[maemo-developers] Curious: Maemo devices other than Nokia?

[From: Lauri Leukkunen]

On 22/01/08 00:00 +0300, ext Mikhail Sobolev wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 09:16:38PM +0100, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote:
> > Please take a look into OpenEmbedded, which makes building images for
> > various machine types very easy. The configurations for the Nokia
> > internet tablets are supported, but could need some fresh blood.
> We actually did quite some time ago and for some reason we decided not
> to go for it.  I'm afraid now it will require a significant of both
> effort and blood to change for it. :(

I hope this is not a reference to me looking at the openzaurus or whatever it
was back in 2002/3. :)

To be honest, these days I'm no longer at all sure what makes sense for
Nokia as the basis for the distribution. Originally there was the desire
to be the desktop linux on the mobile device, in effect the dream was to
run a full debian/fedora/suse/slackware on it, with our stuff as additions
and optimizations (that would be part of the project proper).

Then things happened, many of them without any coordination and we have
something that uses debian's tools and processes (in a peculiar way), but
definitely is not debian. A few years ago I started to suspect there's no
real desire to be debian, or any other mainstream distro. There is simply
a rather opportunistic bunch of managers who want a dirt cheap software
"platform", hacked together in whatever way happens to fit the bill on
a given week. Which is all fine by me, but it kinda goes totally against
what I perceive as maemo.org's goal. Not that I necessarily agree with
those goals.

This fundamental inconsistency is easy to see all over the place.

So in a way it may be a good idea to use openembedded, or it may not.
So much depends on which goals and priorities you pick from the monumental
pile of intentions and promises that the people who have worked on this
have had.

As for Nokia products, I think it's pretty much too late to change, and it
wouldn't really make much difference, there's a kind of a "process" to the
madness, and despite its obvious failures, there are three products out
there. Change probably would be refreshing, at least it would mean exciting
times for some people.

As for ditching scratchbox in favor of something else, give sb2 a shot before
you give up on the whole concept. I think there is value in what it does, for
being a way of cross-compiling that is independent of the distribution you're
working with. I like the idea of being able to download a source tarball and
just compiling it, instead of having to integrate it into openembedded's
build system to be able to do it. Again, different dreams produce different
problems.

/lauri