Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

Sorry, my fault, I did not make myself clear. Got distracted by all the talk about the browser, but the browser is only circumstantial to the topic at hand.

Yes, Open Source is all the things you say. But, at least for some people, it is also an ideology. For many people it is predominantly ideology. And that is the crux of the matter.

Jolla is attempting an admirable thing. They are trying to make a product out of Open Source software. Many have tried but so far nobody has succeeded. Because ideology and business do not mix.

You may start dropping big names to prove me wrong but when you look deeper, none of those has managed to turn the Open Source software into a product. The actual product is always something else, with OSS being there just by the way. Google? Their product is big data management. Canonical, Novell, Sun etc? Their product is the service. All those firms making embedded systems running Linux in some form or another? Their product is of course the black (white, blue, silver, yellow...) box. Not the software.

Now Jolla is trying to change that. Good for them, they have my full admiration. I would not have the guts to do that. BUT - and this is what I was trying to convey right at the beginning - to achieve that, this "there is tbe source, stop moaning and fix it yourself" attitude has to change. Because customers want to buy a product, not a DIY kit.

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

Touché. :) You are absolutely right; the fundamental assumptions between open products and purchased products are definitely at odds with one another.

Hmm. Perhaps it'd be better for Jolla to just completely spin off products like the browser, and focus solely on the core OS. Maybe even license a closed-source browser from, say, Google or somebody. This way, they could concentrate their efforts on a smaller amount of open code, and thus do a better job with it. In other words, a less open Jolla might make everyone happier! :)

But yeah, deep down in my ideological heart, whenever I hear someone complaining that a piece of open source code needs work, I still want to jump up and say "so why haven't you fixed it yourself?" :) To me, that's the only real advantage of open software, regardless of who created it or why...

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

Well, at least on this community I'm not so sure about that. At times it does seem like it would be more important to have a DIY-kit than to have a working product...

But true, it should be a priority for them to make a great product. However, because if insufficient resources available there will always be priorities and setting them will always be major source of disagreement.

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

Sure, but without the Open Source software in question there would be no services to provide. Actually providing services/subscription seem generally like the best option for sustaining a fully open source company. Certainly better than the unfortunate Open Core model many companies try to use.

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

Back to the browser, I have always considered the software bundled with the OS nothing more than a proof of concept. Probably best exemplified by the quote I heard somewhere, "IE is the best browser to download another browser." I may even have mentioned it before. So if you hear me moaning about Sailfish Browser, please know that I don't really mean it ;)

Having said that, select and copy would be nice ;)

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

I think you mixed free and open software. They do make money on services, how those services are good or bad for you is different question. But you are not forced to use it, you can just use what you want, change it to your needs, fork and adapt for your needs. but if they use opensource it doesn't mean they would develop exactly for your HW or your needs and if you want to influence, you need to pay and is logical. But it is not related if it's opensource or not, as for support/service/configuration/installation/adaptation you always pay and if not to them, to someone to do it for you(of cause is case you do not know how to do it yourself).
But on other side you have a choice to do it yourself and even share with other people (check how it was with maemo and n900, how many patches, rewrites, hacks and things were done by common people here in this same forum)
So getting paid for services is not related to being or not opensource, at the end they need to have income.
And jolla is not most opensource friendly and hackable friendly as far as i see it.

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

I think we're in agreement! :)

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

however stop this discussion about opensource, we are talking of it at every update..its a moot...any other opinion about 2.0.1.0?

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

I can think of hundreds if not thousands of companies that make a healthy living out of selling open source software.

Companies involved in developing commercial content management systems for instance like EllisLab or Pixel & Tonic. Or the plugin market for WordPress, Magneto etc. The source is not encrypted but a licence is not free.

There's no reason you can't have open source software but with a licence that is commercial.

The problem seems to be nobody makes a profit out of selling Linux without some service or device attached. Linux is secondary to the business itself.

Re: Sailfish 2.0.0 Saimaa
 

I would be OK with keeping that 'proof of concept' paradigm if there would be a way to tell the system that the default browser (or application X) is not the bundled one but a 3rd party (the debianist in me dreams about an /etc/alternatives system)