[maemo-developers] Community Maemo distribution

[From: Ryan Abel]

So, the mess that was the most recent round of updates (thanks,  
mostly, to one stupid package full of PDFs) and a recent comment by  
Marius[1] got me thinking on an idea jott suggested a while ago: a  
community version of osso-software-version-rx*4, in effect, a  
community distribution of Maemo.

To kick off the discussion, I've put a preliminary proposal on the  
wiki.[2] We need to ponder over a few points, though.

First, we need to figure out if it'd be workable to put everything in  
Extras. I suspect this may not be a possibility, as it might cause  
problems for users who aren't using osv-c, and we want Extras to be as  
stable as possible (especially if we're ever going to get Nokia to  
ship it enabled). The alternative is a repository.maemo.org/community  
or similar.

Second, we need to figure out what how we want osv-c set up. What do  
we want to remove (proprietary advertisements, lame bundled crap,  
etc.), what do we want to add (community-patched Nokia applications,  
community replacements, bootmenu, etc.), and what do we want to modify  
(osso-statusbar-presence so it doesn't have a mandatory .desktop,  
moving bundled documentation to a separate package, etc.), and so on.

Third, after we figure out what we want, we need to implement it. ;)

This is something that I really want to move forward with, as I think  
it can really help the community and offer a much better experience  
than Nokia's distribution.

Let us know what you think!


[1]http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3602#c9
[2]https://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Maemo_Community_distribution

--
Ryan Abel
Maemo Community Council chair