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danramos is offline danramos
2010-12-14 , 20:18
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#131
Whoa.. qgil being ironic? OpenMoko failed because it was stressing software freedom, meanwhile 770/N8x0/N900 were sold with OPEN SOURCE as the selling point. That's very cute. That aside, can you tell me how you're pushing open source software and open development when/where it matters? With particular interest in elaborating on "where it matters", please.
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lma is offline lma
2010-12-14 , 23:25
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#132
Originally Posted by qgil View Post
There was OpenMoko and there were/are others device makers putting all the stress in software freedom - with no remarkable impact in the mobile market whatsoever.
I have to disagree, there has been a huge impact in the last 5 years or so. Before the 770 came along the conversation about new devices was mostly "can this thing be somehow hacked to run Linux?", then almost overnight it changed to "does it come with Linux?" and now we have reached the point of asking "how open is the Linux distribution it comes with?". Even on the hardware side, we had all these chip vendors coming to Dublin and falling over themselves to tell us how open they are, now. Nokia itself has played a big part in making this shift happen and that's certainly something to be proud of, but at the same time projects like Openmoko, Qi and, closer to home, Mer were vital to show that we are not quite "there" yet and what to strive for.

But what is more important: do you have a more convincing business model for a company like Nokia?
Hm, I'm not quite sure what the current one is, but I assume it involves selling devices (so make some already, I've been wanting to give you money for a new shiny pocket computer since 2008!) and services/apps (fix the store! I did buy an app (Sygic mobile maps) while I had the borrowed N900, but I had to wait for them to get fed up with waiting for Ovi and publish it themselves first).

Also, don't know what the overall market for such a thing is but personally I wouldn't mind paying extra for longer-term support.

Taking into account that there are competitors out there that would clearly benefit from a 100% free & reusable UX experience in Nokia products.
Well, the UX (by which I mean Hildon, in case we're not talking about the same thing) has been fairly open so far. The low-level stuff (bme, libcal etc) is useless on non-Nokia hardware. I concede that things like control panel & statusbar applets might be useful to a competitor, but even those will have at least one open reference implementation in MeeGo. That leaves the closed user apps, which are, and forgive me for being blunt, not that good. I already commented on the calendar earlier on this thread, contacts is similarly afflicted and don't even get me started on Ovi maps (suffice to say that I consider the money I sent Sygic's way very well spent, even though it was only for a couple of months).

You just pushed a misconception yourself, assuming that Nokia business planners have such misconceptions about OpenMoko.
Touché :-) Still, I don't think I've ever heard of something failing because it was too open. The opposite, sure (eg, only last week McNealy acknowledged that not opening Solaris sooner hurt Sun).

The Nokia N900 is still the most open handset you can buy from a major vendor, and the MeeGo platform is shaping up as the most open mobile platform any mobile vendor can use.
No arguments there.

Things could be still better from the point of view of software freedom...

However, I honestly believe that the many open source advocates inside Nokia are achieving something useful for the free software community - and the company hiring them.
Agreed. This was one of the most inspiring things I've seen (and I'm sure there are other, perhaps less public cases). It would have been even better if he didn't have to sacrifice his holidays to work on that though.
 

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Andre Klapper is offline Andre Klapper
2010-12-14 , 23:55
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#133
[QUOTE=sivang;891635
4) if this did not work, contact (-mail) the product manager, I'm guessing this is the person assigned on the bug report, but can please somebody confirm that?[/QUOTE]

At least in bugs.maemo.org no, as there are not many real developers around. Default assignee often is "nobody@maemo.org".
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qgil is offline qgil
2010-12-15 , 10:21
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#134
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
can you tell me how you're pushing open source software and open development when/where it matters? With particular interest in elaborating on "where it matters", please.
Building a competitive and free Linux platform for the mobile industry, focusing in features and readiness from Kernel to Qt and including open frameworks for key applications such as browser, media player, calendar, contacts, email, office.

Originally Posted by lma View Post
I have to disagree, there has been a huge impact in the last 5 years or so. Before the 770 came along the conversation about new devices was mostly "can this thing be somehow hacked to run Linux?", then almost overnight it changed to "does it come with Linux?" and now we have reached the point of asking "how open is the Linux distribution it comes with?". Even on the hardware side, we had all these chip vendors coming to Dublin and falling over themselves to tell us how open they are, now. Nokia itself has played a big part in making this shift happen and that's certainly something to be proud of, but at the same time projects like Openmoko, Qi and, closer to home, Mer were vital to show that we are not quite "there" yet and what to strive for.
Sure, but the progress you report is mostly about the free platform layer, while my comment was about the free apps layer.

Look, the success of free software has a lot to do with distribution of efforts. Nokia is already investing a lot in the development of free software components based on standard Linux and free desktop technologies available to anybody. You can keep trying to convince Nokia to increase the scope to the apps layer. On the other hand, you could invest these energies to encourage and contribute to other projects from other players developing free software apps with the aim of getting them to commercial levels of quality and user interest. There is no lack of interesting projects to get involved, and you can always start your own.
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danramos is offline danramos
2010-12-15 , 20:07
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#135
Originally Posted by qgil View Post
Building a competitive and free Linux platform for the mobile industry, focusing in features and readiness from Kernel to Qt and including open frameworks for key applications such as browser, media player, calendar, contacts, email, office.
How about more than just open frameworks, open-source? As a customer, I don't like the idea of open-source platforms being held hostage and obsoleted by closed-minded, self-serving corporate think. I'm clearly going to prefer the platform that serves me and remain with that brand. In the long run, you'll find that benefits the brand far better too, especially when I talk about gadgets to friends, family, customers and even the strangers on my cross-country trips. I guarantee you at LEAST half of the dozen or so curious people that asked me about my Galaxy Tab on the train rides are probably going to buy one based on their needs and what they saw that it could do and knowing full well they'll be able to get support and able to buy it in a store like I did. I guarantee you nobody saw me using an N900 the entire trip. Word of mouth carries weight, especially when Nokia does little to promote their own products and does little to provide customers the incentive to do it for them. The very LEAST Nokia could do is open things up so that the whole architecture can be maintained by the community. Where are all the open-source friendly components, for example?

Originally Posted by qgil View Post
Sure, but the progress you report is mostly about the free platform layer, while my comment was about the free apps layer.
I don't think that anybody cares so much about the "free apps layer" if they're hampered by a far more aggressively locked up "closed platform layer". "Wait," you might say. "I said FREE platform layer," you might also add. I might cough with a slight laugh at that. "Let's meet it halfway, where the fact is that the label is far more likely to be accurate: open-core, not open-source."

You're still holding the platform hostage if everything that is open (say, applications) REQUIRES a closed bunch of blobs as part of the architecture (say, drivers or communication bus, etc.). Near as I can tell, you sound like you're bragging a lot about openness but for comparison, you really have no bragging rights over several open OS's--even Android. For that comparison, I've got Cyanogen on my Droid--compiled from source with very few closed blobs, a lot like Nokia's latest offerings--only there's FAR fewer closed OS components and NO dependencies on closed apps at all in this community made image. PLUS--I have native HID support for bluetooth (WHOO! Mouse pointer! Keyboard! Joystick!), latest compiled Linux kernel, bug fixes and security fixes from the community galore all without waiting for Verizon, Motorola, etc. How's the community around the N900 feeling lately about updates and security? MeeGo is about the only GOOD answer to that I've seen and that's in cooperation with Intel. Nokia has been pathetic about addressing bugfixes and communicating with the community over the years for Maemo, nevermind giving them the ability and assistance to replace closed components with open ones and the ability to update to the Linux kernel or even fix security or bug issues.

Originally Posted by qgil View Post
Look, the success of free software has a lot to do with distribution of efforts. Nokia is already investing a lot in the development of free software components based on standard Linux and free desktop technologies available to anybody. You can keep trying to convince Nokia to increase the scope to the apps layer. On the other hand, you could invest these energies to encourage and contribute to other projects from other players developing free software apps with the aim of getting them to commercial levels of quality and user interest. There is no lack of interesting projects to get involved, and you can always start your own.
Nokia has invested a lot, sure, but have they delivered on that investment? Anything we can see? Or are you going to claim that the sacrifice was opening up a trickle at a time while adding a mountain of closed-source is a sacrifice we should all appreciate? How about Nokia participate in investing in promoting more open-source projects INSTEAD of their closed-source garbage that are a pain to remove without breaking things (remember open-core?).
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lma is offline lma
2010-12-16 , 08:13
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#136
Originally Posted by qgil View Post
Sure, but the progress you report is mostly about the free platform layer, while my comment was about the free apps layer.
Ah, ok. I'm biased toward the lower layers obviously. I mean, if I don't like the Nokia media player or browser I can simply ignore them and use one or more of many already available alternatives instead, or even port an open alternative if one doesn't already exist. For me at least this is more of a quality rather than openness thing - the same applies to the open apps, like the PDF & RSS readers, text editor, email client etc.

On the other hand, battery charging or boot-related things? Not a chance.
 

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2010-12-16 , 11:27
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#137
just don't forget the hacks needed to get past Nokia's insistance on their media player being the one true media player (for example).
 

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2010-12-16 , 23:19
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#138
Originally Posted by tso View Post
just don't forget the hacks needed to get past Nokia's insistance on their media player being the one true media player (for example).
And that's a HUUUGE part of what I'm trying to get at. In this light, all the puffery over how valuable Nokia has been to open-source is highly dubious.
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qgil is offline qgil
2010-12-17 , 01:54
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#139
Originally Posted by danramos View Post
I guarantee you at LEAST half of the dozen or so curious people that asked me about my Galaxy Tab on the train rides are probably going to buy one based on their needs and what they saw that it could do and knowing full well they'll be able to get support and able to buy it in a store like I did.
Sure, but isn't the Galaxy Tab another example of a commercial product with a mix of open and closed source bringing some differentiation?

Are you aware of what is open and what is closed in the Galaxy Tab? Please share. Are you asking Samsung to open more components of the product you own as much as you are asking here? Just curious.
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2010-12-17 , 02:15
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#140
he might not be asking for them to open up other sources because they have assured that, they will not let their tablet limping year from now without any support. maybe he is confident with them that they will provide any security loopholes that may arise on their bundled application (flash updated on multiple platform for security reasons).
could be said that samsung tablet is main stream and N900 is not, what justifies for a product being mainstream or not? the nokia n900 was sold in-stores with its posters patched on the corporate store windows similar to samsung tablet. carriers are offering subsidized prices for samsung tablet as vodafone did with N900. N900 can be ordered online through nokia itself BUT not through official samsung website, you will have to buy from their patners (or is it available now, last time i checked it was not). so how can we tell N900 was not targeted as a mainstream device if all the channels were used to sell N900 as any other mainstream device would. well yes if Nokia were only selling N900 to the developers making it absolutely non-mainstream (hint: google ion), would have been a different story.
 

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