[maemo-developers] Open letter of support for Python on the Maemo/MeeGo platform

[From: Attila Csipa]

Forwarded from the Maemo Community Council blog:

After receiving feedback from the community, including developers who are 
trying to get their software into Ovi Store, it is the opinion of the Council 
that the unexplained restriction on dependencies between Ovi and Extras - and 
in particular the availability of Python as a platform for Ovi Store 
applications - represents a serious threat to the success of Maemo, MeeGo and 
Ovi Store. 
It will come as a surprise for many community members and users that Python is 
still not an officially supported language/runtime on the Maemo nor MeeGo 
platforms, despite the huge number of  Python applications currently in 
Extras, and even though they base on the work of Nokia's own PyMaemo team, 
plus two Qt bindings and a GTK+/Hildon one. To put things in perspective, 
about a third of ALL stable Maemo applications are written in Python, both 
overall and those using Qt.

The community level support means Python itself is located in community 
repositories, and, as a consequence, Python software is not admissible to Ovi 
(regardless of being free or not). Highlighting this is part of a broader 
agenda - ensuring cooperation between libraries and runtimes used by Ovi-
distributed software and software in community repositories, but the first step 
towards that is addressing the single biggest such case - Python.

If there are technical issues which need to be addressed, let's discuss them 
in the open and try and solve them; if there are purely political issues, we 
strongly urge Nokia to reconsider.

Maemo Community Council

====

Blog/vote link:
http://maemo.org/community/council/open_letter_of_support_for_python_on_the_maemo-
meego_platform/

Talk auto-announcement link:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=59745



Regards,
Attila