Should MeeGo developers continue to publish info on this forum for maemo users (wrt Nokia device support)?

[tswindell]

Originally Posted by lemmyslender

Sorry, I was reading the quote with respect to the topic at hand (MeeGo CE on the N900), as opposed to MeeGo in general. I'll happily agree that a goal of MeeGo in general is to be end-user ready.

*edit* I don't believe Tom is speaking for MeeGo either, however it does seem he wants to speak for MeeGo CE on the N900, which is what I thought this thread was about.

You're right, I don't speak for anyone but myself. Regardless of that, I don't see anything contradictory in those statements, the first one I said that end-user readiness wasn't an explicit goal, our goals are clear, basic functionality that makes the MeeGo N900 Community Edition day-to-day usable for developers and power users.

As the project increased in momentum, what was originally a hardware adaptation project and a few enthusiastic users that tweaked the higher layers, gained resources from Nokia and we had this Developer Edition project. That project injected a lot of energy and progress into MeeGo on the N900. And today, it is day-to-day usable in-my-opinion. But I don't think it's user ready, and there are clearly issues, issues that are being actively worked on.

My second statement was just; sure, I'd love to see MeeGo on the N900 end-user ready, mainly because I think our efforts with MeeGo "N900" Community Edition will last a lot longer than the N900s life. Now, what's the point? How many end-users are actually going to be interested in upgrading to a capable MeeGo? But the next devices will have a huge headstart with what we've started with on the N900.

This project, doesn't have a life expectancy, the Community Edition, hopefully, will be around for a long time, a lot longer than the N900, and hopefully a lot longer than the Harmattan device after that. And like all projects you'd hope the goals are to make it better. So, end-user ready is really just a matter of when, but what matters here is, when is it acceptable from the N900s perspective. If it takes another year? Is that acceptable to the users here. And we can't progress completely without valuable feed back from users, obviously we want to start with the more experienced users. Mainly because we don't what the type of people that'll try to boot it, and fail, or if they succeed be like "This is bull ****, why do you bother and why is it so crap after _all_ of this time" like some people tend to do.

[geneven]

I would guess that a lot more users will be interested in MeeGo than were interested in Nitdroid. As for the"this is crap" commenters, I think the community at large already deals with them fairly well. Developers need to live with a certain amount of unfair commentary. Politicians do. Artists do. Parents do.

[tswindell]

Originally Posted by geneven

I would guess that a lot more users will be interested in MeeGo than were interested in Nitdroid. As for the"this is crap" commenters, I think the community at large already deals with them fairly well. Developers need to live with a certain amount of unfair commentary. Politicians do. Artists do. Parents do.

Sure, I'm just saying why I'm not personally, actively, inviting them to the party. The fact is MeeGo works on the N900, it's a bit rough around the edges, but it works, and I think it works well. Especially now we're utilising the hardware more to it's potential, and that will only continue as we migrate to Wayland and Qt5 for the 1.3 track, which I'm very excited about

[tswindell]

Also, if you are a developer, and you want to play around with the sort of things Harmattan will have, MeeGo N900 Community Edition is a good head start in that area.

[Frappacino]

see this is another illustration of this problem

ppl and ts talk about developer edition for n900 and coupled with ts comments of course they dont care about meego n900

now tex seems to be sayoing otherwise ?

so confusing

at least with maemo its simple - bug fixes that make this platform better - thats what cssu is

no need to guess about developer edition or intent or whatever - just plain old bug fixes that can be applied as they roll the line

u can spin all these statemjents all u want but at the end of the day the normal users just get confused and switched of

[tswindell]

@Frap, well, mission accomplished then :P there is no spin, if they don't understand what's going on then it's probably best to stay away.

[Texrat]

Agreed with Tom, there is no spin from the MeeGo side, but certainly a clear naysaying agenda from some here.

FYI, I am not part of MeeGo project management, either, and just calling it as I see it.

[woody14619]

Originally Posted by tswindell

For a competition of "Who's more open?" and your reasons for not backing MeeGo, well, I find your attitude (as well as others') extremely hypocritical.

Who's competing for that? You maybe, but I've NEVER said Maemo is "more open" than MeeGo, ever. In fact I said many times that it's pointless to argue about which is "more open", since either way you still have binary blobs that will probably not transition from one version to the next. That's been my main point in several posts in this thread!

My argument is that Maemo is more functional than MeeGo, and by far more mature. You are the one that started making claims that because it was "more open" it was "better". I've consistently said that regardless of how much more open it is, unless it's 100% open it has the same flaw as Maemo, making the argument of which is "more open" a moot point.

As for "attitude"... I'm not the one saying "this isn't for users" and imply that end users can essentially go stuff themselves.

Originally Posted by attila77

"His Brittanic Majesty ...

Bravo. And you only had to go back 200 years to find one example. To be fair though, that was signed more as a way to cut loose a major expense (a war) than it was to grant governance. I doubt the US being a free nation hinged on the king of England "granting" it. I'm pretty sure it was already well under way when that was signed.

Originally Posted by attila77

MeeGo is GPL (and related FOSS licenses).

Originally Posted by attila77

MeeGo is not a complete, device installable product.

Having your cake and eating it too? MeeGo for the N900 is not GPL. It has binary blobs of closed source that are required for it to deliver something even comparable to the existing system already available for the N900. And really, if you're arguing MeeGo is a non-installable stand alone, then based on the semantic discussion we had before, does it still qualify as being an OS?

I'm quite happy that MeeGo as a base (apparently not as an OS) is open source. But that's not really what we're talking about here is it? I thought we were talking about MeeGo for the N900. If we're talking about weather to talk about MeeGo here as the generic, non-installable base that is GPL, then I'm changing my vote to a firm NO. They have their own forums for that.

Originally Posted by attila77

Oh, so when Google pulls an API what happens to your copy of that translation using open source project ?

Please show me where I've ever said Google/Android is open source? I haven't. And yes, if their API is public, you can continue to use that API with other servers.

Look at XMPP. It's an open standard, and several people have jumped on to it, including Facebook and Google. Suppose either decided tomorrow to drop XMPP support and start using it's own API. How many customers would it lose? How many would hop to other open platforms for their chatting needs?

How many servers speak XMPP? How many speak other open protocols (like IRC)? How many speak CompuServeChat? See the difference? That's the power of open source. You can continue to use it, improve on it, etc, even if the original provider goes away. IRC, for example, started on a BBS/server that has long since gone away. But it's open, so it survived. If Yahoo were to go away tomorrow, how long do you think the chat client/protocol would last once the servers a Yahoo shut off? A month? A week? A day?

Originally Posted by attila77

No, the pullback that kills open projects in company exits is the void created by the size of contribution/maintenance those companies make. There is only so much blood you can lose in one blow without fainting and/or dying.

Thus my point. When (not if) Nokia pulls back on MeeGo for N900, the game's over. Done. What's out there is out there, and nothing more (if you're lucky, and they don't build in timeout bombs into the blobs). We already have a static "last image" blob with Maemo, just a matter of time before it happens to MeeGo too.

At that point, a real comparison can be done. Which is more stable? Which is more usable? Which is more supported? Which has a longer shelf life?

Based on the state MeeGo is in right now, assuming Nokia pulls that trigger in the next week, Meego is the loser in all 4 questions. That may all change in a day, a month or two, or in a year. But I'm not willing to toss out a perfectly good and working system for one that may be good in a month or a year. I live based on where I am now, and where the past has shown me things are likely to wind up. In this case, the present tells me MeeGo for the N900 isn't going to do anything I can't already do with Maemo. And the past tells me that's unlikely to change.

Originally Posted by tswindell

I disagree with pretty much all of that, anyway, I've never had problems with the WiFi on my N900 running MeeGo. So it's probably to do with router & wifi combination. Anyway, it's obviously being worked on, why is it such a major deal for you?

Because I use wifi a lot. Enough that it being unstable is a big reason for me to not move to it right this second, as many here (yourself include) have been advocating for, in an odd "no users" type of way. I still don't get that. With one breath you're saying it's wonderful, the future, fully functional, and the best thing since sliced bread. Then with the next you're saying it will never be ready for "users", it's unpolished, and non-developers can essentially go stuff themselves. Which is it?

Btw: I assume having several viable bugs logged against it in the bug tracker, all showing random disconnect problems implies there's an issue. The fact that it's being worked on is great. You saying it's not an issue because you've "never had problems with it" just reminds me of replies from Nokia's bug tracker. They never had issues with key broken items that lots of users had. Just another yellow flag against Meego from where I'm standing.

Originally Posted by tswindell

At least we have more upto date components, that are freely distributable.

Again, newest doesn't mean better. Remember my example of which is better (Win98 vs WinME driver)? You could have the best binary blob driver in the world for the N900 GSM in MeeGo. If I can't make a phone call by tapping on the UI, it's useless. Even if I can make a call, but can't use the device the way I use it now because of an issue with some other closed component that's borked in some way, that "newer/better" GSM driver is still equally useless. I have a desk full of gadgets that half work. I don't need another one. Especially when I can have it work fully with the existing system.

Originally Posted by tswindell

Good luck back porting it to your closed Maemo platform and having what we now have in "MeeGo N900 Community Edition".

Good luck forward porting them to MeeGo 2.0 when it comes out. See my point? And what exactly is it that you have in MeeGo N900 CE that we don't have in Maemo? Instability? Lots of apps? Didn't you say just a few posts ago that the reason you're here is to siphon off app developers, and/or get them to compile apps for MeeGo? What does MeeGo have? A future? How so, if it's not going to ever be ready for users?

Originally Posted by tswindell

And now you've gone in a full circle. But yes, you're right, no one is talking about Mozilla here, so why bring it up?

I was using it as an example. I was noting that "governance" isn't needed for purely open products, like Mozilla. The fact that MeeGo needs it implies there are non-open components, and/or that someone is granting that in a rescindable way.



Again, bravo for trying, and I do wish you luck in getting it all worked out. But please stop touting it here like it's already finished, or "better" than Maemo until it's at least on par.

That's all I've been asking of people with their competing OSes (with ALL the alternatives, NitDroid, MeeGo, Baad, or whatever it's called...). Every time I ask that people stop claiming their system is "better", or comparable when it's not, they get their panties in a bunch and start ranting about how it's "more" open, or how it's "governed", or how it's "faster" or has a better UI. That's great. Call me when it can perform solidly for a week without rebooting, while taking calls, browsing the web, syncing with my calendar and running home made scripts and apps in the background. Until then, you're not competing against Maemo.

Present it for what it can do, great. But talking it up and calling it better does nothing but get people all riled up and trying to install a half-ready system. Most often they either screw up their device trying, or will get it installed only to find major issues unresolved. Either way, it hurts your project when you misrepresent it, since doing so drives people away from it and gives it a bad name.

Most often, you get one shot to impress people with a new system. MeeGo already has a bad reputation because it blew it's own welcome horn way to early. Repeating that mistake again and again is the best way to kill it before it even has a chance.

[lma]

Originally Posted by attila77

MeeGo is GPL (and related FOSS licenses). Period. No but. No if.

But! - it's actively hostile to GPLv3 and friends, to the point of forking old obsolete versions of several components, contradicting both its own compliance spec and "upstream first" policy in the process.

[abill_uk]

Originally Posted by woody14619

To what end? It's like trying to get Amiga developers to "help out" this wonderful new project called Windows back in the 80s. Sure, it may never actually run stably on the Amiga hardware, but that's not the goal! Wait, what is the goal? To suck away developers from the initial platform? I'm not sure I like that!

The goal you're touting (as I see is) is to pull people off of the platform I'm using, that's vibrant, active, and starting to really show off what it can do, and into another that has no real future for the current hardware. For what?

Especially given that it's not even guaranteed at this point that anyone is going to make a MeeGo-based device. There's been lots of talk, tons of announcements, but we're 6 months into 2011, and even Nokia looks like they may be back-tracking now. Not to mention a complete lack of any vendor talking about doing phone support, outside of maybe LG on one device. Nokia has been quite mum on weather it's only announced MeeGo offering will have any GSM capabilities.



I don't think I could get most people here to agree on what the color "blue" is, yet alone what the goals here have been over the past 5 years. To say they've "always been clear" is farcical. More so seeing as a good number on the forum are here because of the N900, which was less tablet and more of a cross-over device.

Yes, creating an open tablet platform has been a key part of this forum. I can see how MeeGo is a natural continuation of that in the minds of some people, especially the N700/800 crowd. I can even see the desire to get people excited about it and get them to jump the shark and start working on the next big thing. But you shouldn't do so using false pretenses, which is exactly what you're doing when touting MeeGo on N900, while saying you never intend to see it for casual users.

If the N900 is never going to run on MeeGo as primary OS, via a simple update/reflash procedure for common people, then it's wasted effort. Better to put the time and energy into something useful, like getting the Calendar to sync with on-line services, or Contacts to not crash the device randomly. (Those are active bugs too, but I'm too lazy to link them right now.) Pouring time and energy into a single device that's never going to be run by more than a handful of developers, used to make apps for... who again? Who's going to use the things they make? Not N900 owners, if the target is only getting developers on to it.



To the contrary, it has been said and proven to some degree. It is open in that as a developer you can take the core, add the bits and bobbles for your hardware, and toss it on just about anything. As long as you don't care about continued development, or have a few people to manage upstream code merges on occasion, it's just as open as MeeGo. How many device manufacturers have picked up Android? How many have picked up Maemo? Which is more open? Again, it's all mixed... none of it is totally open, and claims of one being "more open" than the other often are blurred by the perspective of the person making that judgment.

<SNARK>
Besides, ask any Android user and they'll tell you, it's all open-source! They can do whatever you want on their Android phone, no really. Until you ask them to plug in a USB stick, and serve data from it to a laptop, while acting as both a web server and an AP hotspot... Because no phone can do that... Until yours can. But then you're just "showing off" with your "geeky phone". Not that I've ever done that...

You deserve a medal for this post woody !.

You even quoted some of my words .