maemo.org - Talk - Cleaning N900 FUD

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Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigbrovar (Post 552156)

The news of maemo merging with moblin to form meego is a big anti climax and it further again put a big question mark in Nokia's commitment to maemo (or meego).

Quote:

Currently the mobile space is very crowded and no other OS space is as competitive as the mobile phone space we have android, Iphone OS, windows Mobile, WebOS, Symbian etc all craving for developers mind share. For an OS to survive in this space it needs consistency (among many other things) and solid support and backing of some Big Tech company who is ready to go all the way. They also need to be stable toolkit and sdk well documented which developers can work with when porting their apps.

MeeGo sounds to me much more fit to succeed that a lone Maemo could aim.

Quote:

The situation with maemo or meego is so confusing and I really dont see developers wanting to spend their time on that platform. One day we are all looking forward to maemo6 which was suppose to be the last step toward having a consumer ready maemo device. Next thing we know Nokia announces that its scraping maemo and merging it with moblin to form meego. Hence its like Nokia just hit the reset button and everything is back to square one.

Not true. In terms of application developers any announcement done relative to Maemo 6 is equally valid for MeeGo. With Maemo 6 we have been always been clear pushing Qt and also Web Runtime. This is the very same deal for MeeGo, wit the difference that now they will be able to target not only Nokia handsets but also Intel/Atom based devices and whatever MeeGo devices will be announced in the future. And Symbian, but this was also explained already in the context of Maemo 6.

And yes, today Harmattan/MeeGo are still not very clear for application developers. But there is not even an alpha SDK, which is the clearest signal for them. In the meantime Qt 4.6 and the Qt development tools are comming as officially supported to Maemo 5, and we are telling them clearly that this is the best path to reach Harmattan/MeeGo.

Quote:

For now we are told that meego is just a branding and would infact be maemo6 so they wont be much change to the maemo6 road map. But what happens after maemo6 what are the plans for maemo7 or 8 seriously no one can tell.

Of course we can tell. The future is MeeGo. Harmattan is a bit in between waters but will offer the MeeGo API, which is what matters to most developers. After that pure MeeGo will come to Nokia. No Maemo 6,7,8.

Quote:

Even maemo core developers are not certain about the future of meego.

What is the uncertainty? Where can I find the logs or the records to help clarifying?

The average Maemo core developer (working for Nokia) got to know about MeeGo just a little before the rest of you so don't expect all the answers from all of them right now. MeeGo is fundamentally an open project and most of those developers have access to the same information you can get.

Some of us are dealing directly with the bootstrapping process, trying to push outside all the things that need to go out from the Intel/Nokia offices. It's taking some time but we are pushing this as priority number 1.

Quote:

But I seriously dont see meego making it mainstream anything soon.

I see it making it mainstream! Who bets an ice cream? I love ice cream and I want to win lots!!!

Ohh.. wait.. this wouldn't be fair since actually I have insider information.

Still, even without ice cream please remember this bet. :P

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Quote:

Originally Posted by daperl (Post 553019)

On your n900, there's a 1:15 video called "Nokia N900." I'm assuming that this was the n900's media introduction to the world; please correct me if I'm wrong. But not until 1:05 do we find out that the n900 can make phone calls: "Oh look, it supports VoIP." J/K. Watch it again and interpret it how ever you want, but no way do I get the message that it's "A phone and more."

How many percent of the people who bought an N900 do you honestly believe looked through the videos stored on the turned off device inside the unopened box before they decided that "this is a phone"? Just because some information exists somewhere does not mean that people who needs to buy something knows about it. Seriously, the fact that the N900 is less than basic on phone functionality is not that easy to find out for regular people. And as we clearly see here on the forums, people never expected that they HAVE to find out something like that because 99% of rational people expect that something they buy in the phone section of an electronics store can, you know, do what every other device on that display can do.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Quote:

Originally Posted by qgil (Post 553557)

In the 3 years I have been working at Nokia I have contributed to at least 3 GREAT news: (by chronological order)

- Qt going LGPL
- Maemo 5 launch
- MeeGo

MeeGo is the best news of all of them, since it contains the implications of the other 2.

(...)

And Maemo lovers should feel much better with the MeeGo news. In the short term you will benefit from a much more attractive developer offering.

See, I am of two minds when it comes to this. As a Maemo user, I can see that there's a much better chance that the combined forces between Maemo and Moblin will get market penetration than these two as seperate units. Development and momentum will be noticable higher after an initial setback where you have to fight over what forum software, bugboard version, moderation system, community mechanisms etc to use for half a year.

On the other hand, I am also an N900 owner. And as a N900 owner, seeing future benefits for Meego helps little. The initial setback means focus away from my interests. And it's a simple fact that Meego means more change to the core OS than what you'd otherways expect. So fewer of the fixes/improvements might be easily backported. I honestly expect that there will be a higher pecentage of "Fixed in (next version)" when the OS main course is changing, because companies don't like to prioritize to fix code that is about to be replaced anyway. And a lower chance that effort will be used to provide an official Meego version to N900 owners. I for one would easily bet you that ice cream against the chance of an official Meego version on the N900. It's not coming. Any other expectation is wishful thinking.

Of course, we have QT 4.6 applications that in the future can be used without backporting(?). But how many of the applications I use today is QT 4.6 applications? Yes, in a year I might be able to see benefits from QT developments, but that would have happened anyway. And how long till Meego and the developers are talking about QT 5, QT 6? And Nokia will have no economical interest in backporting this. And the developers have an interest in having the best setup, so they'll move on to the next generation hardware. I have little faith in community backporting. As much as I like the idea, I don't think the MER project has done me any good as an N810 owner. I don't expect it to any time soon. And I see enthusiastic MER developers changing course towards Meego already.

As you can see, I am not as enthusiastic about this as you. Yes, it's great for the future of the OS that it's merged with another powerful organization. I am glad for that. But I don't see any of these benefits actually doing anything good for current N900 owners. QT was coming anyway.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Please keep the discussion about how the N900 was marketed since it's actually not relevant for the thread here.

volt, your reasons not to be enthusiastic about MeeGo as N900 owner are all based on the assumption that MeeGo won't run on the N900, but the MeeGo project or Nokia haven't said anything about that. You are free to make your own assumptions but don't forget they are your own assumption. Again, it would make sense to make conclusions only after a first release.

Quote:

Originally Posted by volt (Post 553590)

Of course, we have QT 4.6 applications that in the future can be used without backporting(?). But how many of the applications I use today is QT 4.6 applications?

The applications you are using today will be there also tomorrow, isn't it.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Quote:

Originally Posted by qgil (Post 553677)

volt, your reasons not to be enthusiastic about MeeGo as N900 owner are all based on the assumption that MeeGo won't run on the N900, but the MeeGo project or Nokia haven't said anything about that.

Nokia hasn't said anything about my phone being bought back at full price after a year, either. Should I be enthusiastic about that possibility? These are reasons not to be enthusiastic. Unless there's anything to be enthusiastic about, I'm not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by qgil (Post 553677)

You are free to make your own assumptions but don't forget they are your own assumption. Again, it would make sense to make conclusions only after a first release.

You can say that, but as it turns out, my skepticism has always left me being right. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by qgil (Post 553677)

The applications you are using today will be there also tomorrow, isn't it.

True. That's not listed on the MeeGo list as a pro, though. If MeeGo hadn't been announced, that would not have uninstalled anything either. Instead, MeeGo gives extra motivation for all the developers of said applications to restart the development of their applications, on the QT platform. Which means less updates than one would expect if they did not have to rely on QT on the next OS platform. So these are real issues where Maemo 5 has in fact been weakened on a mid term.

On a long term, the N900 users will always have the possibility of upgrading software forever if they put some effort into it. But that too was true before MeeGo. (Thanks, Qole!)

So, as an N900 owner I see a long list of obvious short term focus, funding and effort rearrangements. And I fail to see that any of the "new" benefits that will reach the N900 (next year) outweighs the downsides (this year). No, no one will take away all the things N900 can already do. But they will take away resources from development for the N900 and where these resources are put, is less of a gain for the current owners.

Hey, maybe we should move this part of the discussion? It's interesting but offtopic.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Quote:

Originally Posted by qgil (Post 553521)

This is why MeeGo is the best candidate to fill that purpose.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question, but I am sorry, I don't understand your answer. Would you mind to elaborate ?

Do you mean for me to have pure OSS Maemo/N900 I would have to port MeeGo to the N900 ? In that case, can I expect all the drivers to be given to the community ?

In my opinion : MeeGo on N900 =/= OSS Maemo/N900 ... so ?

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Does anybody know when the specifics will be released?

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

I think the whining should end. Nokia got the message and when they are able to do so they will, hopefully soon, put factual information on the wiki page (and provide the link). Until then it is all speculation...

While I fully understand the frustration about the lack or quality of the communication with the community (and the consumers), the serial interruption of OS's (which was a known fact anyway), and the need to vent these issues clearly, I also believe that at a certain point the page should be turned and people should go back to real work.

Only once the facts are known can real and final judgment be made. Meanwhile I am still enjoying my N810... And I will wait for the next generation to come out.

Regards,
Antonio

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Last off topic comment from me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by volt (Post 553567)

How many percent of the people who bought an N900 do you honestly believe looked through the videos stored on the turned off device inside the unopened box before they decided that "this is a phone"?

Sorry if I wasn't clear. That video was released before the n900 could even be pre-ordered. It also just happened to end up on the device. It was the introduction of the n900 from Nokia's marketing arm.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD

Quote:

Originally Posted by qgil (Post 553557)

In the 3 years I have been working at Nokia I have contributed to at least 3 GREAT news: (by chronological order)

- Qt going LGPL
- Maemo 5 launch
- MeeGo

MeeGo is the best news of all of them, since it contains the implications of the other 2.

About commitment, the MeeGo setting implies a much higher commitment from Nokia: targeting explicitly Nokia's high end devices, co-founding with Intel, under the auspices of the Linux Foundation, more corporate partners to come, many ingredients to expect OSS projects and contributors to come...

And Maemo lovers should feel much better with the MeeGo news. In the short term you will benefit from a much more attractive developer offering. In the long run you are hitting the point yourself:

MeeGo sounds to me much more fit to succeed that a lone Maemo could aim.

Not true. In terms of application developers any announcement done relative to Maemo 6 is equally valid for MeeGo. With Maemo 6 we have been always been clear pushing Qt and also Web Runtime. This is the very same deal for MeeGo, wit the difference that now they will be able to target not only Nokia handsets but also Intel/Atom based devices and whatever MeeGo devices will be announced in the future. And Symbian, but this was also explained already in the context of Maemo 6.

And yes, today Harmattan/MeeGo are still not very clear for application developers. But there is not even an alpha SDK, which is the clearest signal for them. In the meantime Qt 4.6 and the Qt development tools are comming as officially supported to Maemo 5, and we are telling them clearly that this is the best path to reach Harmattan/MeeGo.

Of course we can tell. The future is MeeGo. Harmattan is a bit in between waters but will offer the MeeGo API, which is what matters to most developers. After that pure MeeGo will come to Nokia. No Maemo 6,7,8.

What is the uncertainty? Where can I find the logs or the records to help clarifying?

The average Maemo core developer (working for Nokia) got to know about MeeGo just a little before the rest of you so don't expect all the answers from all of them right now. MeeGo is fundamentally an open project and most of those developers have access to the same information you can get.

Some of us are dealing directly with the bootstrapping process, trying to push outside all the things that need to go out from the Intel/Nokia offices. It's taking some time but we are pushing this as priority number 1.

I see it making it mainstream! Who bets an ice cream? I love ice cream and I want to win lots!!!

Ohh.. wait.. this wouldn't be fair since actually I have insider information.

Still, even without ice cream please remember this bet. :P

Thanks for taking time to reply.. I feel more upbeat now abour the feature of maemo. (or meego).. and yeah I will hold u to that bet :)