<table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0' background='none' style='font-family:arial;font-size:10pt;color:rgb(51, 51, 51);background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);width:100%;'><tr><td valign='top' style='font: inherit;'>Hi Robert,<br><br>you missed the fact we have now<br>Free Software and Corporate Free Software<br>Open or not, it doesn't matter.<br>Corporate Free Software is built for embedded devices.<br>It would be nice to have Free Software Foundation to give<br>a helpful hand in discovering which way global corporations and developers should go.<br>Global Alliance on Free Software/ Open Source Free Software <br>is a good idea, I have already proposed at this place.<br><br>Transfer of Intellectual Property Rights is an issue<br>donating Open Source Free Software developed by third parties to corporations.<br><br>Darius<br>Think-Tank<br>Nokia Internet (WIMAX) Tablet GG<br>http://groups.google.com/group/nokia-internet-tablet?hl=en<br><br><br>--- On
<b>Mon, 2/6/08, Robert Schuster <i><theBohemian@gmx.net></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">From: Robert Schuster <theBohemian@gmx.net><br>Subject: Hello Maemo - CFSONID 2008<br>To: maemo-developers@maemo.org<br>Date: Monday, 2 June, 2008, 1:28 PM<br><br><pre>Hi!<br>(If some bits sound to serious for your taste, take them with a grain of<br>salt.)<br><br>I finally subscribed to this list because I think the time is right. I<br>attended LinuxTag 2008 in Berlin/Germany a few days ago. Quim Gil and<br>other people from Nokia and the Maemo community were there. In the first<br>Maemo talk Quim invited the community to speak out to Nokia (Btw: really<br>Nokia or just the OSSO team?) and I want to participate therein.<br><br>If you attended the first talk I was the guy asking to raise your hand<br>if you want to see the Nokia IT devices being freed of all
proprietary<br>software in one way (install a different OS) or another (make IT OS 100%<br>free itself).<br><br>This brings us right to the topic: Free Software - free as in freedom,<br>you know. :)<br><br>I was *not* asking the question to show the Nokia staff that there are<br>more than just '5 free software' visionaries in Maemo but mainly<br>because<br>I reported this[0] bug last year and was missing noticeable support from<br>other free software friends. I know that some really good people have<br>already given up on this topic and rest assured that this will also be<br>my last attempt to subvert this community. ;)<br><br>So the question at the talk was for me to find out whether I am really<br>alone with my views. Apparantly it also made all of you show that you<br>are not alone, too. :)<br><br>Ok, Quim introduced the '10 action days'. My impression is that they<br>would like to hear stuff like 'add feature X to the website', 'port<br>application
foo to maemo' or something else from that category. I have<br>no suggestion like that because I strongly believe that a healthy free<br>software community can fix any technical deficiency on their own.<br><br>You are not a zealot like me and need an argument now? Ok. The free<br>software scene came nearly out of nothing. Although free programs<br>existed long before Linux was written, there was no organisation of<br>those. One of the early communities that rallied together to make a<br>change was Debian. It evolved from nothing to something that commercial<br>free software vendors *want* to base their products on. Debian is the<br>distribution Maemo was derived from.<br><br>Ok, let me state some stuff before it gets hairy:<br><br>- I do not consider someone/an organisation/company evil here. There are<br>just different fears, opinions, convictions, way of doings etc.<br>resulting in different behavior.<br><br>- I consider the OSSO team at Nokia to be
more open to FOSS than any<br>other part in that company and that those guys are restricted by company<br>policies. If there is something to fix than it will have most likely to<br>do with that other parts.<br><br>- I am very thankful for every contribution from Nokia staff to the free<br>software community. However I treat every non-free part of the IT OS if<br>it does not exist when it comes to being thankful.<br><br>- If not said otherwise I speak in the name of those Maemo users who<br>know that FOSS is the way to go. Everyone is free to completely disagree<br>with my views & opinions.<br><br>Over time I learned about a few reasons why companies keep their<br>Linux-based operating systems closed or deny NDA-free access to<br>specification. Here are some:<br><br>a) treaties/contracts made with chipset vendors (e.g. ARM, TI) enforce a<br>certain non-disclosure of specifications<br>b) fear of being imitated/plagiated by ... well manufacturers that
are<br>*specialized* in doing so<br>c) company-wide policies that enforce a certain working style or common<br>standards in different company sections (set up to make it easier to<br>cope with national laws/regulations from *inside* the company[1])<br>d) fear of appearing less unique to the customer (something marketing<br>people preach)<br>e) fear of 'eating away' market share from other inhouse devices<br>(especially from those where the margin is higher :) )<br><br>Without knowing anything from inside OSSO/Nokia in this regard I still<br>hope that those reasons apply more or less to them because I want to<br>base this year's "Campaign for Software Freedom on Nokia IT devices<br>(tm)"[2] on them. ;)<br><br>What the campaign is hoping to achieve is the following:<br><br>1) Users should be able to install any compatible OSes on their Nokia IT<br>devices they wish like one can do on their desktop computers.<br><br>2) It should be possible to port and put
Maemo on other non-Nokia<br>devices like it is possible to e.g. port Fedora to any machine.<br><br>-<br><br>The means to achieve this goal are the following:<br><br>1) All software in Maemo should be licensed under free software licenses<br>(I do not care about Skype, Flash, etc).<br><br>2) Either specifications or free software drivers should be provided for<br>the components in the Nokia IT devices.<br><br>To achieve those goals the following things should be adhered to:<br><br> * Tackle one bit after another.<br><br>Please prioritize important things (e.g. virtual keyboard/handwriting<br>recognition & battery management). If things start moving the<br>communities' reward is patience. Feel free to make a big fuss when each<br>component is freed. The free software community will party together with<br>you.<br><br> * Future software/hardware releases should not add non-free components<br><br>Remember that there is always more than one way. E.g. the
free software<br>community can certainly accept a proprietary GSM modem which responds to<br>AT commands or a GPS module providing NMEA[3].<br><br>-<br><br>On the one hand it would be totally cool to get the existing devices<br>freed and many people would welcome that BUT if all fails and non-OSSO<br>Nokia staff cannot be convinced that this would be a remarkable and<br>trust encouraging move THEN the fallback plan is to bring future devices<br>into a better FOSS shape. That way we will have fully free (as in<br>freedom) devices in say 2 or 3 generations.<br><br>The free software heart aches when saying that but I accept that at this<br>point in time Nokia's HW lab will already have designed the next devices<br>and there is no possibility to make substantial changes without causing<br>high re-engineering costs.<br><br>-<br><br>Benefits: I am not a lawyer, marketing expert, economist or else. Ask<br>them if you want advice. However a commodization of
portable devices<br>like the ITs is likely.<br><br>Firms and communities could also more easily order a bunch of Nokia<br>devices and make use of them for special tasks (without having to sign<br>special contracts, of course).<br><br>-<br><br>This is really a long mail. I stop here and present the short plan: I<br>will distill the above stuff into an 'official' statement, put it<br>online<br>somewhere (Maemo Wiki?) and let supporting users subscribe to it. The<br>final document is then given to Nokia/OSSO as part of the 'action days'<br>and if the interest from them is not zero ... well, then you will read<br>more mails from me. I also hope^H^H^H^H expect more people to chime in then.<br><br> After all this our common goal, isn't it?<br><br>Well done if you made it this far. If you are thinking about replying<br>please use your time productively. I am not inviting to a discussion -<br>instead I presented a plan. You either contribute to it or let us
go<br>ahead without your support.<br><br>Regards<br>Robert<br><br><br>[0] - https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1584<br><br>[1] E.g. in order to sell Nokia devices in some random country a number<br>of employees must be trained to deal with support and warranty<br>questions. Stuff like this is what customers expect from a<br>multi-national company.<br><br>[2] The acronym would be rather CSFONID but CFSONID can be pronounced<br>ziff-sonid and I like that more. Call it whatever you like. ;)<br><br>[3] Rest assured that one day GPS and GSM hardware will be produced as<br>open hardware.</pre><pre>_______________________________________________<br>maemo-developers mailing list<br>maemo-developers@maemo.org<br>https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers</pre></blockquote></td></tr></table><br>Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com