Should MeeGo developers continue to publish info on this forum for maemo users (wrt Nokia device support)? - Page 12 - maemo.org

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attila77	2011-06-14 , 14:01
Posts: 3,319 \| Thanked: 5,610 times \| Joined on Aug 2008 @ Finland	#111

Originally Posted by lemmyslender

If the prevailing attitude is "MeeGo by developers for developers, common folk need not apply", then I'd prefer to not see information about it here. This type of attitude is why I chose not to participate in bug tracking.

No, the original question was not that. Should MeeGo developers continue to publish info on this forum for maemo users. This is not about patch xyz being applied to trunk. This is about info that might be interesting for Maemo users (new flashable image/release available, major functionality changes, application cross-pollination, etc).

IMHO, some of the best programs for the N900 were written by developers who actively engaged and encouraged feedback from the non-developers in the community. The interaction in threads about those programs contributed to quick development into a robust product that was easy to use.

Very true. MeeGo has a *lot* (LOT) to learn what user feedback means and can do for a platform (there is a lot of 'I know, I know' and ivory towers going on, partially because of the focus of the meego.com project, partically because of the lack of devices).

If you'd prefer to limit the exposure of MeeGo DE (perhaps it should be DOE, developer only edition, as opposed to CE, community? edition) to mostly developers, you'd probably be better off if you didn't post information here where non-developers have easy access.

I think the term "developer" is heavily misused here (one of the reasons for the terminology change, I believe). It's just that people have to realize that guys there are not Nokia care, empathic-voiced call center personnel, but (mainly software) engineers and geeks. I also think this applies the other way round, engineers having to realize that not everybody wandering in there* necessarily deals professionally with software. That IS the open source model.

*Again, this is partially caused by having no MeeGo devices around and hence people not understanding where/what they are looking for. It's like going into a car manufacturing plant because you would like an engine overhaul.

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sethkha	2011-06-14 , 14:03
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I'd like to join woody14619's statements.

Of course I like to be informed about the progress of Meego. I personally feel spammed with things as the Cordia banner (It doesn't make me sleepless at night!). But given, that nobody here has a working Meego with a working Cordia running it's kind of strange.
This just as a small sidenote. tswindell and woody14619 said it all.

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SD69	2011-06-14 , 15:03
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Originally Posted by sethkha

I'd like to join woody14619's statements.

Of course I like to be informed about the progress of Meego. I personally feel spammed with things as the Cordia banner (It doesn't make me sleepless at night!). But given, that nobody here has a working Meego with a working Cordia running it's kind of strange.
This just as a small sidenote. tswindell and woody14619 said it all.

I join in most of woody14619's comments as well. Particularly, I am not totally convinced of the open governance of MeeGo, and this is why I choose to continue to promote Maemo.

Cordia, which uses the Hildon desktop - basically the Maemo UI, is working. If Nokia would let us, we would call itMaemo. The project is off topic here, go to

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=56822
http://wiki.maemo.org/Cordia

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tswindell	2011-06-14 , 16:26
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An open governance, more open than any other is better than the alternatives. I think I got a bit moody yesterday due to it being very late. Everything I say here is my opinion, I'm not affiliated with Nokia, Intel or any sub-contractor. All my Maemo and MeeGo work has been in my spare time, because I love working in this area of technology.

I would love MeeGo on the N900, whether through Cordia, or MeeGo N900 Community Edition, to be end-user acceptable, and even though I don't think this is our primary goal for the project, it is certainly a possibility. I'm pretty sure by the end of this year MeeGo on the N900 will be something very functional and useful for most N900 users. That is, if we keep going in the direction at the pace we're going at.

I'm promoting MeeGo both here and in general, not to poach developers from Maemo, okay, a few of us have pretty much left Maemo development for MeeGo, me included. I'm trying to get them to have a look at what's going on, maybe try and port some of their Maemo Qt apps to MeeGo, and generally see how well things are working. Especially wrt to Qt & QtMobility, these things actually benefit both communities.

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	woody14619	2011-06-14 , 18:35
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Originally Posted by ScottishDuck

Hardware drivers are irrelevant, you don't hear people claiming linux is "not open" because it allows closed source drivers to exist and the same is true of meego

Actually, you're quite wrong on this, on multiple accounts.

The entire Fedora project is based around complete open source. They do in fact call Ubuntu and several other platforms "not open" because they include close-sourced programs and drivers. In order to use Fedora with closed source tools, one must manually add a separate third-party repository to get such items (like flash player, acrobat, and hardware drivers for high-res on some graphics cards).

Calling hardware drivers "irrelevant" seems odd to me. An OS, at it's core, is a base of scheduling systems, resource management APIs, and drivers. At least 30% of any given kernel is drivers, since you need those to do anything with the outside world. Look at most of the bugs in MeeGo and Maemo. Most of them are drivers not handling hardware properly.

I'm not "demanding" a completely open system, though that would be something I'd love to see. All I'm saying is, calling one OS better than the other when they have the same limitations in regard to binary-blob drivers, is silly. Especially when one is still in development with lots of new bugs, while the other has been in the field for three years and is working decently in the real world (albeit with lots of old bugs).

Originally Posted by tswindell

An open governance, more open than any other is better than the alternatives.

That I think we can agree on. But governance itself is not a substitute for actual code. Compared to iOS, or Android, or even what's left of the council here, MeeGo does win in that regard. I'm just noting that it should be treated as what it is: temporary.

Originally Posted by tswindell

All my Maemo and MeeGo work has been in my spare time, because I love working in this area of technology.

There are very few people here that do this type of work as their main job. I'm blessed in that I get paid to do something I like (very close to this, but not phone/tablet related), though it does tend to limit how much I can contribute to community projects, both for time and logistical reasons.

Originally Posted by tswindell

I'm trying to get them to have a look at what's going on, maybe try and port some of their Maemo Qt apps to MeeGo, and generally see how well things are working. Especially wrt to Qt & QtMobility, these things actually benefit both communities.

I agree to a limited regard. Getting people to cross-compile or develop for both targets is a great thing. I'd love to see apps from here move rather seamlessly to MeeGo if it takes off.

I'm just asking that things be talked about realistically, based on where things are, not on where we want or expect things to be in three months. Doing otherwise can cause people to lose interest in both platforms, which helps no one.

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tswindell	2011-06-14 , 18:53
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Originally Posted by woody14619

That I think we can agree on. But governance itself is not a substitute for actual code. Compared to iOS, or Android, or even what's left of the council here, MeeGo does win in that regard. I'm just noting that it should be treated as what it is: temporary.

Why do you think it's temporary? Especially now that the community office is taking on contributors outside of Nokia and Intel and we're hoping to have the same in the Technical Steering Group.

Originally Posted by woody14619

There are very few people here that do this type of work as their main job. I'm blessed in that I get paid to do something I like (very close to this, but not phone/tablet related), though it does tend to limit how much I can contribute to community projects, both for time and logistical reasons.

I agree to a limited regard. Getting people to cross-compile or develop for both targets is a great thing. I'd love to see apps from here move rather seamlessly to MeeGo if it takes off.

I'm just asking that things be talked about realistically, based on where things are, not on where we want or expect things to be in three months. Doing otherwise can cause people to lose interest in both platforms, which helps no one.

Well, realistically, the current state is that our adaptation is pretty good, accelerometer does actually work, contrary to what you mentioned earlier. It really can be used as a day-to-day device, like I said earlier I do. What I miss, and what stops me moving completely to MeeGo for my work phone as well as my personal phone, is actually the lack of a couple of apps I really like on Maemo (Conboy is probably the primary).

So the main thing is we need some apps porting, if I had the time I'd do it myself, what I'm really after is for a few devs to port their apps and I'll be willing to help them do it. Outside of apps, we're working on making the performance better and soon we'll have a nice new shiny browser, though Opera works really well.

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attila77	2011-06-14 , 19:06
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Originally Posted by woody14619

The entire Fedora project is based around complete open source. They do in fact call Ubuntu and several other platforms "not open" because they include close-sourced programs and drivers. In order to use Fedora with closed source tools, one must manually add a separate third-party repository to get such items (like flash player, acrobat, and hardware drivers for high-res on some graphics cards).

Well, if you want to bash Ubuntu because of those things, the proper base of comparison is Debian, compared to it, even Fedora seems to have a lax morale.

look at most of the bugs in MeeGo and Maemo. Most of them are drivers not handling hardware properly.

Care to substantiate that with some numbers ?

All I'm saying is, calling one OS better than the other when they have the same limitations in regard to binary-blob drivers, is silly.

...and just for the sake of purism

Maemo and MeeGo are both the same OS, just different distros.

That I think we can agree on. But governance itself is not a substitute for actual code. Compared to iOS, or Android, or even what's left of the council here, MeeGo does win in that regard.

I find that remark peculiar (from the Maemo/Council angle) as MeeGo governance is entirely corporate-run, *including* community matters/applications. Maemo is/was a lot more open at least in that regard.

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	woody14619	2011-06-14 , 20:23
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Originally Posted by tswindell

Why do you think it's temporary?

Because it always is. Governance, by it's very definition, is something granted temporarily by a power the controls a resource, usually when they don't want to be bothered with running or managing that resource themselves. If said resource becomes something profitable and tangible, or takes off even to half the extent Android has, "community governance" will be revoked rather quickly in favor of profits and industry. The power comes from the source, not from the method of managing it. Historically I've found that the development community will be the first hit by this, in part because corporate folks have an innate distrust of educated workers, especially those not asking for compensation. (Though that may be less true on your side of the pond...)

Originally Posted by tswindell

Well, realistically, the current state is that our adaptation is pretty good, accelerometer does actually work, contrary to what you mentioned earlier.

Please stop that. Stop trying to make this about me, and implying that I'm in some way wrong. I didn't "mention" something earlier. I noted from an authoritative source (and included a link to said source, MeeGo's own bugtack list) that there is still an open issue with the accelerometer (and Wifi, and sms notification).

You're acting as if I'm just pulling stuff from my posterior, which is not the case. I'm using information presented by the MeeGo community, in the MeeGo bug tracking list, which seems rather up to date. If they say they have a bug, in a re-opened state, with a developer showing activity on it in the past two days, I'm going to take that as an indicator that there's still an issue there.

Originally Posted by tswindell

So the main thing is we need some apps porting

I'm glad to hear it's progressing. And I do hope some authors are willing to put the time in to move tools to MeeGo. Perhaps a good start would be offering a link to a page about where developers can go to get info on setting up a development environment? I'm sure there's a nice wiki page on the MeeGo site that has such a list.

Originally Posted by attila77

Well, if you want to bash Ubuntu

You misinterpret me. If I explained the Hasidic law meant that those following that faith didn't think it right to mix meat and dairy, would you call me antisemitic? Why then when I explain that others think open implies complete openness, I'm some how bashing a distro?

I'm not bashing Ubuntu at all, nor endorsing one belief over another. I was simply pointing out to ScottishDuck that his definition of "open/free software" is not as universal as he seems to imply it is. There are many groups (like Fedora/Debian) that believe including anything that's not open is in fact not to be considered opensource. Defining that as "misinformation" is incorrect.

I find irony in the fact that you defend the use of the term "open source" on a distro that contains closed source, but then go on to argue pedantically that:

Originally Posted by attila77

...and just for the sake of purism Maemo and MeeGo are both the same OS, just different distros.

Technically,yes. The same could be said of Android, could it not? Since it uses the same OS, a Linux based kernel with a few custom drivers? Yes, in a puristic sense, they're all distros. From a laymans perspective, they're different. Just as to a layman Ubuntu is "open source" because most of it is open.

Originally Posted by attila77

Care to substantiate that with some numbers ?

I'd love to, but I lack the will to bother. I'm pretty sure I'm right on that one though. Just go check out the MeeGo bug tracker yourself. Many of the bugs still open revolve around hardware drivers. I linked several in a post a few back.

Originally Posted by attila77

I find that remark peculiar (from the Maemo/Council angle) as MeeGo governance is entirely corporate-run, *including* community matters/applications. Maemo is/was a lot more open at least in that regard.

Again, I'm not claiming one distro is better than another, or that one model of governance is superior. I was simply pointing out that governance is less important, because the terms can be changed on the whim of the group that controls the resource. Since both models in this case have nearly identical bits of closed source in terms of hardware drivers, I see little reason to elevate one above the other based on that. If you have an issue with someone claiming one is more open than the other, please direct your comments to them, not to me.

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acrux	2011-06-14 , 21:01
Posts: 286 \| Thanked: 615 times \| Joined on Jan 2011 @ Estonia	#119

Originally Posted by SD69

Cordia, which uses the Hildon desktop - basically the Maemo UI, is working.

Hmm, strange... Have you tried it? Last time I tested it could not get the X up at all... And as I understood, the packages are just built and nobody is testing them as the developers don't have a N900 to test it...

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attila77	2011-06-14 , 21:27
Posts: 3,319 \| Thanked: 5,610 times \| Joined on Aug 2008 @ Finland	#120

Originally Posted by woody14619

Because it always is. Governance, by it's very definition, is something granted temporarily by a power the controls a resource,

Can you share a source for definition ? I understood governance simply to be the process of governing, might be based on owhenship, license, blood, whatever. AFAIK There is nothing *implied* about it's temporal character. Now, the resource control is a tricky business in software, esp. most open licenses like GPL, because while copyrights will allow you to change licenses and governance models, you cannot change them reatroactively. In plain English, if you go back to closed, if your project was actually truly being worked on/contributed to, you just created a fork (coincidentally, this is the danger Android faces ATM). Qt is actually an interesting example as one of the changes was that authors do NOT need to transfer copyrights (thereby insuring that Nokia or whoever cannot 'steal' their code and backpedal into the haze of proprietary development with it).

I find irony in the fact that you defend the use of the term "open source" on a distro that contains closed source, but then go on to argue pedantically that:

Yeah, them smileys, they don't make them as they used to

Technically,yes. The same could be said of Android, could it not? Since it uses the same OS, a Linux based kernel with a few custom drivers? Yes, in a puristic sense, they're all distros.

Nope, that's actually pretty wrong, from a purist standpoint both Maemo and MeeGo are GNU/Linux, while Android is just Linux (no glibc et al). Now, a kernel does *not* an OS make }

I'd love to, but I lack the will to bother. I'm pretty sure I'm right on that one though. Just go check out the MeeGo bug tracker yourself. Many of the bugs still open revolve around hardware drivers.

I would assert that due to the UX-es being developed behind closed doors and app/framework bugs (say, Qt) often filed in upstream bugtrackers it's perfectly natural that you see a lot of low level bugs in the MeeGo bugtracker. Add to this the effect that currently the people working on it are not end-users but people who work with the low level stuff... I wasn't lazy and checked - Maemo Core has 285 bugs filed against it, while just browser+email+IM has over 1700 bugs filed against them (and Maemo userspace has a lot more stuff than just those three applications).

Again, I'm not claiming one distro is better than another, or that one model of governance is superior.

Oh yes you did ! :P

An open governance, more open than any other is better than the alternatives.

That I think we can agree on. But governance itself is not a substitute for actual code. Compared to iOS, or Android, or even what's left of the council here, MeeGo does win in that regard.

I was simply pointing out that governance is less important, because the terms can be changed on the whim of the group that controls the resource.

That is quite a bit stretching it. In that context open source itself is not important (because it became or can stop being open source on somebody's whim).

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