've had wrong the entire time it seems.

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

The only problem I've found with that situation (although it's also a pro) is the..

a) When Google releases an update, it's up to the manufacturers to push the update (granted what Google releases is only for their development phone). So manufactuerers are still in charge of deciding to provide you with an update.

b) Not all the phones have access to that crazy hacking party (correct me if I'm wrong). I think it's mainly the large releases that are well publicized (Droid, Galaxy S, Evo 4G). Not sure how the rooting and flashing custom ROMs work with the lesser known devices. Then you have companies like (Motorola?) pulling that chip stunt (though I've read that root access is now possible but not flashing ROMs).

To be fair fatalsaint, you used the G1, which was Google's first development phone. Then I think they switched to the Nexus One. The modern Android phones pack quite a punch hardware wise. That combined with the optimization in Froyo should solve some of the problems you had.

I'm going hold you to that. =P

Re: Would you miss the Council if it was gone?
 

Apologies accepted all round.

I think the value from this thread could be something about what the Council is for/not for, to match the need for statement of what these forums are for/not for.