[maemo-community] A 'red thread' through talks at maemo summit

[From: Aniello Del Sorbo]

It would have been even better if that was made in the public.

Aniello

2009/9/24 Sebastian 'CrashandDie' Lauwers <crashanddie at gmail.com>:
> Good to see some posts are harvested to fuel whatever. (Summit
> questions? Blog post?)
>
> Also, Randall, your email requesting deletion is sadly not going to
> happen -- the mailing lists are archived publicly.
>
> -S.
>
>
> On 23/09/2009, Qole <qole.tablet at gmail.com> wrote:
>> If that seems like someone accidentally sent a private e-mail to a public
>> mailing-list right in the middle of a long discussion, with no context and
>> no indicators as to what all of that was about...
>>
>> You'd be right.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Randall Arnold <texrat at ovi.com> wrote:
>>
>>> ...and you now poke the biggest, ugliest stick of all into the hornets'
>>> nest: *roadmaps*.
>>>
>>> There's no way to make this issue black and white so we have been arguing
>>> on what shade of grey it should be.  This is one of those confounding
>>> dilemmas where extreme views on either side have equal merit.
>>>
>>> The problem for Nokia is, somehow this stumbling bloick MUST be eliminated
>>> or development will persist in some quasi state satisfactory to neither
>>> the
>>> company nor the community.
>>>
>>> But ultimately all we as a community can do is
>>> beg/whine/argue/recommend/protest.  SOMEone in Nokia must decide what
>>> roadmaps should look like and when/how they are released.  That also
>>> brings
>>> in the lawyers.
>>>
>>> Ay yi yi...
>>>
>>> -Randy
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original message -----
>>> From: "Alan Bruce" <alan at thebruces.ca>
>>> To: "Randall Arnold" <texrat at ovi.com>
>>> Subject: Re: A 'red thread' through talks at maemo summit
>>> Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:05:40 -0700
>>>
>>> Whoah, I've just doubled the size of my text by adding all the good
>>> questions and comments from the t.m.o thread.
>>>
>>> Here's the part of my text that has changed:
>>>
>>> Harmattan / The future
>>>
>>>    - What kind of changes do you plan to make in the future to better work
>>>    with the community?
>>>    - Would Nokia consider giving end-of-life versions of Maemo to the
>>>    community to maintain? Or does Nokia expect the community to
>>> exclusively use
>>>    parallel versions of Maemo, like Mer, if the community wishes to take
>>>    control after Nokia ends support?
>>>    - Now that Maemo Devices controls the software and the hardware, will
>>>    the hardware become more open-source? Will there be processes for the
>>>    community to contribute to hardware design?
>>>
>>> *High Level Open Source vs. Closed Source Discussion*
>>> *(the same)
>>> **
>>> Questions from the community:*
>>>
>>> *Jaffa:*
>>> Accepting that some things need to be kept behind closed doors for
>>> commercial reasons, when are Nokia engineers going to be operating in the
>>> community for everything *else*? We'd like to see API design discussions
>>> in advance, on maemo-developers, as well as an open, common bugzilla and
>>> code repository. For example, we discovered the Fremantle "third party
>>> package policy" when people started having problems. And that's in an
>>> open,
>>> community-involved package like Application Manager.
>>>
>>> *Discussion between Jaffa/ragnar*:
>>>
>>>    - *Jaffa:* [W]e've already seen what happens with Hildon when well
>>>    intentioned developers go away for 18 months and then come back with a
>>> beta
>>>    which has a practically fixed API, which lots of developers immediately
>>>    start finding inconsistencies, edge cases, over-zealous specialisms vs.
>>> over
>>>    generalisations.
>>>    The only valid answer I can see is the one we've heard before:
>>>    "exposing this information for external comment from the community will
>>>    reveal too much of our future plans".
>>>    This is a fine answer. But, of course, there's then no hint of
>>>    roadmaps, design principles (not in the UX sense) or architecture plans
>>> on
>>>    which the community can contribute. So, no contributions means the
>>> cycle
>>>    continues and products which could've had free consultancy services
>>> from an
>>>    empassioned expert community are shipped in a sub-optimal state.
>>>
>>>
>>>    - *ragnar:* Generally UI's are not revealed in advance because of
>>>    competitive reasons. If we would have shown the Maemo 5 UI plans at the
>>> time
>>>    they were ready for the first time, any smart competitor would have not
>>>    commented anything on them, picked up on the good ideas, disregarded
>>> others
>>>    and probably even come out with their own device before Nokia. Then end
>>>    consumers - who don't know and care about the process of how things get
>>> done
>>>    - would be just left confused. Showing our own cards is a very basic
>>>    problem, and I hope everybody realizes that. We will be the first
>>> company
>>>    out with the device with the Maemo 5 UI. If you wouldn't believe your
>>> UI is
>>>    an competitive advantage and therefore don't care about that fact, then
>>> we
>>>    can all go home already.
>>>
>>>
>>> So, either you hold your cards really close to your chest, or you then do
>>> the complete opposite, and do like Mozilla, and open up everything all the
>>> time, right from the start. If Nokia = Maemo and nothing more, and if
>>> Nokia
>>> could crank devices out faster than any competitor, then perhaps there
>>> would
>>> be more options. But since Nokia > just Maemo, even Maemo does not work in
>>> a
>>> bubble. Revealing some parts of Maemo UI would reveal ... elements of
>>> "Nokia
>>> UI" - see that however you want.
>>>
>>> Well, yes, external consultancy costs money. But it can also offer
>>> consistency, with testing methodology, target user gathering, non-biased
>>> testers, consistent reporting metrics etc. etc. So they're not really
>>> comparative. You wouldn't replace one with the other.
>>>
>>> Could you - or anybody - can come up with a good (as in realistic and
>>> pragmatic instead of idealistic) proposal on how to 'do' community input
>>> regarding the new UI?
>>>
>>> ...[I]f we would show the whole plans, and then get n comments on it, ...
>>> Would following the democratic majority of the developer community lead to
>>> an optimal solution in terms of an UI solution? Wouldn't that be the worst
>>> kind of "design by committee" that one could imagine? Do a poll for
>>> "Feature
>>> X, do solution A or solution B" and vote which solution gets more votes?
>>> No?
>>>
>>>
>>> *Milhouse:*
>>> In three years, I've seen little real progress, just lots of promises to
>>> improve which never really materialise. I can count the number of
>>> Nokia/Maemo developers actively involved in Bugzilla on one hand. Intel
>>> puts
>>> Nokia to shame with the amount of involvement from Intel engineers in the
>>> Moblin bugzilla. Why is Intel able to achieve a much greater level of
>>> transparency than Nokia when discussing defects and enhancements? Intel
>>> appear willing to publicly file, and more importantly discuss, the bugs in
>>> their product whereas Nokia prefer to keep their dirty laundry a secret
>>> and
>>> are doing a very good job of ignoring those bugs raised by the community.
>>> There is little if any direct input from Nokia developers against publicly
>>> filed bugs, many of which are closed as WONTFIX when the respective OS
>>> version is end-of-lined.
>>>
>>>
>>> *jaem:*
>>> One of the strengths of Maemo is its community, largely drawn by the
>>> relative openness and hackability of the Maemo devices. In light of
>>> announced plans for a more mass-market approach, and potentially future
>>> Linux-based smartphone devices (e.g. oFono), how does Nokia plan to
>>> balance
>>> maintaining openness with the opposing pressures typically inherent in
>>> such
>>> plans?
>>>
>>>
>>> *lma:*
>>> What happened since "It is not a cell phone -- and it is
>>> good<http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/2005/11/it-is-not-cell-phone-and-it-is-good.html>"
>>> to change your mind? Are those reasons not valid any more, or are there
>>> more
>>> compelling reasons (and if so, what) pushing in the opposite direction?
>>> The
>>> compromises/sacrifices necessary to turn a tablet into a phone (finger UI,
>>> screen size and so on) have been very controversial here [on the forums];
>>> does Nokia plan to still address the market segment that prefers a tablet
>>> to
>>> a phone?
>>>
>>>
>>> *benny1967*:
>>>
>>>    - how much community input could nokia handle concerning *hardware*?
>>>    could they envision that some day a future product is designed via a
>>>    bugzilla-system, with people voting for enhancement requests about
>>> hardware?
>>>    could there be something like a community edition of existing mass
>>> market
>>>    products that differs in things like screen size or keyboard layout etc
>>>    according to the wishes of a reasonably large part of the community?
>>>    - How does the maemo community live up to Nokia's expectations? Are
>>>    there still things that must be done internally (or don't happen at
>>> all)
>>>    because the community fails to deliver?
>>>    - On the business side, is dealing with the community in general more
>>>    expensive/difficult than handling uncoordinated customer feedback?
>>>
>>> *ARJWright:*
>>> Nokia seems to be going in two directions: the transition from a device to
>>> a services company with Ovi; and the transition to the new open source
>>> Symbian and Maemo. Is "mobile" really the best arena for a company which
>>> is
>>> basing its value on services and the relationships that it has maintained?
>>> Or, from Nokia's perspective, do these transitions to open source and
>>> services-orientation point to a key element of technology-as-culture that
>>> we
>>> miss because we don't have the same view that a company such as Nokia has?
>>> If the latter, can you elaborate on what Nokia sees, and why this
>>> viewpoint
>>> is significant for a community like Maemo to understand.
>>>
>>>
>>> *Texrat:*
>>>
>>> The community really desires *some* sort of development/release roadmap
>>> for Maemo hardware and software. We understand that Nokia cannot be *
>>> completely* forthcoming due to competitive needs, but can't at least *some
>>> * degree of rough guidance be provided?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 11:10 AM, Randall Arnold <texrat at ovi.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Excellent point, and one I actually raised 3 years ago and have harped on
>>>> so much since that it did not occur to me to raise it again.  : D
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  ----- Original message -----
>>>> From: "Alan Bruce" <alan at thebruces.ca>
>>>> To: "Carsten Munk" <carsten.munk at gmail.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: A 'red thread' through talks at maemo summit
>>>>
>>>>  Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:34:21 -0700
>>>>
>>>> Carsten, you're right. I just re-read my thread at t.m.o. and jaffa asks
>>>> the same question:
>>>>
>>>> Jaffa: Accepting that some things need to be kept behind closed doors for
>>>> commercial reasons, when are Nokia engineers going to be operating in the
>>>> community for everything *else*? (For example, we discovered the
>>>> Fremantle "third party package policy" when people started having
>>>> problems.
>>>> And that's in an open, community-involved package like Application
>>>> Manager.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:22 AM, Carsten Munk
>>>> <carsten.munk at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Loving the questions. Maybe a question on getting internal developers
>>>>> out
>>>>> in the open - open source happens by doing things in the open as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Carsten
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> enthusiast, n. "One whose mind is wholly possessed and heated by what
>> engages it; one who is influenced by a peculiar fervor of mind; an ardent
>> and imaginative person."
>>
>
> --
> Sent from my mobile device
>
> question = ( to ) ? be : ! be;
>      -- Wm. Shakespeare
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anidel