[maemo-developers] Hello Maemo - CFSONID 2008

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

ext Robert Schuster wrote:
> Now the funny thing: Recently people found out that building something
> on top of what GNU provides can make up a successful business. But
> instead of following the idea that brought GNU into existance they add
> proprietary software again.

Nokia has contributed to many open source projects during the years
(starting at least from 90s).  There are many companies that have both
proprietary and open source components (Ubuntu (is Launchpad finally
open?), Novell, IBM etc), it's not either or.  As long as the trend
in general is towards more open (when counting contributions both
inside and outside the devices), at least I'm happy.


> So the answer is "no". As long as Maemo's goal is not 'providing a 100%
> free platform' as well I[0] will not contribute[1] to it and I expect
> that with more and more freedom respecting projects/products you will
> have a hard time finding people who do.

1) I don't see why maemo goal could not be being 100% free.

2) It's not a goal for ITOS (which shares components with maemo) nor
for Nokia (which does consumer mobile devices which by necessity
currently require proprietary components for different reasons).

If maemo is defined just as a subset of ITOS and something that
should utilize all of specific Nokia devices hardware features, then
1) conflicts with 2).

However, nothing says that maemo needs to be tied like that:
The goal could be that:
- There are free replacements (sometimes better, sometimes worse)
   for specific software functionalities that are proprietary in
   (certain versions of) ITOS.
   - Whether replacement means that the APIs/ABIs should be standard
     or compatible (enough) is another question
- certain specified HW functionalities can be used with free
   software, for others it's not (as much of) an issue

This would require that people actually prioritize what is
important to them instead of giving less useful blanket
statements that everything should be open, RIGHT NOW. :-)


	- Eero

Even with majority of current Linux laptops, either they have binary
drivers (bad) or some functionality is missing (to me, more acceptable).
Trend is improving though.