[maemo-developers] Announcing the Internet Tablet Talk Software Section

[From: Quim Gil]

Hi,

[[CCing Jussi, he is in charge of the consumer marketing and coordinates
the tablet user site at nokia.com - keep him in the CC please]]

Please let's not argue since all you are right:

- maemo.org has an integrated process to publish software, and it's
improving.
- internettablettalk.com has a rich environment for user feedback, and
it's improving.
- Everybody wants to increase the popularity of the software.
- Everybody wants to have better software thanks to better user feedback.
- Nobody wants to do the same thing twice.

Reggie, in my *personal* opinion you are pointing to the right direction
with the wrong munition. It would be good to have some coordination in
the planning stage but we still can fix this before the ball in ITT
rolls out of your own control.

Reasons and suggestions:

- It really makes sense to publish the software in extras-devel + extras
+ basic info at maemo.org/downloads (more about this URL later). There
are things like downloads stats and total number of apps that are
valuable for everybody.

- Once you have your files in place in extras / extras-devel you can
link them from wherever i.e. having a nice one-click install arrow in
ITT posts. User click in ITT, the stats still go to the maemo counters.
The developer didn't have to upload twice the same file.

- Once you have your basic info in place it can be gathered from
anywhere else via i.e. DOAP for the general info and RSS for
releases/updates. Again, developers don't have to submit the same
content twice and ITT users could benefit from original & real time
information without having to follow maemo.org.

- Then it's up to the developers to decide how they want to organize
their response to feedback. Let's not forget here that there might be
not only ITT threads and maemo.org/downloads comments, but also a bug
tracker, a project mailing list, direct emails, discussions in the maemo
lists, comments in their blogs... Most of the feedback is of the same
type: support questions, bugs found and features requested. Probably at
the end you want 2 types of feedback: regular users and
developers/really-power-users.


Anyway, the maemo.org and ITT communities can figure out the details but
 it is clear that nobody is interested in harming the neighbor project ,
stress the already busy developers and confuse the probably already
disoriented end users.


How Nokia could help here. First impressions:

- Channeling people to the right places. maemo.org is a good place for
developers. ITT is a good place for users. Then you have overlaps and
exceptions, and that's fine. But keeping user and developer spaces
clearly differentiated is generally a good idea. This is more evident as
software projects grow and maemo will keep growing.

- Separating, if needed, maemo.org/downloads from the rest of stuff
targeting developers and Linux / open source advanced users. End users
tend to get confused when landing in maemo.org, since most of the stuff
here is actually not for them - but it's relatively easy to follow. Easy
to install unstable software, easy to follow blindly the steps described
in a mailing list discussion, easy to end up reading technical blog
posts or developer documentation.

- Funding work difficult to push forward on a voluntary basis by the
maemo.org & ITT core guys. It is very important also for Nokia to have
open, efficient and decentralized ways to develop software, publish it,
improve it and let users know and decide what is available and what is good.

-- 
Quim Gil
marketing manager, open source
maemo software @ Nokia