Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

At Nokia World when presenting the N900 they said it was step 4 of 5.
I've also seen it quoted many times in interviews with nokians since.
If people missed this which I don't know how they could b/c every mobile blog on the net quoted it and still are when writing about n900 then you must of done lack of research about the product before hitting purchase.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Well, I for one don't think it's that simple as was discussed on that thread. The governance is only one thing... another thing is that the difference between even the Android and Maemo base platform may not be that great if you count in the Google Apps which do provide some pretty basic functionality as well.

Device manufacturers can add even more non-free software on top of that and/or modify the base Android system without releasing the modified versions anywhere because of the Apache license used for all of it.

Also, if you look at the rest of the apps installable for the platform, most of Maemo's apps seem to be open source while Android has about 10 free software apps available.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Time to weigh in on this thread as maemo.org distmaster and as someone who has been trying to put Fremantle on N8x0 along with lessons learnt from this experience and why things didn't pan out well for Mer and why I think the situation is different than with the N8x0.

There's a load of different questions in this thread, which can be summarised as:

1) Technical: Will the Harmattan 'distro' run on N900 hardware?

Let's start with a comparison. The key difference between a N8x0 and a N900 is the fact that the N900 has a GLES2.0 capable chip and a N8x0 has a GLES1.1 capable chip. The centerpiece of the N900, the desktop, requires a GLES2.0 capable chip to run smoothly and properly. Another problem is the fact that the SDK of Maemo5 compiles exclusively for ARMv7 and up, while N8x0 has ARMv6.

From a distribution point of view, it is simply later versions of most of the same packages that made up Diablo on your N8x0s with some added functionality, new APIs, new kernel. But the desktop is the dealbreaker as well as the application binary incompatibility.

As someone said earlier in the thread from a summit slide 'Harmattan / Maemo 6, including OMAP3, OpenGL ES, capacitive screen support and multitouch UI'

From a purely distribution (speaking of source packages) point of view and SDK point of view, I'd like to hope that the distribution would run. Since they're both OMAP3, the applications would probably be compatible too.

Why do I think it probably would? Because we're already running many of the Harmattan versions of packages open sourced at http://maemo.gitorious.org in Mer. On the N900.

2) Usability: Will the Harmattan UI be usable on N900 hardware?

The general question is if UI relying on multitouch would be usable. Who knows. But the argument I keep repeating to myself (as this matters to me in Mer and it's future) is that a developer will have to run their SDK on a single-touch desktop machine and hence there will be a way to deal with single-touch in the UI.

3) Support: Who will maintain Maemo 6 on N900? Who do I complain to when something goes wrong?

Would it be a Nokia released OS (with all the bells, whistles and support), or something maintained by community or by a third party.

Is community capable of providing it if they had all the assistance needed including relicensing of some components?

From my side, I'd really hope we would be capable of this in the community.

The foundation for this is already in Mer and while Mer isn't that functional yet (bad choices and GLES turning out to be 1.1 on N8x0), for Harmattan, we wouldn't have to work for a year to get to this point again - we have something we can drop packages into and see how well it works. Hopefully we can start doing this in alpha SDK, just like we did with Fremantle pre-alpha and alpha SDK.

Someone once said: "Mer is also a proof point of the openness of the Nokia devices designed for Maemo. For me one of the beauties of Maemo is that you can get rid of it. It is not imposed".

We are capable of taking matters into our own hands and help make the Nokia devices do our bidding and -replace- our phone OS with our -OWN- OS image. And even have a collaborative relationship with the original OS makers while doing it, working out licensing terms etc instead of every day living with a C&D risk.

Instead of looking at Nokia only providing support for a certain time after device release, look at how they're trying to help us take matters into our own hands. They're empowering us.

And they're already now taking steps to put Harmattan pieces out in the open on http://maemo.gitorious.org and http://qt.gitorious.org and developing them openly. They already take patches, too!

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

So you're fine with receiving no more OS bug fixes/enhancements, except for major issues? Let's see if you still agree with that statement once you're affected by something that won't be fixed without spending another $600.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

None of that has to do with actual opennes of the operating environment though. All of that has to do with the ecosystem.

Take for example NITDroid. That is a truly free Android port. Note, many found it "useless" because it does not, and cannot (unless they got around it) include the "Google Market" which is a proprietary app.. however - Android is not the Market, Android is the Operating system. All apps that are *on* the market should run on the NITDroid, but getting them is problematic because google has locked down the Market itself.

However, other market systems *do* work for it.. that also work on an android device.

Now your turn - wheres the Maemo-port done by the android community for their phone?

ETA: Also, there are more than 10. I only use Free software and I have quite a bit on my G1 phone.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Hi all, I'm new to all of this "forum" stuff, so please excuse me if I make an error. I've just finished an 18 month pay monthly contract with O2 (I live in the UK) and I'm due a handset upgrade (some are free, some aren't depending on the cost of the handset). My relationship with O2 is ending as they won't touch the Nokia N900 with a bargepole. It seems they are too up Apple's backside with the iPhone (most of the people that I know who have one, reckon that it's the dog's.........) but I've decided NOT to run with the pack and take my valuable custom elsewhere and go with Vodaphone for 24 months on the understanding that I get a N900. I've heard such good things about this phone - the OS, for one thing, which is Linux based, if I'm not mistaken? However, it seems that no matter how many good reports I've read, these have been really shaken by some of the things that you guys have been putting on the last nine pages of this thread. I'm not even going to try and quote some of the things, but basically, what I've read is that it will not be supported by Nokia, OS wise, and maemo 5 will be more or less out of date in the next few weeks/months? Am I right? Do I bother dragging myself into Vodaphone tomorrow to get my holy grail, or do I wait? Or god forbid, do I get an iPhone? Sorry about typos - I get quite emotional :(

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Go on a store and play with it. If you like it and it does what you need it to do, then purchase it.

Also, it can be a great device if everyone contributes instead of creating more whine posts.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Thank you STskeeps for weighing in and for this post.

So in all honestly then... the entire maemo base (any version) was available and open for you to recompile and use for mer? Or did you have to replace components with your own software due to licensing/proprietary concerns??

(not including drivers).

This is more for my own curiosity than for relevance to the actual thread.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

I don't really see any reason why Maemo 6 cannot be supported by the N900, except to drive the sales of the M6 device...

A public statement of M6 support would do WONDER for the N900 and the Maemo platform. As a potential buyer of the N900, I'm pretty much sold, until I read about M6 and its uncertain future on the N900.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

People should remember this announcement which said:

"This early release comes with an invitation to build variants based on Maemo 5 compatible with existing hardware like the N800 and N810. Maemo SW can't promise commercial quality for such configurations but through maemo.org we are able to collaborate at a community level with technical support, license changes and code."

Our hybris was also that we wanted to start out with a fully open source base instead of cutting corners with closed source things. Also, we went in directions that made us incompatible with Maemo5 for some things as well. So in some ways, in all the organisation build-up and hacking day after day, we forgot to remember about the goal - having a usable OS by the user. In practice, we didn't ask for that much relicensing and those we asked for, we got.

But the invitation still stands, I'd say. If we needed recompiles, I'm sure it would be possible to work it out somehow - especially with my role as distmaster now.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Well, arguing about what constitutes or doesn't constitute an "operating environment" or "operating system" is an endless thing as we can easily see from the GNU/Linux vs. Linux controversy for example. If you take the most conservative possible approach and only include the kernel, you won't have a single actual Android device that functions as a phone with only open source components anyway. But then you'd probably pick some other arbitrary line.

Maybe it is so that even forgetting about the kernel modules, you can't even get a basic phone implementation of Maemo that is completely free/open source at the moment. Even in that case I'd say it's not so simple to say "this one is more open than that one" because being able to run a free (minus the kernel modules) version is just one way of looking at it. I agree that it can be considered a fairly important factor though.

Not having a Maemo for an Android device right now that the first phone-capable Maemo device has been out for two months doesn't really mean there will never be one either, it's still a bit early. Which other market systems are you talking about btw?

My "about 10" estimate came from the lists compiled by the SFLC folks. Certainly they hadn't catalogued more than 20 even if being generous.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

While I appreciate the attempt at being politically correct, and I'm sure your position as an official distmaster has something to do with that... what I took from that was "No."

Which is just the subtle point I was trying to make regarding the "openness" of the Maemo Operating System.

I respect and agree that Nokia is more willing to work with their communities than other manufacturers.. and that the environment in the community, apps, and "root" on device is more open than - say - android... the founding structure of Maemo itself is not fully available.

To grab the sources, and build a working, bootable to desktop version of maemo is not possible, in my understanding - correct?

I love Mer and everything it tried to do.. and hope it does frame into something that is needed in the future, either a stop-gap to M6 for the N900, or just a plain open source replacement to M5 or M6.. either is perfectly wonderful..

But unfortunately Mer (to my understanding) cannot be used as an example of openness like the NITDroid can.. they didn't need to work with Google to get a working port (AFAIK).

Anyway.. this particular topic is off-topic for this thread and belongs in the other one I linked to a few posts back.. You just chimed in at a perfect time :).

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

This thread should be clearly marked [FUD] in its title.
It's nothing but fear based on uncertainty and doubt. You will see the facts in maybe end of the year. Until then, enjoy your device. And then, continue enjoying or get the next thing (whether that will be from Nokia is your choice, you don't have to follow any herd).

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

I believe that's what I said. My N900 works very well for me. It's not perfect, but it's very good and there's nothing else like it.

Think about this...since the iPad was announced, tech-type guys are moaning about how it should have Apple's full OS-X on it, a 'real' OS, not the limited 'phone' OS-X version. But if it ran Maemo 5, there would be no such complaints, 'cause it would be running a 'real' OS.

So I'm gonna moan an' groan an' throw a hissy fit because my N900 which already has the most powerful mobile OS on the friggin' planet may not get an even more awesome version? Naaa...

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Repeat after me: There are no closed source kernel modules on a standard N900 firmware image. Find me one.

Phone parts - Ofono already runs under Mer (see jebba's post). Battery management, well, blob, but Nokia doesn't mind Nokia SW on Nokia devices. If the actual audio works (properly) in phone, not sure yet, but this is something we should work with getting working - at that point it would be comparable to a Freerunner in terms of usefulness ;)

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Being able to boot to a desktop and perform the most basic function: Make a phone call (I might even make this part optional if we can get a fully bootable desktop). You can do this in android (in my understanding).

http://www.wipconnector.com/appstores

And there is an option in the official android market to "show only free apps"... They may or may not be open source: like Pandora Radio - but they are free to me as an end user... and there are many hundreds.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Nah, I'm not trying to be politically correct, just explaining my own experience - I work for community, not Nokia, so in those areas I'm still a PITA :). And you're 100% right, this is not possible. In a couple of days, my openness report will go out, so you can isolate exactly why some things are closed. And yes, that Maemo isn't 100% OSS is hurting me daily in Mer. But let's take that in another thread, feel free to fork.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

The ifone 2G was a step before the 3G. Apple didn't declare it as a step, but it was obvious that something better will come. Android 1.0 was a step before 2.0 & 2.1 and again, no one declared it as a step.

A declaration of this kind is meaningless. It's a very vague announcement that allows them to hide behind it and use it the way they want to, and to you to interpret it as the lack of basic operations and functionalities in the device is OK because it's only a step.

Every electronic device these days is a step.

If I'm buying an expensive product, and this product is a milestone, a step, and a complete product that better products will follow it - great.
But if the product is a beta, which is what the n900 feels to me, and I'm actually the one doing the QA on the device for the next device to come, that's not acceptable, although the idea of selling a beta product (in contrary to product with a beta version) is ingenious.

Maybe I haven't done my research properly, but I'm not the only one. If you feel great with your step 4 device - that's cool.
If you don't - let Nokia hear you and know that this is not acceptable by their customers.

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

Can you even charge the battery in N8x0 with open source only?

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

If Nokia aren't going to properly support the N900, they're shooting themselves in the foot big time!

Maemo is a late and so far pretty marginal, if potentially very promising, entry in the crowded smartphone OS field. It's too far from being comparable in terms of many features and performance with Nokia's own incumbent S60 platform.

If we, the early adopters get once again taken for a ride, I really don't see who's going to buy the next Maemo device. Nokia will slowly but surely regress to the rank of cheap & cheerful "convenience" phone manufacturer and we all will be running either Android or Apple OS phones in ~18 months' time.

If, on the other hand, Nokia concentrates hard to make the N900 a wotrhy competitor to Android, S60 and the iPhone OS, then there's hope...

Re: Maemo 6 / Harmattan on N900?
 

If you chroot into initfs, sure. And I forgot to add 'with some closed source hardware support' :P But let's fork this thread if this is what we have to discuss. Original thread is too important to take this direction.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

I hate this thread and Nokia for putting the N900 at this price to the market just to dump it for an upcoming Maemo 6 device

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Which, once again, brings me to my rants about the cellular radio (which is a large contributing factor to the price). :)

Why didn't they just concentrate on putting GREAT VOIP software on a new wifi device, make it cheaper, lighter with a bigger screen (what with all that new real estate that the removal of cellular radio provides). Spend your resources on the software... THEN, if it proves to be an AMAZING VOIP phone, down the road, add cellular or mobile radio when it's much cheaper and smaller to implement. While we're at it, the resources should also have gone into better supporting the customers and providing a means to get repairs and parts rather than shmoozing with T-Mobile just to lose it or putting all that effort into cellular at all.

The executives/management have really porked this one.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

The impression that I got when reading "road map" type articles about where maemo is going is that the n900 is going to be like the 770 tablet -- somewhat abandoned after less than a year...

I still bought a n900, because I think that this will be the last nxxx tablet that is completely open.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

I still have faith in Nokia. I mean they have to support a device I paid 600 € for, right?

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Hi again, guys. Now that is what I call more positive! Thank you :) Believe me, I had every intention of going to pick up my own personal "Holy Grail" in the morning - I've been looking forward to it all week. I've also been reading (not on this website, I might add) a thread all about "x" and this joke.....

If the designers of X Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles - but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that.
-- Marcus J. Ranum, Digital Equipment Corporation

which is rather funny.

Finally, although the Vodaphone contract is for 24 months the handset is free :D and from what I can gather, so are most of the applications........

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Because of relatively obvious reasons in platform development. Within one release you avoid touching the kernel and low level components unless you have a very good reason. You don't introduce changes in the UI specs unless you have a very good reason. You don't touch components providing an API unless you have a very good reason. Things like these.

In the specific case of the step from Maemo 5 to 6 we have a change of toolkit, which means that our applications are being rewritten/redesigned. If a feature request implies deep work and is actually being done in the new version, then we prefer to put the resources in a good Harmattan implementation rather than in 2 half-backed implementations... or a N months delay.

This is why in certain cases we know that a certain bug or feature request is not going to be addressed in Maemo 5, independently of the time the N900 has been in the shelves. You have the option of getting nervous because of this information... or you have the option to get used to open development practices.

Tip for the weekend. Don't get nervous & enjoy the ride. Let's talk again after the Harmattan alpha release.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

The N900 and any other smartphone above 500€ just cannot justify the price by the pure system specs. there needs to be a certain software background which needs to be growing and updating after the device purchase. at least that is what I expect. otherwise I could go back to basic telephony&sms phones with 2 weeks battery life selling at 50-100€

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

While I normally appreciate and agree with you completely qgil this is what makes it frustrating.

Sure, you're making harmattan great - but evidently that does absolutely nothing for those that bought the N900 and have paid Nokia now.

I don't really call it "open development" practices.. if it were open - We'd get harmattan on the N900 and this entire debate would be a non-issue.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

I sincerely hope you mean to imply that Maemo 6 will certainly be released for the N900 and that you're not implying, once again, that it will be up to the community to backport features for a community run distribution like the N8x0 devices were relegated to.

Otherwise, with apologies, I might summarize what you wrote as "Piss on consumers! Everybody should be a developer!"

This certainly didn't help alleviate the aloof nature of my rephrasing of your statement.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

About dedication to the community, I'd like to point out that Quim Gil is posting here in a more or less official capacity at 1:30 AM(!) his local time at a friday night. My respects.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

HAH! It's funny, alright. To think that the more open X Window System (singular, not plural, btw) is still here while Digital's GEM is gone to obscure history.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

i bought an n900 thinking that is the best phone on the market! but i think i changed my mind because you can't do anything with it. there are no applications to download....nothing! and more than that has a lot of bugs, no portatrit mode....it sucks

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Your words, based on your thoughts. Allow me to disagree. :)

Again, I recommend you to come back to this topic after the Harmattan alpha release.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Which is fine but it's not really "based on my thoughts". It's based on the information I have available to me at this time.. and I've made those clear. I don't randomly go around making wild accusations or drawing uneducated conclusions for my own amusement.

We have bug reports being held to harmattan, and a Nokia VP saying Harmattan will not be on the N900.

Other than that.. no official word on backporting, maintaining or any other aspect of anything. I respect you're an "insider" and may have inside information I do not.. but unfortunately we are not able to base conclusion on information we do not have.

Thus, maybe you know about backporting possibilities.. or maybe you know that M6 will actually be, in some capacity, available to the N900.. but whatever it is that makes you so optimistic is not public knowledge - and that in and of itself is a problem to the consumer.

I have not yet purchased an N900, and this information gives me pause of whether or not I will. Thus, something official should be released to reassure current and/or future N900 users that they aren't garbage. Cuz so far, aside from your word, there hasn't really been anything to the contrary.. but there HAS been what I said above.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

what can i do with that if i won't be able to install it on my n900?..i feel so dissapointed about the fact that i spend 500£ on this useless phone:(...i like it, is powerfull, but what can i do with power if there is no "brain"?

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Sigh... if it weren't open, there wouldn't have been a word about Harmattan until the day after the N900+1 is in stores. Save for "selected parties". Thus no complains until the N900+1 comes and everyone suddenly forgets about the N900.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Now we're debating between "some level" of openness, closedness, and fully open... all the while avoiding the point I was trying to make.

*sigh* is accurate.

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

You have no idea how right you are... Tho I'm sure we are not referring to the same type of brain. :rolleyes:

Re: Will N900 be ignored by Nokia?
 

Although I'm sour on the N900, your complaints don't make sense. What type of applications are you looking for that you couldn't find on the N900? More importantly, being such a newly released product, you have to give it a little time for the applications to keep rolling in and before bugs are worked out in general. I can't speak to the portrait mode--I thought the N900 had a portrait mode. And then, I prefer landscape for most things myself anyway, but that's small relief to someone that prefers portrait. I wouldn't, quite yet, be so defeated by the things you're pointing out.