Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs?
 

You are right, there is no way to be certain about the future of it. I am sure that there are people within Nokia devoted to the true open source way also. But ultimately, the way this launch has progressed has really convinced me that the people who call the shots currently at Nokia are putting the good of Maemo and the good of the customer at the bottom of the list. Not only do I think this is bad for an open source OS, but I also believe this is bad as a buisness model.

By no means am I a master of buisness and industry, but as an active consumer, I feel this is the wrong direction to take. Maybe things will turn around in the future, and maybe Nokia (or the controlling players at Nokia) will learn from the mistakes made here and now. In my experience though, those kind of people never learn... and if the device sells well, nothing will ever change, and it will be considered a success. Because monetary success is what matters most to a corporation, that is usually all that is taken into account.

Regarding the openness, I may have mistyped something. I was commenting on the opennes of the OS, not of the hardware. I may not have the whole picture though, I am not an expert by any means. As stated on the site, it runs http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/ with a few changes.

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs? Pandora
 

As MountainX mentioned, I also got a good laugh out of this post. Seriously, sick of release problems? Imagine if the N900 was announced when it was, but then released NEXT YEAR after many delays? How about that?

Sure, the creators of the Pandora are active in their community and give updates but that still doesnt excuse the many delays that have occurred. I'm pretty sure if the same would happen with Nokia no one would forgive them. Just look how pissed people have gotten with this 1 month delay, can you imagine being one of those early buyers and having to wait a year and a few months?

Also, how are you sure there are not any launch bugs? As far as I know they just were able to get a working Wifi stack and other functions early November. As a matter of fact, Craig stated that the 2nd batch is not only going to get delayed because of supplier constraints but also to improve the software. Seriously, to imply that the Pandora will be bug free is an overstatement.

Also, to any potential buyers now interested in the Pandora, good luck getting into the initial 4000 batch of units being sold. The second batch is expected to be released sometime at least June 2010.

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs?
 

Based on my experience seeing companies delivering products from the inside, to be honest the release debacle looks more like corporate cock up than anything else.

Nokia ship umpteen million units monthly; they should know how to handle a release of another device. Something unusual happened with the N900, and it doesn't look (to me) like it was done for money.

I'm an unhappy preorder (still waiting) customer at the moment, having had my order cancelled for me twice now, and I've made a lot of complaints over various ways they handled it badly.

But I think that is very much a customer service issue, and probably quite a complex one (you can't just let a building full of service operators give discounts to whoever they feel like, and you can't pass all the individual customer problems to higher levels if there are too many).

I didn't see anything about the release problems which is due to Maemo being open source, and I didn't see anything about it which could not happen to something like OpenPandora if that was going to sell >1M units per year.

I do agree that it would be better if Maemo were made available to more manufacturers, in the same way that Android is, though.

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs? Pandora
 

the last open source and open design thing I saw was Openmoko, lots of potential but never usable for standard users not even for geeks

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs? Pandora
 

I was not trying to imply that the pandora would be bug free. As I said, this is probably a device more for the tech savvy market. I have seen a lot of discontent on the forums with regards to the N900, and I wanted to present what I had found as a viable replacement.

My problem is not with delays, my problem is with the conflicting position of Nokia and the Open community. Personally I feel outraged not because of a product being delayed, but of the closed mouth attitude of Nokia, no info or bad info. This has lead me to understand the conflicting interests involved, and to the conclusion that continuing to support Nokia down the wrong path is not a good idea.

The N900 will probably be a great device (hardware wise), and I understand that I could run anything else I want on it. If I buy it though, I will be supporting Nokia's bottom line. I would be adding to the impression that they are doing things correctly, which I do not feel they are.

Mods- thanks for correcting my thread, I appreciate it.

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs? Pandora
 

Breaking news!?!








Yes, but from 2008 ;)

See jessi3k3's post above.

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs? Pandora
 

I acknowledge your concerns.

Remember that Nokia is a rather large organisation, and the people who deal with releasing information and selling devices aren't used to working in a more "open source" (i.e. more transparent) way.

If Maemo proves successful and they recognise that success is connected with it's openness on a technical level, then we can hope the positive feedback induces some gradual cultural change to spread through the organisation. We can't count on it, but there's a chance.

Right now, there's no reason to believe that any organisation can deliver technology at this level in the huge numbers that phones are produced, while being as transparent about each step of the process as we would like. I don't think it's been done. Can you think of examples?

Actually, scratch that. I think Nokia are being stung in part because they've been somewhat transparent about Maemo's development and release plans.

If an S60 phone was delayed by several months, it wouldn't be a big deal. Nobody would care, it's be just another moved release date - common in the industry. There wouldn't be hordes of people with high expectations getting sorely disappointed.

In some ways, perhaps the biggest mistake they made was to announce a retail release date too early, and to accept preorders. They'd have been better off generating buzz, and accepting preorders when it had passed QA, had a manufacturing and delivery pipeline sorted out, and was definitely going to be in the shops a couple of weeks later.

In short, they cocked up, and something went wrong, but it looks to me like we're all suffering in part because of too much information coming out, in some aspects, rather than in spite of it.

Oh, and because it's a phone. Everyone expects it to do all the things that previous Nokia phones do very well, despite it being a completely new line of development and the old phones being extremely mature software. If it wasn't a phone, there wouldn't be such excitement, such passion, such complaining...

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs? Pandora
 

Almost no one will argue with you that Nokia has made some missteps with the N900 launch, including the DDP program. (I think Nokia will admit it themselves.)

But as you guys gain more experience with open source I think you may see that Nokia is doing a lot of good. Sure there are conflicting opinions. Open source is not free on controversy. But Nokia is doing many things that add value to the entire open source community. Without corporate supporters open source would probably be dead (or close to it). Even Linus has worked for corporations along his path of developing Linux. And I think he would disagree with you about an inherent conflict. (If you go look up his quotes on this subject, let me know if I'm wrong.)

My own position is that I want to do everything I can to encourage Nokia to keep supporting open source because they are adding tremendous value. Even if they have screw ups at times, the development work they are doing is beneficial to the community.

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs? Pandora
 

I would be getting a Pandora if my goal wasn't to conslidate my devices.

Re: Sick of release problems and launch bugs?
 

You're not going to want Pandora either then. It's being released by a corporation too.