Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

(Sorry about the accidentally deleted message, I thought I had replied to something extremely old, and now I realize that it was new, it's just that there had been two new pages of posts in the meanwhile :) ).

Neither of the two. Only a minority care about these two aspects overall, as seen through history. And generally, there is a lot of overlap.

I define "control" as customization, more than privacy. No one cares (it seems) if the manufacturer collects all the information on your device every second, as long as there's "that checkbox to disable it" and a minimal assurance the checkbox actually works. i.e. no superfish-like scandals.

Few people will care further than that. And this subset of people basically includes all OSS-fanatics. Definitely not "disruption" fans; more like the opposite.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

for me instead,privacy stuff and not selling my data or pulling me targeted ads is enough to switch from android..

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

To be honest, smarphones and tablets are already very boring. Wouldn't it be more interesting to come up with “the next big thing” instead?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Absolutely!!! And, what would that be, pray tell? ;)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Maybe we should forget about devices and operating systems. Presume that everyone already has the devices they want, mobiles, tablets, ultrabooks, laptops, workstations. Instead think about how, on these platforms, you'd like to have your data organised and presented. How your data interacts with other data, how it's processed by services, how those services are organised. We should be able to presume that whether you own a device, or are a guest on someone elses', that you should be presented with your data how you want it.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Without a context (e.g. when the positions have been opened) somebody may argue that nobody is interested in working on Tizen (or for Samsung) ;)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Yes, except in that case can't you use hybris to let you run glibc stuff too? You could basically decapitate Android, and replace the head with something more GNU like, package manager based.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I have no idea. Had I known, I'd already be filthy rich.

However... what happened to the concept of a mobile computer? That the N95 and later the N900 tried to be?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Like Sailfish OS, Ubuntu Mobile, Mer/Nemo + glacier + Hybris, etc. As of yet the adoption is minimal, only really people interested in hacking on devices: https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Adaptations/libhybris

It's also expensive to maintain an entire linux/glibc distribution like Mer, Sailfish, Ubuntu, etc. When all we are really interested in, is being able to change the way people use things, the big game changer in the computing space.

Though, if you want to use vim/emacs, screen/irssi, Debian/Fedora/SuSe installations, heavy package managers and big applications. We can chroot these things. They don't require things like, sensor integration, etc.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

The head? Surely that's the bottom. :p

How much are we decapitating here? Launcher replacements are ten a penny but no matter what nice ideas you see in launchers, you end up with Android apps and material design still rearing it's cheery but ultimately simplistic head.

How much of Android can we keep low down and still have a completely different UI?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

http://pastie.org/10558283 or so.

And able to speak services like https://android.googlesource.com/pla...fiManager.aidl

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I came to a similar observation. Also I'm afraid that the actual end result of the attempt to attack the mass market is something that does not appeal to either - its too unpolished and lacks too many features for the picky mass market while at the same it is too dumbed down, oversimplified and closed for the highly technical users.

BTW, even though technical users are definitely a minority, they are also a group that often provides advice to the less technical majority, can influence purchasing decisions in companies, are able to tolerate less stable but cutting edge software and can in many cases help with development.

Also targeting technical users should not be taken as a defeat - no one says you can't make the product (or its variant) accessible to wider audience once technical user helped to make it great. :)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

A-HA!
Gnu-droid!
Speaking of heads and decapitation and Android ...
Put a gnu brain on that android body...
and what you'd have is a bloody unstoppable Hydra-droid-esque-monstrosity which you'd never be able to kill..
Sucker'd just grow more heads!
:D
hehee
I'm all for an unstoppable-benign-juggernaut-of-an-os...
especially gnu-ey

Me.
All I want...is the ability to run as many different os's (preferably linux-ish) (and preferably rolling release ..too much to ask from Santa? :D) and window managers on a handheld as possible....
that'll work decently of course .. :D
everything after that is just icing on the cake.
what's the adage?
"Heaven is options...Hell is one..or none..."
something like that.
It is simplistic.
I am grinding it down to fundamental basics...
but that was what originally lured me to the maemoan dark side way back when....

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Yes, to a certain extent. But tolerating bugs for two years that still haven't been fixed since 1.0.0 is really bad, even for technical users. At least for me, it's very irritating and makes me feel that it was a waste of time to test the stuff and report the bug.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I think this would certainly be an interesting project - sounds a but like an open source boot to Qt. :)

A big advantage would be certainly the relatively small amount of work needed to have something running and being able to basically run Qt apps on Android as first class citizens and without the Android bloat & spying crap. That sounds kinda like Firefox OS done right (Firefox OS does not use libhybris but basically gutted down Android with Firefox running fullscreen). :)

I can also imagine porting my apps to this platform as long as Python 3 is available as they & their deps already run on Android (after a substantial amount of work).

On the other hand I can also see some potential disadvantages and open questions:

• If you want to do something Google is not interested in doing/supporting (or does not want you to do) you will be on your own and might need to write stuff from scratch that is easily possible on normal Linux distros.
• Also any changes in the underlying Android base system might require to carry the resulting patches forever as Google would not be likely to merge them & to make them work with any changes Google does in the future.
• Loosing control of your base system - Google dictates the direction of the platform and the project could not reasonably expect to change it, even if it is heading in a detrimental way. Also note that while this is highly unlikely, Android (minus kernel) is under BSD - Google could pull another Android 3 if it wanted (not releasing source or giving access only to partners).
• Every non-android library you would want to use would need to be rebuild against Bionic - this is sometimes easy, but sometimes not trivial thing due to Bionic being a broken mess. So by default (until someone ports the needed libs) this means loosing any remaining compatibility with non-Qt based software.
• If someone wanted to make this closer to "normal Linux" he would basically need to "unbreak" the system vs modifying normal Linux to be suitable for mobile devices. Still this could be eventually possible if the project is popular (eq. slowly replacing Android stuff and converging back to "normal" Linux).
• What about multitasking and task switching/windowing ?
• How would software distribution be handled ? - The existing Android packaging mechanisms probably could not be used.
• Not normal but embedded Linux - which is a difference many seem to underestimate. (example: try to unpack a tar archive on a stock Android device, not to mention using ssh - good luck :) ).

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Well, maybe we should get smartphones right before we move on. The n900 was a great start, but then the iOS meme spread like a virus and here we are today. We need to back up and go down the other path. The path where the device was a computer with cell phone capabilities.

I don't wear or want a watch. I don't want a Google Star Trek communicator on my shirt. I wear cargo pants and cargo shorts so I can carry around a computer.

Sounds great. An unlocked Galaxy Note 4 could be the development target device. In pink of course.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

sorry for my stupid consideration but why is so wanted from you? You have mini pc, you can have tablet, 2 in 1, why would i need a smartphone to use it as a pc? (with its little battery). you would need also a keyboard, a monitor, so what?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I want it. I like the idea of working at my desktop, then disconnecting a pocketable mobile device from it and continuing my work as I go.

The concept of a mobile device that works differently than your desktop, that you "sync" to your desktop when you leave and return, was created (and perfected!) with the PDAs back in the 90's. All we've really got today with the smartphone world are PDAs that are also good media players...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

you simply want continuum from microsoft but in an open source form? i don't feel the utility, but is only my opinion. i don't think i would work even when i am walking to go somewhere. could be useful for some cases, but not for most, i believe.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

<AOL>Mee to!</AOL>

...and then forgotten. The last device I owned that fulfilled that function perfectly was my Palm Treo 600.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Here's my thing: way, way long ago, I had a PC running DOS / Windows 3.1. Yeah, that long ago. But I was also using Unix workstations at my university. Eventually, I did what many people were doing, and installed Linux on my PC. This allowed me to use the same environment and the same utilities as on my work machines. Along comes Windows 95, and everyone in the Windows world has to migrate their world to the new OS; but, I was able to keep rolling along with Linux. A few years later, boom, the Windows 9x line is being scrapped, everybody has to switch to Windows NT/2000/etc. (which finally brings some of the nice features that other OSs, like, say, Linux, have had all along), and everyone has to switch again. Or, like me, just keep using Linux.

At one point, I finally acquired an Apple Mac Mini to see what it was like (especially with the new OS X, based on BSD Unix!). It was nice, but eventually Apple dropped support for the PowerPC. At which point, I (of course) installed Linux, and just kept rolling on.

Then, I picked up an N900, because, you know, Linux. ;)

I'm mostly living in a world where I don't need to keep switching between operating systems, because the OS I like keeps migrating onto my devices for me. I already have the "Internet of Things" going on here -- I'm able to communicate fairly easily to pretty much anything with a CPU in my house, because everything with a CPU is running Linux (or something like it) right now.

This is, I think, an aspect that folks are missing today; as a software engineer, you may constantly be looking for the most disruptive technology. Consumers, though, are more likely looking for the least disruptive technology. That's why Windows has hung on for so long; that's why Apple is so conservative in their UI choices; that's why other mobile manufacturers stick with Android to the exclusion of all other options. If you can offer the consumer something that does what they need, but doesn't disrupt their existing workflow significantly, you'll have a winner.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I have a question and i would like to get straight answer. You might not tell all details or not answer at all, but if you do, please be straight.

Why only today, didn't you see it coming and have you done anything to change the situation within Jolla at last few months(though in my perspective this situation was there way longer)?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Ha, one of the good guys from TMO wrote N9 like launcher in QML on top of Android :)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Let's see if I understand the question - you're wondering why I haven't done anything to explore and fix Jolla with what I'm talking about here.

Who says I didn't?

It's important to take a distinction between Jolla and SailfishOS "companies" and two different paths.

SailfishOS has a certain path forward; where it matters that it's a full GNU/Linux system, to be properly technologically independent of Android. With BRICS countries, vendors unhappy about Google hitting them with MADA agreements, people wanting a GNU/Linux mobile system etc. That has it's own set of volume. There's no real innovation in a mobile phone system today - it's all catch-up, the market is screwed up. It needs disruption - the business model in mobile phone market is essentially to steal your attention, addict you, direct the money of your wallet and let you consume content. I don't believe in that business model.

Jolla has to me represented being the brand of people powered, privacy and personalizable. While we've had our failings. And that direction would be more free to do what's right for those goals, including doing something enabling great ideas. There's ample potential, well, at least until things started going up in flames, which was never the plan, to still have Jolla brand represent that. But SailfishOS took priority for most of time, to keep the development sustainable. Software is super expensive to develop.

I resigned earlier this month to become my own company again, while being able to support both Jolla and SailfishOS agendas; with my primary focus on Jolla angle (did anybody notice I was at Slush?) and taking that further (naturally, that may be complicated today) And also be able to push crazy open source projects without it being connected with a corporate agenda.

It's clear that whatever comes next and is disruptive software, has to be decentralized, made by the people, for the people, proper open source. And has to be sustainable. Hope to talk more about this as it emerges.

Honest enough for you?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

In an alternative history, we wouldn't have tablets, but the netbook hype would have continued and the devices became better and better. I'd have a 10" inch netbook with eInk display running (MeeGo?) Linux with a battery that lasted for weeks.
Instead I now have a 10" netbook (that originally came with MeeGo but now runs Elementary) with TN panel and a noisy fan running Linux and a battery that lasts for two hours if lucky... :( And a tablet that I have to charge every two or three days but cannot do real work with.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

and stskeep if it is possible to know, opening or not opening sailfish os UI (silica) was an internal vivid discussion? you were blocked by investors? only curiosity but of course, reply only if you can and want.

the second question is instead requiring a reply either if you want or not (ahahaha, i am joking, but really i hope you will reply). what about Nemo mobile project? is it still going on and are you still going to support it? What do you think we could do to support it? (donations maybe?)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

If that's the Dublin Ideapad, please, do the world a favor and burn it with fire! Or nuke it from orbit!

I've never seen a better example of a reasonable idea ruined by the poorest execution possible. I mean, swivable screen with sth like 0.1deg viewing angle????

I'd would said that hybrids are basically the realization of that dream, today. They're small (a rare thing these days), quite portable, decent batteries, low power CoreMs/Atoms, and most even with unlocked bootloader out of the box.

As I mentioned on an earlier page, this is another of the reasons I now have a Surface running Gentoo and have all but abandoned the "mobile computing" dream.


My dinosaur dream:
I'd still probably buy something sized like a 3DS XL, as long as it ran full x86_64 and thus I could reuse my favourite PC OS/distro on it without much work. Input methods: trackpoint, stylus, keyboards.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Did you ever think that naming was more important than you think and that you underestimated the badness of the name selected?

I would name the phone and the tablet something like jPhone and jPad, Sail Phone Sail tab or what ever you could come up with other than jolla phone or jolla or what ever it's called officially. Jolla phone and jolla tablet sounds like an internal name. Did you ever discuss naming?

If you didn't I would name it sail phone in this universe.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

No, I assure you it's not. ;)
It's the Asus x101, pretty much the only netbook that was sold with MeeGo preinstalled a few days before Intel killed MeeGo. I like its formfactor so I'm still using it for lightweight stuff. If only the battery lasted longer...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Check Sony VGN-UX.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

MeeGo on a device with a keyboard and a mouse (touchpad)? :eek:
What for? :confused: I always considered a swipe interface a crutch to compensate for an inadequate set of I/O. I mean, it's OK if all you have is a touch screen but why would you bother if you have something better?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

The meego netbook user interface was designed for netbooks, and was pretty cool IMO (I had it running on a hp mini). Just search for "meego netbook" or check wikipedia article about it.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

It would be weird to use my 13" laptop when I'm holding on onboard a tram.

Joke aside, it would be nice to have a device in the 6-7" form factor that I could use for on-the-go productivity. Currently nothing on the market can do it ― almost none of the devices have a hardware keyboard, none of them can run a development environment or a compiler, etc.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

ten inch tablet with dock? for example cube i7 style?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Something like that already exists with Apple ecosystem. Work on your iPhone on a document when standing at bus stop, continue work on the same doc in the bus on iPad. Then continue on the same doc at home on your mac. With iCloud sync you have access to some documents and data from all devices.
This solutions gives you exact same result as what you are asking, or what continuum is claiming to promise, or what Ubuntu is promising.

True, with Apple's solution you need to use the internet to replicate all data on all the devices and the cloud is used as backup. And I bet MS's (and Google's, whatever they come with) solution would be even more dependent on the cloud. Not sure about Ubuntu though.

Can I suppose from your comment above that you are against using the cloud? I am, and that is why I am a big supporter of the old style sync-your device-locally method. That way I at least know where all my data is. Unfortunately is is hard to sync my BB Passport with my macbook locally without going through the cloud.:(

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

seems that there is more and more uses of byod services/mdm : where i work, people tend to use small devices and use rdesktop technology to run even resource demanding programs. So depending on the situation we use our laptop, our smartphone or a tablet and you may have the same access to our servers. Then up to you to have the device you like but I was quite impressed with a friend of mine using latest surface pro with a keyboard, the latest lumia and his laptop with no big differences in the use.
unfortunately linux is not supported at my work ;) (apart from Android) but the idea is nice.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

continuum doesnt rely on web afaik

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

You cannot pull out the dock on the tram... the ten inch tablet itself is already inconvenient there, and without a hardware keyboard, useless for productivity.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

lol, I probably would buy the OS

eh? where is it?

EDIT: found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCnl6q_AWPI

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

What about Pandora/Pyra?