[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Wonderful device from Nokia...

[From: Mattias Schlenker]

Wooky wrote:

>I also have great expectations for N770. It seems that it can achieve
>an important milestone in Linux-based PDAs, and suceed where others
>have failed. While I disliked the marketing of the N770 as a simple
>"internet tablet" at first, since it was obvius that it had the
>potential to be much more than that, it actually makes sense. It can
>have a greater penetration in the not-so-Linux-inclined market that
>way, specially considering there is nothing remotely similar with its
>intended price tag.
>I had a friend who had a Zaurus once, and he complained (of lack) of
>available software, compared to Palm and PocketPC devices, and
>expressed his fear that might too happen to the N770. I pointed him
>some of the projects already ported and showed how easy was to port
>existing GTK+ apps to Maemo. Since we live in Brasil, I was specially
>happy with the work of the guys from INdT (which I had never heard of
>till now) with Python in Maemo.
>It's time there was a developer, open-source friendly PDA in the
>market. I sure hope the N770 will be a thundering success - and I also
>hope it will be available here in Brasil as well.
>  
>

There are many apps for the Zaurus, either for Qtopia (original,
partially closed environment), QPE  (free fork) or GPE (X11, GTK and
matchbox based alternative). But Trolltech made a significant mistake by
just opening Qtopia and not "taking the community by the hand". That
provoked the fork QPE and thus less people are developing for Qtopia
then for QPE and GPE. Also, projects just run by the community tend to
concentrate on developers as customers which results in software that
just targets "power users", sysadmins and programmers. QPE and GPE are
out of reach for normal users since it requires flashing the device.
Another point is that many of the free programs lack polishing. Backing
by a large company with significant (wo)manpower could be solution for
this problem, either by offering bounties as Novell does or by helping
with the development.

I assume that Nokia did precise analysis on the points of failure of the
Zaurus' acceptance. A fork of Maemo would be absolutely
counterproductive for both sides: developers focusing on the free fork
would end up with unpolished applications and Nokia would have to invest
(wo)manpower in backporting apps from the forked environment to satisfy
customers. Thus integrating the community early (and pampering us with
developer devices) is a clever move.


Regards,
Mattias


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