[maemo-developers] No more 770 bug activity?

[From: Rainer Dorsch]

Marius,

I second all you write, except that I can imagine that getting open source 
approval for a component might be more effort than you first expect.

I hope that Nokia is doing the last step to get fully open source. Being able 
to build my own image as I can do for my nslu2 from linksys would make me 
confident that I can use the N770 for a long time. This does not mean that I 
would have no need a new tablet, in contrary, I would be confident that the 
new device is useable for a long time as well.

The nslu2 had for a long time issues with a binary ethernet driver, but this 
is now finally resolved and the nslu2 is now fully supported by Debian 4.0.
Not sure if it is feasible at all to get to such a setup for the N770/N800 and 
which are the critical parts which Nokia needs to provide and what could be a 
first step...Opera and flashplayer are the first things I could live without. 
This could even push minimo.

Thanks,
Rainer

Am Donnerstag, 5. April 2007 16:29 schrieb 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

-- 
Rainer Dorsch
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