[maemo-developers] No more 770 bug activity?

[From: Kalle Vahlman]

2007/4/15, Neil Jerram <neil at ossau.uklinux.net>:
> <quim.gil at nokia.com> writes:
> > 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.
>
> Unless _I'm_ misunderstanding you, this suggests a fundamental
> misunderstanding on Nokia's part (and hence is important to drill down
> on, to provide input into those turning wheels).  As I have already
> said, releasing code as free software does not require Nokia to accept
> any changes that others might make to that code.  What is the process
> that Nokia believes could result in "changes and deviations out of the
> control of the project"?

This might sound a bit harsh, but basically they want to force others
to start from scratch with a replacement UI instead of forking the
existing code, most likely to avoid contributing UI code for competing
products (if there will be such things, I'm not sure if the likes of
H9 are that...).

>From the community POV, this all seems really silly of course.
Specially since feature-wise, the development of the Nokia UI seems to
progress at glacial speeds (when compared to purely community-driven
projects where an idea might be in trunk next week and released in the
next version, in Maemo that seems to be more like next year...).

> > And now, back to the wheels.
> I hope that these email discussions contribute to those wheels.

I've been looking at Maemo ever since it started, and as a
community-oriented guy I'm really starting to like what's already
happening. It's just not happening on the UI (or to be more exact,
applications). I don't think it's realistic to even expect that to
happen, given the above.

The real value for community that Nokia actually has been trying to
achieve all along, and is currently step by step getting closer to, is
to provide an open base for both "their" UI (which they sell the
devices with) and "our" UI (the community brewed version, which
replaces the Nokia applications with free versions where applicable
for those who care about it and want it).

This is my interpetation of the goals anyway. Unfortunately there
never has been a _clear_ mission statement detailing this relationship
that IT200X and Maemo has. IMO it has been and continues to be The
Source for much of this nagging about not having the sources. People
(this might include the Nokians too, btw) just don't know what the
real goals are.

Quim:
Maybe you could put on the roadmap an item to better define the
relationship and goals for at least the Maemo platform, but
preferrably a general goal for the IT200X as well.

The two pages I found

  http://maemo.org/about.html
  http://maemo.org/nokia/role.html

define pretty well what Maemo is (supposed to be). However, they talk
of "Internet Tablet products" but fail to detail what belongs under
that term. I bet most people would take that as meaning only the
devices, when in fact it apparently includes most of the applications
available on the device too.

I guess it was a marketing thing to just shout OPEN everywhere, while
the truth was that at the opening a lot of things didn't have sources
available. This lead to initial backslash of the community being
disappointed and to the lack of interest to participate in the
platform development we are seeing now (applications are ported a lot,
but how many patches have been contriubted to the haf by community?).

Hmm, this mail got a bit out of hand... :)

-- 
Kalle Vahlman, zuh at iki.fi
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