Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I thought there was some sort of agreement here on the necessity of official sources for this to work ?

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

This discussion appears to have led to a fair degree of consensus that what is required is more openness from Nokia. If you want to solve the 'FUD' problem, that's your solution.

Your competitors may not be who you think they are. Speaking for myself, the alternative to getting an N900 with Maemo was not an alternative smartphone, it was a netbook or tablet with a different Linux OS on. There is very, very much more openness around the development plans of the Redhat sponsored Fedora (for example) that there is around Maemo/Meego. If my next upgrade is going to be Nokia hardware, then I'm going to need some more openness about the software that I will be able to run on it, otherwise I'll likely be going back to commodity kit and properly open OSes.

I really don't think that's the case. you can't say things like this without people expecting some follow-through. You said:
Keeping a secret internal bugtracker, secret internal source repos, and secret plans doesn't look like the behaviour of someone that trusts us, or understands what 'Software Freedom Lovers' have come to expect.

Such as?

And who's fault do you think that is? Give us some actual information, and then we'll have more of an idea of what you're planning. Sure, you're right that the fear is born of ignorance, but that ignorance is brought about by deliberate secrecy, and there's nothing that anyone other than Nokia can do to fix that.

Quite. So lets have some more clarity.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

Bless you. But, it's starting to irritate me, for one. Too many threads getting highjacked, too many semi-rational rants, too many misunderstandings, too little constructive dialog. I understand my some want to rant against Nokia, and they have a right. But does it have to be so difficult for anyone in the community who wants to have a constructive conversation? Can people rant without making it such a pain for the rest of us?

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I think Nokia communicates with the community more than the average practice in this industry. Then again 'the community' doesn't mean every Talk thread where someone throws a question to Nokia.


That was the intention of http://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Maemo_roadmap/Fremantle and http://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Maemo_roadmap/Harmattan . I haven't worked much on these pages lately and it's been some months since the automatic lists of resolved bugs are broken.

In the MeeGo context the communication will be easier since OSS / commercial and platform / product will be better separated.

In the meantime, any tips are welcome to improve the communication with the community AND the perception of the communication with the community.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I think a higher degree of engagement with the community council would be a great start. ;)

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I think you're wrong. Take the example of Intel's approach to graphics card drivers, for example. As a rule, by the time a new chipset hits retail they have free drivers already published, already in distributions. That may give some information away to their competitors, but it gives confidence to their customers, and that sells more hardware. Nokia are fundamentally in a similar position; the lack of software support and openness in its development is putting people off buying the hardware - you're already seeing that in posts to this forum. It's also putting off 3rd party potential developers (both free and proprietary) because they have no confidence in the future of the platform, and that itself will make the hardware less attractive even to end users that don't care about these things directly.

Fundamentally, you clearly think you've got a 'FUD' problem, otherwise you wouldn't have started this thread. I think you can solve it by, as I said before, allaying people's fears, clearing up the uncertainties, and removing the doubt. You may not want to do that, but if you don't, I think you're going to have to learn to live with the 'FUD', because I don't see any other way of getting rid of it.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I kind of feel bad for quoting this sentence, because I agree with most the things in your OP and your answers to follow up posts.

Still, I think asking for quotes from commercial competitors is somewhat besides the point. Nokia, and espesicially Maemo marketing, has made "opennes" and community approach a big, if not the biggest, selling point for Maemo. We don't get TV commercials about games or fart-apps on Maemo, but we do get viral marketing with cybernetic-penguins and open source eveangelism. From your commercial competitors, like Apple or Palm, I don't expect anything beyond usual closed source & commercial communication (i.e need-to-know-basis). I expect more from Nokia's Maemo efforts and that is based mostly on the way Maemo marketing sells Maemo platform.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

I would just like the Fremantle bugs fixed, but because Nokia have a known tendency to change OS strategy within months of releasing a new OS and not considering device backward compatibility (why would they - they only want to sell hardware) the bugs in the now "old" (yet still current) OS never get the care and attention they need in order to be fixed.

This is understandable, as there are limited resources to fix these legacy issues, but it would be more acceptable if there was any possibility of obtaining the new OS that may contain fixes for the bugs I and others have identified or been affected by.

In short, I don't want Maemo6/Harmattan on the N900 for any other reason than I predict most bugs raised against Fremantle will just end up WONTFIX, or "Fixed in Maemo6/Harmattan", which is essentially the same thing to an N900 owner right now.

The reduced activity in b.m.o over the last couple of months is fairly obvious, why that is though I'm not sure - I'd like think it's everyone beavering away on Fremantle bugs but somehow I doubt it.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

Different class of customers though! You can't directly compare graphics cards with end products like mobile computers. Upstream commercial customers might well reward a more open company-- consumers really don't care in general. iPhone success proves it.

Re: Cleaning N900 FUD
 

Texrat has a slide. I've seen it: We're all partying in a martini glass or something. Lightning strikes, and then Texrat's wearing a cape I think.