[maemo-developers] Maemo & Linux mainstream again (was Re: Projects Nokia should support (yours?))

[From: Quim Gil]

Hi Carsten, thank you very much for the time, energies and skills you
are putting in the Deblet project, and in this thread.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Mainstream_Linux_Alignment was born this morning
in a humble corner of the wiki. Let's compile there all the bugs and
enhancement requests relating to upstream alignment and compatibility
with Debian/Ubuntu.

I already created some bugs from the feedback received at
http://flors.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/distro-zen-question-of-the-day/#comment-1493
- if you (plural) can extract more bugs submitted from the discussion in
this thread that would be great. Let's avoid having the mailing list as
sole place for discussion.

ext Carsten V. Munk wrote:
> we've tried to
> take fairly standard Maemo platform applications and put them on let's
> say later versions of Debian, with Hildon, with quite a lot of hardships
> caused by this.

Are these stories documented anywhere? We are putting a lot of
development in Hildon & GTK+ making them work better together. At the
moment the team is quite busy with the short term execution but once we
reach e.g. beta it will be a good time to have a discussion about
Hildon's mid term strategy and how it fits with the new GTK+ plans.


> Reconstruct Maemo - take the latest packages from Debian or Ubuntu, stay
> consistent in package naming, it's been a long while since you forked.
>   - sure, build them with device specific optimizations, but keep up
> when there's new releases. Sure, customize with busybox and such, but,
> in the process of rebuilding the base system platform, release scripts
> for bootstrapping a Maemo image, keep the system development open
> (public SVN like with Hildon) - which would make developers happy in
> terms of knowing how the base system is going to change - and adapt to
> them before new OS releases come out.

Alright, there are two things here:

- Take a fresh upstream code when starting a new release like e.g.
Ubuntu does. The idea is agreed and we need to come up with a plan to
execute it. Related to the question about to whom to align with + some
details relating to our own development process and schedules. Filing an
enhancement request would be a good start to discuss in details and
follow progress.

- Keeping the system development open. The idea is agreed and we need to
execute it during Fremantle and Harmattan with the goals
http://wiki.maemo.org/Objective:Best_community_for_mobile_Linux_innovation
and http://wiki.maemo.org/Objective:Release_soon_and_often



> Stay out of making closed source solutions for the basic simple UNIX
> system setup - for hardware, sure, binary blobs are alright, just don't
> let them block kernel updates and such.  For power savings, - you've
> mentioned using HAL, Upstart and OHM - make closed plugins for OHM, HAL,
> sure - they're for the hardware interfacing, - the software and OS
> architecture is what people are interested in, because compared to many
> other embedded linux, it works quite well, has very little power
> consumption and probably has the envy of platform makers.

The idea is indeed to have the base system as common and interoperable
as possible. You have seen the progress done in the base system and we
are continuing the trend. Enhancement requests against specific
obstacles in achieving that goal are welcome.



> Moving up to user interface - if you're going to do break API, use
> seperate directories for the standard API and the embedded API (GTK,
> GTKMM for instance). Ship > embedded API in the FIASCO image, sure, - but

This sounds like being good beef for Address upstream packages patched -
by Nokiahttps://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3827


> add Nokia tablet specific
> services, but keep the platform open and keep the development open.

I'm not going into the rest of topics but just wanted to say that your
sentence above clearly embodies the strategy we have for the Maemo
platform.

Please file enhancement requests for those additional topics, put me in
CC and list them on that wiki page. Thanks again!

-- 
Quim Gil
marketing manager, open source
Maemo Software @ Nokia