Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

It's not uncertainty, this procedure was put in place for that exact purpose.

Also, considering how similar the drivers for the next device will be compared to the N900, I imagine we'll at least have another year or two of those drivers being supported.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

This dont sound right coming from a huge company and my query would be obvious, WHY does Nokia use closed components? why cant they stick with open source instead of picking troubled components?.

It really does make me wonder that Nokia are not taking a backhander for the use of closed components to get a good deal out of them.

At the end of the day all and every argument is because of this.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Because there are no open alternatives.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Here is the answer to the problem but Intel dont manufacture every component but still no reason not to source them in the development stages.

Maybe Nokia should invest and buy into the closed component companies?.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

I just dont understand why people are so greedy, surely a good open sourced component is going to sell much more than a closed?.

Things have really changed in the last few years thats for sure, we need to get back to basics in this world.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

In my experience it's mostly been laziness over greed, that and geniune IP concerns. It's business in the real world and unlikely to change any time soon.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

@attila77
So basically We should not mix Meego and Nokia too much. See it like Google doing it´s andoird on it´s own pace and Nokia collaborating in Meego developement on it´s own. On the other hand we have devices that Nokia happens to do. Makes sense in business. So for example HTC and other companies who have ended up compiling their own version of newest android to SOME of their devices are doing it just for to market their devices and see how people react. They are not providing any certain information about next version or future. On the other side community can always make their own hacked* versions of android and install them to devices that are not anymore "officially" supported by Samsung/htc.

*and meego is probably in better stance (than android) when we are talking about compiling it to back to devices that are not anymore officially supported. You do not have to HACK so much.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

There is one REAL answer to all this, Nokia either buy up a manufacturer or start their own in whatever country offers the best solutions.

The most successful company will one that is dependent on nobody and can self produce everything from start to finish so really it is all down to investment.

Anyhow i still feel Meego will just become another Maemo because of closed source but as you said drivers dont change that much but they have to be open from the start at least.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Indeed, we've been able to flash whatever we like since the 770, this is something I hope will never change.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

As far as closed apps go, maaaybe. Well, but we don't know that yet, do we? We don't know how these binary closed-minded source code blobs make their way into the compiling step yet until Nokia actually does one of these, documents it and lets us see it, right? And then, we don't know if the closed-source applications have a close relationship or dependency on those closed-source kernel drivers/modules.

If I understand things right, much like the closed-source nvidia drivers experience, if they made their device drivers/modules such that they need to be recompiled with every kernel, you'll ALWAYS depend on Nokia to grant you their blessing to run that new kernel on your device with the drivers to make them work until they tell you how they're linked/built/etc to work with the kernel build process.

Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding any of this.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

I don't understand your concerns, this is how things operate in the real world, we just have to deal with it and carry on. Name another manufacturer out there with the level of platform openness of Nokia and the NIT line of devices?

Drivers are not our problem unless there's something wrong with them. APIs are our problem. There's no need for 99.999% of people to need access to driver source if the drivers are properly maintained and supported.

Which is why I pointed out the closed component builder for MeeGo, which is their process to support continuous integration of closed drivers for the N900 (Maybe N8x0) and future "supported" devices with MeeGo.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

The good news is that even Nokia N900 had completely open kernel drivers and I doubt that policy will go away.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

In laymen terms, what does that mean about the N900 future in regards to MeeGo?

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

It means we can safely say we'll have MeeGo vanilla on the N900 for a fair amount of time.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

As I said in my post, we're actively upstreaming the kernel drivers (as they're open source) so they're also maintained in the main kernel ecosystem.

In addition to that, we have to maintain N900 in MeeGo as a reference device and we do update to newer kernels.. I mean, we did a .28 -> .33 -> .34 -> .35 already. It gets easier each time as more and more code is in upstream..

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

I'm just afraid people will not understand what vanilla MeeGo is and how it operates. Some people will say 'wow, finally, totally open and Free stuff, cool !', while others will say 'it is crap, where's my Flash X and Ovi Maps Y !' (even though these are likely to be available via hacks).

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Vanilla is not enough, we want chocolate vanilla MeeGO. We don't want sugar free MeeGO.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Yeah, well, f*ck 'em :P

Moving to MeeGo might bring back the community spirit we used to have and act as a contraceptive from the end users.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

In someways I agree with that sentiment, but on the other hand, I think I'd prefer the FOSS alternatives that I'm sure the community will thrive around and create.

I'd much prefer a continuously evolving platform with community support than corp. run services.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

and girls too... :D

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Yes, I completely agree.
But actually, my guess is that the Flash binary could be just copy-pasted from somewhere.

Also, I have no problems with not having non-free software by default, as long as the description about how to install them will be there.
(Just like with Fedora, for example.)

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

This is the real way forward and probably the most striking comment from you i ever seen !.

IF only this community could get it together grab it by the balls and work hand in hand as a team... SCREW NOKIA ! this is the way to go.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

There will be no ball grabbing, this isn't an Apple show.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Yeah..that doesn't happen often in the real world. At least for any company that works in large operations. And in companies that do that have lots and lots of money. More than what Nokia has. Probably even Apple too. So who are they going get the money from? You? And as a result that's the way the world is (closed source drivers in the name of intellectual property).

But what happens when N900 is no longer the reference device?

As my dad always tells me. People will always complain and you can't please everyone. So don't bother.

My own personal viewpoint is, you buy a device for what it has currently. Not what it may or may not have in the future (unless it's been already promised, like with certain Android handsets being promised an upgrade to 2.1 or 2.2).

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

personally "More, better, newer, shinier!" comes realetivily more from the company not the user.They propaganda their products and in fact their product is not matched to the words.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Propaganda is probably the right word to use and Nokia are very guilty of that among others of course but really all that matters is for the next year or so we get community support where Nokia has faied us.

And let us just hope Nokia learn a BIG lesson from this and venture much more carefully before selling us a bummer and Nokia... what makes a BUMMER is a product YOU dont support and i think this one holds the record so far !.

NB Please no one have the gaul to say Nokia supports cos you will probably be bitten!.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

This. Why?

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

I guess the last part won't happen. Especially for maps. There will be a DRM system for media and applications at the next Harmattan Device and hence at Meego, too. And I'm sure Nokia will use this system to protect their own software.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

When there is DRM there will be people to break it. :)

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

?

THAT Why?.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Erm, his point is, and it's been mentioned before, your appalling grammer.

A question mark "?" is all the punctuation you need at the end of a sentence ...

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

You can just look at the current state of meego to learn about its openess. Many people are alredy porting it to n900, to n8x0. to various beagleboards, to the google one, to various other dev boards ...

While only time will tell if these projects will have success. But a fact is that there is happening much more in public than happended with maemo5 (which was imho never ported to anything but the beaglebaord and even that stopped working after maemo5 alpha release).

Just get involved if you worry about all this.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

I think 'a' instead of 'the' reference device is more suited. There's really no real alternatives to a handset reference device on ARM side that's out right now.

As well as price level will continually drop, making it an ideal developer platform for MeeGo as well.

We're collecting wood for making a bonfire instead of pissing ourselves to keep warm in MeeGo for N900 - the hardware adaptation has to be able to be maintained over a long time.

If you're wondering on what exactly N900 hardware specific has to be maintained:

ARM port will be maintained for a long time in MeeGo. It isn't going away tomorrow.

Besides the ARM port, we then have kickstart files specific to N900. These have very little different from what Aava kickstart has - so very little maintenance there, just adjust some text once in a while.

Then we have the blobs and such. I can't find exactly where, but the main principle is that hardware vendors (TI, Nokia (HW!), Intel) are expected to contribute these things to MeeGo directly. Be it redistributable blobs or open code. When contributing, these companies should keep them maintained as it affects their own customers' ability to build a product using MeeGo for their hardware (not only Nokia as customer).

Currently we have SGX libraries (TI/ImgTec), BT firmware (not sure if it's TI or Broadcom), BME (Nokia).

And then we have the remainder of the hardware adaptation: bits and pieces in Ofono (Things to turn on the modem, not exactly rocket science. As well as our scripts, http://meego.gitorious.org/meego-device-adaptation

Now, it doesn't exactly take a PhD to maintain what is truely N900 specific. It's a really small hardware adaptation when taking away what's shared with other devices.

However, let's say that the blobs were maintained - how many paid man-months remaining do you hope to be done, as a customer, for N900 to be maintained in MeeGo?

.. and how many man-months can the community deliver?

The more we work together on this, the more paid resources exist for the really important things. The more capable you get now, the more able you are to be putting in man-months for N900 hardware adaptation maintenance and keep it working, yourself.

On a sidenote, did you know that we've released a new weekly image on http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/meego-codedrop.php yesterday? And it performs a lot better? Video at http://youtu.be/DO6884Xzj1c

We're also moving quite well ahead in terms of fixing things:

http://wiki.meego.com/images/SanityT...0-20100818.JPG

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Now we're gettng somewhere. It has been my opinion since the beginning of Mer, that everything should have been bottom up. First get an updated kernel running in Diablo, then replace libc, ..., etc. Dual booting or kexecing was never going to be a bridge for me. It's chroot, or LD_LIBRARY_PATH or nothing. I know you're leaving Maemo completely behind, but if you were to build one kernel that runs well in both Maemo 5 and MeeGo, they will come.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Don't you understand?

You do not need to follow a question mark or exclamation mark with a full stop/period.

Why do you continue this offence on good grammar practice?

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

The technical problem is that newer kernels remove interfaces Maemo 5 needs to run properly. And well, Maemo 5 is closed source and it's a wrong attitude to let closed source block kernel upgrades.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

And there's also the Netbook, Connected TV and IVI implementations. A lot of work going into MeeGo, as far as I know, none of it closed-source yet.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

How about a Maemo 5 diff file?

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

Let's recap this story from an end user point of view.

On the MeeGo & open source software part:

- When it comes to apps, if they rely on the official MeeGo API (basically Web Runtime & Qt) they should run seamlessly across versions or they could be easily updatable even automatically through the MeeGo community OBS.

- When it comes to the UX, if it's sitting entirely on top of Qt then the evolution path is also clear. Graphics performance might become a problem at some point but there are possible compromises.

- When it comes to the OS & middleware, the bottleneck is the hardware adaptation and its way forward. Your situation will depend on the hardware architecture of your device. In the ARM side http://www.linaro.org/ should be helpful if the project succeeds.

On the vendor & commercial side:

- When it comes to 3rd party apps, the MeeGo SDK and OBS infrastructure should make it easy for them to provide updates even for the "legacy" platforms. Most of these commercial developers rely on number of users using their apps, so probably they have an interest in getting the biggest userbase possible if that brings more revenue.

- When it comes to vendors apps I can only speak on behalf of Nokia, reminding the fair play pact allowing the community to play around in Nokia binaries as long as they stay in Nokia hardware. It's not my job to comment on official Nokia updates and releases of closed components.

- Same goes for UX/OS vendor customizations. The advantage for end users in the MeeGo context is the choice among different vendors. If Vendor X left you unhappy for whatever reason then you can go for Vendor Y or Z and still get most of the MeeGo 3rd party apps and user experience you are familiar with. Hopefully this intra-MeeGo competition will lead to a better base platform and better end products.

It is clear that MeeGo vendors will understand that either this game works well or end user will jump to other platforms.

Re: Will MeeGo finally end the Rapid Obsolescence Syndrome (ROS)
 

So we still don't know if we'll have access to Ovi services, which I know is what most end users will be interested in, well, that and continued flash support.

On a semi-related note, I noticed some mapping features in the new Qt Mobility APIs is that any indication on Nokias' future plans to open up Ovi maps a bit more to 3rd party developers and MeeGo?