[maemo-developers] No more 770 bug activity?

[From: Marius Gedminas]

On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 08:36:26AM +0300, quim.gil at nokia.com wrote:
> I'm not going to get into details about the packages mentioned, but as a
> general answer... 
> 
> >So why on earth was it ever closed-source?
> 
> As mentioned in my previous email, project management issues had a big
> weight on this kind of decisions. Objectively, when you are a huge
> company and you need to deliver quickly software matching commercial
> quality standards it is probably faster, cheaper and easier to deliver
> it as closed source.

What?  The only difference between open and closed is the licence and
the availability of the source code.  The only delays I can imagine is
having to pass lawyer review to make sure no code you don't own and
cannot relicence made its way in there.

Quality has nothing to do with opening or closing the source code.
Well, maybe if the developers will know their code will be seen by other
they might care more about the quality of the source code and therefore
take a bit longer to release.

Given how the quality of closed-source software on the Nokia tablets
compares to a typical Linux desktop (hint: not in a good way), I'd have
to agree that you can deliver it faster and cheaper.

> Open source is more efficient in the beta stage and in the mid term,
> agreed.
> 
> The UI is different, it was decided to have it closed in order to
> protect it from changes and deviations out of the control of the
> project.

We aren't happy about that, but it's your code and you get to decide how
to licence it (and, unfortunately, you get to decide when to stop fixing
bugs that we can't fix ourselves without the source code).

> Nowadays the history and context is a bit different, specially thanks to
> the success of the maemo, IT OS and tablets projects. The wheels are
> moving, as Kimmo says. Some things take some time, I insist.  :)

At least there's hope for the future.

Nokia currently stands in the middle between open and closed.  I imagine
it is frustrating to both sides.

Marius Gedminas
-- 
"I'll be Bach."  -- Johann Sebastian Schwarzenegger
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