Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Option 1 is an option. If it is a good one, I don't know. I think with this option Sailfish development would be quite slow.

Option 2 is as long an option as that hardware partner believes in open software and wants to release phones and not TVs. (I think it's a quite unrealistic option otherwise there would have been a manufacturer in the past who'd bought Jolla)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

That's a very good question. It reminds me of the old Radio Yerevan joke from the Communist times of economic scarcity:

Q: "When will we have it good?"
A: "You already had!"

When Jolla started, I saw them as an alternative mobile phone manufacturer. That is how they presented themselves. That was their chance. It was a good chance. To build a consumer product that the customers would want to buy. Not a new iPhone. Not even a new Android. Too late for that. But Asha, Firefox, Tizen and Ubuntu are all proofs that there is market for alternatives.

Unfortunately, they squandered the chance multiple times. Instead of making the phone pleasant to use by fixing bugs ("dirty spot"), they went off and spent 6 months porting a Qt update that introduced the OOM issues and ultimately killed the best thing there was about the phone - performance. Instead of improving the basic functionality (another "dirty spot"), they spent another twelve months if not more fiddling with the UI. The result is the controversial 2.0 that polarized the community like nothing before.

And every time you tried to point any of that out, you were immediately stamped to the ground by the crowds of JulmaHerras shouting about how negative you are and how Holly Jolla knows best and we should leave them alone.

Well, they did it their way. Now you see the result.

(Regarding opening the OS, I absolutely share your view.)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I would only say that do not see it as white and black. There are a lot of small companies in tech who are successful. The problem of Jolla was a priorities. They went too loud but too slow. And the shaming of community was the "wake up call" first, but they ignored.
Paid apps would maybe help to keep a lot of devs from TMO which could bring more awareness of device and more devs/customers as an example.
So again, I do not think the main problem is HW problems(after all they are SW company, or am I wrong?), but strategy, communication, promises, PR, hiding things. Simple as that.

Btw community here still keeps maemo5 running. The problem is that community is not your slave and you cannot control it, it needs mutual aims and interests. But they tried to use it where they need(fanboys with PR, port things), but on other side they did not give back a lot(you need hackers, you can't limit them to specific area and close everything around, even MS gave tshirt to first person who jailbroken WP phone. A lot of big companies going that way nowdays. But if you want to do it all by yourself, you are left alone with bunch of people who just makes PR for you)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Uhm, really? Asha is dead. Tizen just looks like Samsung trying to create a Samsung OS, which doesn't really advance the cause of alternatives in my book. Firefox looks interesting, but I have to admit I don't know much about where they are going with their OS... And I don't know just what to think about Ubuntu.

Really, I've gotta ask, _is_ there a market for alternatives?

Well, ok then -- if you can't succeed unless your OS is perfectly bug-free, feature-complete, and pleasant to use, then yeah, only mega-corps will ever succeed, because only a mega-corp can manage that kind of trick upon the initial release of an OS.

And if gaining support from "the community" requires you to make choices that the entire community supports, I've gotta say that community support is a pipe dream, because there are no choices that the entire community supports. Every decision polarizes the community.

Yup. And the lesson that will be learned, I'm afraid, is that it is stupid to do anything like they are doing; being open just doesn't pay (in every sense of that term).

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Um... actually I said that manufacturers are reluctant to put significant amount of funding into a platform that almost nobody has even heard about before. I also said that there are reasons for it, ie. thin margins or manufacturing business that is already not profitable even with platform that enjoys majority of market share. It's more like stating the obvious rather than finding someone to blame. Jolla did their best (and still do if the financing round is finished and story continues in some form for another year), but it takes more than just a good product to penetrate market and convince others to join. It takes resources, which Jolla has always been short of, and demand, which also doesn't seem to exist in significant numbers, and time to implement and polish everything, which in Jolla's case is also heavily dependent on continuing flow of investor money until there are enough manufacturers (like Intex) willing to place bet on Sailfish and generate income to keep Jolla afloat on income. Jolla can only do as much as their resources enable them to do and if it's not enough, only lesson to be learned is not to try again without big company backing since from the beginning instead of relying on anything community based. It can be a valuable lesson you know...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

The future is actually more bleak than that. I think people in mobile will be saying, "We've had Symbian, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, Windows 10, Firefox OS, Blackberry 7, Meego, Blackberry 10, WebOS, Sailfish, Ubuntu, Tizen, Bada. We've had all these OS's and they've all been crushed and lost their owners billions of Dollars collectively". Instead of asking, "Do we need to be more open?", they'll probably be saying "If we get involved in another mobile OS, we're going to lose million of Dollars".

At this stage, it's impossible for any incumbent to come in and displace Google or Apple. Microsoft spent tens of billions of Dollars to try and promote Windows for mobiles and have gotten nowhere. Did Microsoft not try hard enough? Clearly they tried very hard. Did Microsoft spend the money necessary? Yes they did, big time. Did Microsoft try to bring developers on board? Yes, they spent a fortune on porting/community efforts. Did Microsoft find a good partner? Yes, they partnered with the best mobile phone maker out there (Nokia). Did Microsoft deliver a good OS? Yes, it's certainly no worse than Android/Ios. If Microsoft can fail with a pretty decent product and all their resources - there is no hope for smaller players.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Um, no. Maemo5 is dead. The N900 was the only device that ever ran the OS, and the only device that ever will. Even the Neo900 (assuming it is ever produced) will be running a different OS; compatible with Maemo perhaps, but not the same.

At best, you can say that the community here is performing life-support on the failing body of Maemo. But this OS is never going to make it onto any other hardware platform.

So, you think the community is ever going to get a better deal than they were getting from Jolla? I sincerely doubt it...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Problem of Jolla was that they tried to compete in already filled and highly competitive market against manufacturers that for some reason have been willing to dump products into market at loss and against OS's that have been developed for far longer and that have far more resources and power behind them. Small tech companies are usually competitive in only small niches, which obviously doesn't exist in mobile devices.

Community by itself could never create maemo5, they only try to keep alive something that was mostly created with Nokia's funds in Nokia's project. There will be no successor, no new devices and no future for maemo.

Communities are also very prone to petty infighting that doesn't get anything done without either strong and centralized leadership or project management and development run by some corporation. This is actually what underlines my points: if you don't have strong backing from a big company to fund all the community-fun, you will not get anywhere.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CNOutomr5XI