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2010-12-07
, 08:45
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Joined on Nov 2007
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#42
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Originally Posted by qgil
Though this is mostly meaningless for owners of current/past Maemo devices and will remain so until we can actually buy a MeeGo device.
The functionality that Nokia finds interesting to open is being opened in the context of the MeeGo project.
So yes, I agree that the requests at bugs.maemo.org could be handled more proactively, with more speed and a better ratio of acceptance. Still, it is also true that the amount and quality of free software contributions pushed by Nokia during 2010 alone is massive.
Still "opening software" is a hot topic in certain Linux user circles and this is why I believe it gets hot here from time to time.
- Running non-Maemo distributions on Nokia hardware: this is usually about low-level core components like bme and libcal without which "porting" say Debian to an N810 is pointless.
- Fixing bugs: this usually concerns high-level UI components like apps, control panel applets and the like. I suspect most people wouldn't care about the licence if Nokia fixed the bugs (some of which are extremely triviai) themselves.
(there is some overlap of course,, closed-source core components can be buggy too).
If you take a slightly more high-level view, these can be summarised in one reason: people don't like it when the hardware they bought becomes obsolete due to stale software. The best way to counter that is to make sure that the Harmattan device(s) will also be able to run "real" MeeGo 1.2 once it's out, as well as at least all future 1.x versions.
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2010-12-07
, 12:19
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Posts: 2,473 |
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Joined on Oct 2009
@ Jerusalem, PS/IL
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#43
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Originally Posted by qgil
Then why was the subject brought up again? I doubt bme will ever be OSS, mce is quite the same in terms of licensing, if the "user experience layer" can't be open sourced, and the underlying components are WONTFIX'd, what use is opening bug reports about closed components?
Nokia has been quite consistent at telling that it has no interest opening its user experience layer - which includes the Nokia proprietary apps. It's their investment and their decision.
Originally Posted by qgil
And what if I have a media player with a killer UI, that doesn't work with the current pulseaudio (just as an example), chances are if I tamper with pulseaudio, I'll break maemo's haptic feedback, maemo's phone application, and pretty much any other apps that are closed and can't be compiled against new libs.
Taking the media player as an example, if you are interested in community engagement then please consider contributing to the MeeGo media player(s) of the Handset UX or established free software projects based on Qt like Amarok. See http://jefferai.org/2010/05/amarok-m...the-beginning/ & http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/...martphone.html
Last edited by MohammadAG; 2010-12-07 at 12:28. Reason: s/temper/tamper/g
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2010-12-07
, 13:04
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Posts: 2,102 |
Thanked: 1,309 times |
Joined on Sep 2006
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#44
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Going back to the comment about the Media Player and Calendar. Both could certainly be replaced, but the question is really whether it's worth investing the time and effort to do this as they will presumably be completely replaced in the next Harmattan/Meego release.
Having source available would make this significantly easier and cheaper (in terms of time) to do. OTOH I understand the point about the UI being Nokia's differentiator, though now that Maemo is an old platform, I'd have thought it's less important.
Certainly my view on this conundrum (stuff needs fixing, but who wants to commit to doing that when their work will not last all that long) is to simply wait for a working and fully featured (not in terms of sw, but certainly hw and the sw components that will still be closed) Meego installation for the N900 and just move over completely and then work on Calendars, Media Players, etc., etc. knowing that my work might be useful for more than a month or two.
Having source available would make this significantly easier and cheaper (in terms of time) to do. OTOH I understand the point about the UI being Nokia's differentiator, though now that Maemo is an old platform, I'd have thought it's less important.
Certainly my view on this conundrum (stuff needs fixing, but who wants to commit to doing that when their work will not last all that long) is to simply wait for a working and fully featured (not in terms of sw, but certainly hw and the sw components that will still be closed) Meego installation for the N900 and just move over completely and then work on Calendars, Media Players, etc., etc. knowing that my work might be useful for more than a month or two.
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2010-12-07
, 13:07
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Posts: 999 |
Thanked: 1,117 times |
Joined on Dec 2009
@ earth?
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#45
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As far as I can see MeeGo and the n900 implementation of it will not be stable for some time - and that is before we have any meaningful apps for it (e.g. a media player!)
Maemo is now hamstrung because the improvements needed for some of the apps can never be applied (e.g. closed-source media player).
So where do we go from here?
At present, meego and maemo are mutually exclusive. We only have a "bridge" (QT libs) that will allow limited portability.
The "in-built" n900 maemo apps are showing their age a bit now and need some kind of revision - which is highly unlikely to happen.
I've been using mplayer for many of my video files because I find that the maemo media player does not play them smoothly (Mplayer also supports the most audio formats too). I often switch between symphonie and the n900 media player to play all my media files on my n900.
Luckily I am a software developer and I am toying with the idea of writing my own little frontend for mplayer - something I can use on my n900 and on my Linux PC at home- I know there are others out there but da**it I want to write my own!
What I'm trying to say is that maybe we should take things in a different direction?
Maybe we can replace stuff with our own qt-based apps?
I have no desire to install meego on my n900 because I don't see it having full hardware support in the forseable future.
Not to mention all the kernel and software hacks possible with the n900 and maemo at the moment.
I also do not like the "DRM" layer aspect of meego either!
Maybe we should accept that meego is still a very long way off and I don't think a stable version on a handset will be ready until mid-end of 2011 at the earliest. God knows when for the n900.
Maybe it is time for the community to start replacing the nokia closed-sourced components with our own. When meego is eventually ready we can then "port" these new apps across?
Maemo is now hamstrung because the improvements needed for some of the apps can never be applied (e.g. closed-source media player).
So where do we go from here?
At present, meego and maemo are mutually exclusive. We only have a "bridge" (QT libs) that will allow limited portability.
The "in-built" n900 maemo apps are showing their age a bit now and need some kind of revision - which is highly unlikely to happen.
I've been using mplayer for many of my video files because I find that the maemo media player does not play them smoothly (Mplayer also supports the most audio formats too). I often switch between symphonie and the n900 media player to play all my media files on my n900.
Luckily I am a software developer and I am toying with the idea of writing my own little frontend for mplayer - something I can use on my n900 and on my Linux PC at home- I know there are others out there but da**it I want to write my own!
What I'm trying to say is that maybe we should take things in a different direction?
Maybe we can replace stuff with our own qt-based apps?
I have no desire to install meego on my n900 because I don't see it having full hardware support in the forseable future.
Not to mention all the kernel and software hacks possible with the n900 and maemo at the moment.
I also do not like the "DRM" layer aspect of meego either!
Maybe we should accept that meego is still a very long way off and I don't think a stable version on a handset will be ready until mid-end of 2011 at the earliest. God knows when for the n900.
Maybe it is time for the community to start replacing the nokia closed-sourced components with our own. When meego is eventually ready we can then "port" these new apps across?
__________________
I like cake.
I like cake.
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2010-12-07
, 13:13
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Posts: 2,535 |
Thanked: 6,681 times |
Joined on Mar 2008
@ UK
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#46
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Originally Posted by lardman
MeeGo's core demonstration/reference apps aren't going to be as full-featured or mature as Nokia's own apps, presumably. And Nokia's apps will (almost certainly) be closed source.
Going back to the comment about the Media Player and Calendar. Both could certainly be replaced, but the question is really whether it's worth investing the time and effort to do this as they will presumably be completely replaced in the next Harmattan/Meego release.
So to get those working requires a level of ABI compatibility (and package fakery). Open MeeGo running (some) Harmattan apps might be doable - but I'm struggling to believe it'll be a polished experience, to be honest; and what if Harmattan's apps/SSU repo requires a valid Harmattan device IMEI? Downloading and using them on another MeeGo instance, even the N900, might be a license violation.
Having source available would make this significantly easier and cheaper (in terms of time) to do. OTOH I understand the point about the UI being Nokia's differentiator, though now that Maemo is an old platform, I'd have thought it's less important.
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Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org
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2010-12-07
, 13:19
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Posts: 2,473 |
Thanked: 12,265 times |
Joined on Oct 2009
@ Jerusalem, PS/IL
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#47
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IMHO, separating MeeGo and Maemo 6 will certainly make the situation similar to android/symbian, "Custom/Cooked ROMs" as they are called with have Maemo 6 apps on the N900, with the license completely ignored by those making the images.
Oh and as for replacing Maemo apps with our own ones, I discussed 1:1 copies of the apps (as qwerty12 has done for one of the applets) on #maemo, but it might be a waste of work/time when the apps are already there, but the source is closed.
Oh and as for replacing Maemo apps with our own ones, I discussed 1:1 copies of the apps (as qwerty12 has done for one of the applets) on #maemo, but it might be a waste of work/time when the apps are already there, but the source is closed.
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2010-12-07
, 13:24
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Posts: 2,535 |
Thanked: 6,681 times |
Joined on Mar 2008
@ UK
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#48
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Originally Posted by MohammadAG
/me nods.
IMHO, separating MeeGo and Maemo 6 will certainly make the situation similar to android/symbian, "Custom/Cooked ROMs" as they are called with have Maemo 6 apps on the N900, with the license completely ignored by those making the images.
Oh and as for replacing Maemo apps with our own ones, I discussed 1:1 copies of the apps (as qwerty12 has done for one of the applets) on #maemo, but it might be a waste of work/time when the apps are already there, but the source is closed.
There are so many little things necessary to get a single good polished app, which doesn't eat battery, integrates nicely, and has a decent(ish) UX that you'd have to have something so utterly broken and a lot of committed developers to focus on that one thing to replace it, IMHO.
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Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org
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2010-12-07
, 13:24
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Posts: 1,107 |
Thanked: 720 times |
Joined on Mar 2007
@ Germany
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#49
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Some people in community are working to improve Maemo.
Some people in community are working to create MeeGo and the future.
Both groups compete for attention and resources. This is unavoidable, but let's not allow that competition to draw us away from productive contributions.
Time is short enough. Season's greetings.
Some people in community are working to create MeeGo and the future.
Both groups compete for attention and resources. This is unavoidable, but let's not allow that competition to draw us away from productive contributions.
Time is short enough. Season's greetings.
__________________
find . -name \*.mp3 -exec mplayer -quiet -shuffle "{}" +
das ist your media player, and yuu vill like it
find . -name \*.mp3 -exec mplayer -quiet -shuffle "{}" +
das ist your media player, and yuu vill like it
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2010-12-07
, 14:03
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Posts: 2,102 |
Thanked: 1,309 times |
Joined on Sep 2006
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#50
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Originally Posted by Jaffa
I quite agree that the current Nokia apps will almost certainly look nicer in the short term, and it may well be that it's simply not possible to use the Harmattan/Nokia-Meego UI + apps for whatever reason which means we'll need to write/port our own replacements if we wish to use Meego (or even a more up to date Maemo).
MeeGo's core demonstration/reference apps aren't going to be as full-featured or mature as Nokia's own apps, presumably. And Nokia's apps will (almost certainly) be closed source.
I would hope that with a common goal of creating e.g. a media player, people could create (or more likely port across) something that's usable and able to be fixed by those with the skill (though it would be good to have a standard app in mind to avoid fragmentation).
Unfortunately it's generally quite hard to get people to focus on prettiness and efficiency (unless that's their job or their passion) when there are other cool features to be added or applications to add. Conversely, once something works, then the drive to do anything more often evaporates. C'est la vie with OS and having access to the existing source code might make at least some of this less difficult (prettiness and efficiency have presumably already been implemented for the most part, so we could just add features.)
Whether or not this will actually happen I don't know - if a new Nokia phone running Harmattan is released, devs will naturally gravitate towards it, which will reduce the number of people trying to write replacements for the N900 + plain Meego (for instance).
I suppose the best course of action would be for us to start writing apps now for the N900 running Maemo + Qt (i.e. portable to Meego once it's day-to-day usable), but then the question of which libraries to use, compatibility between versions, etc. raises its head.
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about what you are talking. Just because an application uses
Qt does not mean it is portable. Dialer, calendar, photo viewer,
mediaplayer, addressbook, all these apps are connected, together
and with the backgrond components. If the reference application
uses newer versions of tracker, contextkit another
calender backend, media/audio framework, you can not just
take one application to port it to maemo.
I follow the development on the meego-maillist, forum and bugtracker.
I know that there are huge changes.
2. maemo5 applicatios are what we have now and
MeeGo applications are far from useable.
If Nokia doesn't want to open their apllicatio, ok!
But I had just a simple question. Does this
"... ideas opening various parts of maemo .."
means anything new? Are there new ideas?
Or why did they talk about this ideas regarding the state of maemo.
nicolai
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