[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Maemo roadmap, SDK improvements...

[From: Dave Neuer]

On 2/4/07, Carl Worth <cworth at cworth.org> wrote:
>
> 3. An image built from only Free Software, that leads to as much
>    functionality as possible, (even if not all hardware components are
>    entirely functional)

What exactly are asking for here: an official tarball release of
everything in one tree? Pointers to svn tags for each component?

>
> The above seem like pre-requisites before a self-sustaining community
> could form around the device, (that is, a community that could trust
> itself to continue to be able to play with the device in interesting
> ways even after the manufacturer might lose interest in any specific
> model).

I really think that the community is going to have to do this for
itself. While I don't doubt that there are players, even some key
players, at Nokia that really care about FOSS, Nokia clearly has a
process in place for getting their technologies released in source
form that will not result in a release of all of the components in a
timeframe short enough that the devices will still be useful compared
to current hardware.

I think there are really two approaches possible:

1) is that someone who has never agreed to Nokia's EULA and lives in a
country where reverse engineering is still legal can buy an IT and
attempt to reverse engineer all of the components.

2) We can just find our own way to replace whatever functionality is
missing in the device with only the sources available already. An
email I received from a Nokia employee (in response to
http://maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-developers/2007-January/007025.html)
when the maemo lists were apparently down asserted enough information
about what DSME and B(M?)E do were available in hint form on these
lists to build replacements. I might ask his permission to post it to
the list (even though I believe he cc'd it at the time).

For what it's worth, a few days ago I started setting up a scratchbox2
environment to try and do this for my n770, since that's about the
only thing I'm interested in doing with the device at this point. I
don't really know how much time I'll get to work on it or how far I'll
get but if people are interested, I can post about my progress
somewhere.

>
> And it would be ideal to have sufficient documentation so
> that the community could work on free replacements.

Again, I don't think we ought to hold our collective breath for this.

Dave