Notices

I read that first sentence to mean that since the new 2008 OS will run on the n800, he may not bother with OS2007. The only people left out in the cold will be those running an n800 with the older OS on it.

Right, I think thats what I said. As I am not planning on an upgrade, then I get left in the cold. I am sure most n800 users will upgrade but a lot are not going to at least not right away. Look how long it has taken devs to port to os2007 from 2006, some still have not. I can not/will not upgrade to os2008 until all the software I have come to rely on has either been written for or ported to os2008. Now I agree, thats a double edged sword, if the devs spend time working on os2007 versions, then the os2008 versions will take longer, but os2007 users shouldn't be ignored because there is a new os coming in the future (near as that may be...)

There is ALWAYS a new os coming in the future, to that way of thinking, why ever develop any software since there is always going to be a new device or a new os coming out...

is all I am saying...

-John

I understand your point, but it's not really a question of a future OS, is it? Isn't OS2008 pretty much here? And if it's compatible with the n800, why waste resources developing for the OS2007 if it is so much different than developing for the 770?

Again, as someone with a 770, I understand that it's frustrating. But for a project with limited resources, it makes sense to me.

Is somebody working on bringing LyX into IT?

I have only an N800 right now, so it wouldn't make any personal "scratch-an-itch" sense for me to ditch 2007 if there's something really wrong with 2008 that would keep me from upgrading. As far as all indications can tell, it should be improvements all around, especially on the developer side, which is why I anticipate only needing a 2006 and 2008 version, but I will be flexible as situations require.

It seems like 2008 should be a good release, as it makes the platform more connected to upstream development, which I know firsthand is moving in positive (slimmer, faster, more powerful) directions, and which should also make the developer's job easier.

By the way, AbiWord is designed well and flexibly, so just because I might not put more time into a 2007 port doesn't mean that nobody is able to - the power of open source means we can all work on it!

Have you tried running the mobile version of Google Docs via Java on the Mac? (iirc, their "mobile" apps are java, but optimized for phones)

I'm also wondering about running them on the N800 and N810. Especially since chinook has the Mozilla/Firefox based browser, running on gecko... which is java based. So, I'm wondering if chinook has a full java environment or not.

Anyone have any light to shed on this?

1) Does chinook have a full java runtime?
2) Are the google mobile apps (gmail, calendar, docs) java based?
3) Will the google mobile apps run on chinook?

Ok, now I'm depressed. Yet another firmware port, meaning that I am faced with a painful choice - stick with what I've got, with a marginally working version of abiword (2.2.7) or upgrade when a new version comes out, hoping that other needed apps have been ported. We're now just at the point where most of the stuff that was built for the 770 (OS 2005 then OS 2006) has been ported to OS 2007). No abiword port to 2007! Woe is me. Am I wrong, or is there something fundamentally wrong with this model. When is the developer community going to get tired of porting their stuff to ever incompatable firmware versions?

Hm, both OS2007 and OS2008 use a normal X-server. Thus, _technically_ there shouldn't be any reason why old applications shouldn't work. The new OS2008 will come with a new set of run-time libraries for GTK/Hildon, but if they did things right the new versions will have a new librry version number (the number you see when you do ls -l /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-*
for example). Now, the way transitions like this is handled on the desktop is to just provide the old run-time libraries along with the new ones, and you can happily keep your old GUI applications running. No reason why it couldn't be done on the N800 too, really. And if Nokia/Maemo won't, then it should be possible to manually add wrappers (point to old libs, then execute).

Is there any application available for N800 that would simply let me view MS Word docs (i.e., email attachments)? I think one of the readers available reads .rtf, but I am not aware of anything that permits reading word .doc format. All I really need is to read .rtf and .doc.

Thanks.

There was announcement yesterday on Maemo for a new port of Abiword to OS2008. Says it is now much easier to do "proper" ports with the new Hildon/Gtk API. Dunno if it handles Word docs though.