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

[From: Riku Voipio]

Mikhail Sobolev wrote:
> Exactly, Ross! I usually visualize relationship between different bits
> using the following picture (please use a fixed width font):
>
>   +--------------+----------------+------+
>   |              | Maemo SDK      |      |
>   +--------------+----+----+------+------+
>   |API           |Open|Open| Open |Closed|
>   +--------------+----+----+------+------+
>   |Implementation|Open|Open|Closed|Closed|
>   +--------------+----+----+------+------+
>   |                   |  IT OS 200X      |
>   +-------------------+------------------+
>
> The part that is covered by "Maemo" (and Maemo SDK) is not enough to
> produce a somewhat reasonable system, which:
>  1) is bootable
>  2) has support for all hardware
>  3) has a comparable to IT OS 2008 set of applications
>
> The really "challenging" areas are 2) and 3).  I believe certain work to
> make sure that 1) does not have any challenges is planned, but probably
> it's up to Quim to confirm. :)
>   
This what Debian pkg-maemo[1] and armel[2] projects intend to do.
Progress is slow but firm, now with hildon-desktop recently uploaded to
Debian and armel port in good condition (although still unofficial..). And
indeed it's the applications and  UI that are the main problem.

<rant>
Firstly, one needs a VKB. now hildon-input is mostly open source,
but when you have a real distribution, it's a lot more annoying that
only gtk2 applications have input. Acceptable, at least we have osso-xterm -
Oops no, xterm uses hildon_gtk_im_context_show() to show the vkb,
which is only available in maemo version of *gtk+2.0* - what a lovely
layering violation. So matchbox-keyboard is currently used, which
perhaps isn't as pretty as hildon-im, but atleast it works everywhere.
Another common grief in compiling hildon apps with stock gtk is the
infamous tap-and-hold menu, which apparently is going to be adapted
in upstream gtk in a completely different way.
</rant>

So now there is a hildon-desktop, terminal, network-manager and a vkb.
Only such minor details as web browser is missing, and the themes/icons
having a funny license.  But it just a matter of sorting all pieces 
together
to get fully OSS rootfs built out of Debian to support the basic use cases
of internet browsing, email and so on. Once we are the (might take a while
since I'm busy ATM), it should be easily adaptable to other portable
devices. Hopefully it will also motivate people to work on OSS replacements
for the rest of the stuff, IE the initfs and wifi driver. I don't hold 
much hope for
the DSP thou, as long as TI holds it as a proprietary architecture with
a proprietary toolchain and bios.. I prefer forgetting the dsp exists and
just using the audio codec directly with alsa.

[1] http://wiki.debian.org/pkg-maemo
[2] http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiTodo