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

[From: Koen Kooi]

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Mattias Schlenker wrote:
> 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.

You're confusing distro (OpenZaurus) and environment (Opie or GPE), but
that doesn't matter much for the point that QT/e and sharp suck.


> 
> 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.

See how nice GPE integrates into maemo: http://oss.kernelconcepts.de/maemo/

regards,

Koen

> 
> 
> Regards,
> Mattias
> 
> 

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