Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Mer for Nokia 770 N800, N810W, and X86, version 0.7

Information about Mer can be found at http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer and release information and released files on http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Releases/0.7. It also has a list of known issues so please read them through first before installing. If the pages show white, force reload (temporary problem).

If you own a N8x0(W), use the installer mentioned here. 770 instructions here

Next release is 15th February 2009 (0.8).

Highlights of this release:
* Now with working osso-xterm
* Hildon application manager & control panel
* Now with zipped VMDK image (approx 183mb) so you can run Mer both in VirtualBox and VMware and other VMDK-supporting virtual machine software. You can use this to try out Mer on your x86 or even develop applications for Mer.
* 770 support (thanks to RST38h for spotting an unaligned data access in sapwood)
* Clipboard support and improved first boot wizard
* Python bindings for hildon, GTK, etc
* Droid Sans fonts in use in theme
* Better N8x0 installer and .install file to make it easier to install
* Proper localization strings (Now Home instead of home_ap_home_view)
* Gnome-keyring is now pacified and not bothering you when connecting to WiFi networks.
* An error is showed if incompatible bootmenu is used.

Mer is still a work in progress and as such you should not expect too much of it - feel free to join and help us out if you think something is missing :)

Thanks to the people involved in the sprint 0.7 that has lead to this release: b-man, wazd, zenvoid, Jaffa, johnx, DarkenCZ, qwerty12, RST38h, r2d2rogers, Meizirkki & thopiekar and others who contributed but not mentioned here - and thanks to Maemo SW for the updated Fremantle components in Fremantle pre-alpha2 SDK.

If you would like to participate, read through http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/People and http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Sprints and see if there's anything you can help out with. We're on #maemo (or #mer) on FreeNode, IRC, if you'd like to hang out and discuss.

--

Together with this 0.7 release we would like to ask the members of this forum a question, since we will be bringing Fremantle components to the N8x0(W), 770 devices. There are quite interesting discussions with Nokia going on about being able to provide community firmware images through maemo.org to Nokia tablet users, which could include closed source applications, drivers, etc. (see http://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Community...e_distribution). Associated with that we have to provide a list of what packages/applications, bits and pieces of Diablo we would like to distribute as part of these images, for legal discussion.

We would then like to ask you users, what you would expect as part of these future firmware images, and to write why these ought to be part of the community firmware images - why are they important for you to have on your tablet.

Please restrict yourself to the closed source components as part of your answers. If you know of a proper open source replacement for a closed source component, you are welcome to write these as well so we can consider these for inclusion in the standard images. If they are OK to just to be downloadable through the Application Manager, note this as well.

--

Obligatory screenshots:

http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/mer-ossoxterm.png
http://trac.tspre.org/qwerty12/libdr...reenshot02.png
http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/mer-locale.png
http://www.flegg.org/~andrew/mer-ham-02.png

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

nice, i think i may give it a spin in a VM.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

New skin for the old ceremony... err, no sorry : new life for my old 770 ? :-)

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

First of all, thanks Stskeeps for all of your work on Mer and for the work of all of the people you mentioned. This is a wonderful thing you are doing for the community. I am not a SW guy, but I will try to provide input to help.

I suppose opening Flash and many other things are not at the discretion of Nokia. Hopefully, Nokia can open the few UI elements that are not already open. Referencing but hopefully not repeating the discussion, my main expectation is that a community platform would permit the HW keys on the legacy devices to be used to their full advantage. This includes not only the D-pad; I for one would expect the zoom +/- and fullscreen/switch view keys to continue to work and be available in the software stack. The reason is that it would make it easy for people to develop apps that take advantage of the legacy devices.

Second, this may be tangential but I hope from your Jaiku thread we can take solace that Mer will not use a CC NC or GPLv2 license for the base elements of the platform. The community will benefit if there can be full development of apps.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

I don't see any valid reason to exclude GPLv2; to me, that doesn't even make sense. GPLv2 is not a non-commercial license. And a few GPLv2 components don't weaken the protection any GPLv3 sections enjoy, so if v2-only code exists to do something we need, rewriting it seems wasteful.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Congrats on this new release. For me, seeing the localization fixed is a big deal; you are polishing the project to the point where things are looking finished.

As for closed-source components: why don't we start with the assumption that if Nokia or the community doesn't currently provide a sufficient open-source alternative, we're going to need the closed-source component? By "sufficient" I mean a replacement that does everything that the closed-source component does, even if the interface is a bit clunky or something. The Flash player, for example, really doesn't have an alternative at the moment. The open source alternatives (gnash, swfdec, etc) just aren't fast enough for the tablet processor (at least not from my tests).

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Two fixes - installer was built with a stupid libc6 dependancy, and 770 image was not complete.

770 image md5sum: 4293d50c69df172e02195f138d3fde69

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Two things here - the discussion is not about open sourcing Nokia closed source items. The discussion is about being able to create community images (based on our recipe!) containing these proprietary bits and distribute these from maemo.org, and what they should contain.

We cannot expect everything handed to us with source and everything, but Nokia is doing something unprecedented in mobile devices, which they should be applauded for - they're inviting the community to actively remix the OS running on their hardware and are working with the community to provide legal framework and ability to distribute the remixes from maemo.org when they are produced.

The discussion only dealt with licenses that prohibit commercial usage of the software - there are GPLv2 licensed materials in Ubuntu - and my own personal scripts are BSD-licensed. The point about GPLv3 was that the mere existence of GPLv3 licensed materials in the base system makes sure Mer will be used in open devices (Tivoization protection), living up to the motto of open device open platform (which Nokia tablets are) in contrast to let's say, T-Mobile G1, which is closed device open platform.

So, to get discussion back on track:

I'll be missing word completion (HIM), Skype and ICD (operator wizard) - those are the closed source bits I use the most and find most valuable, and they are very hard to find direct open source replacements for.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Well, skype cannot be included it firmware, and i don't think that would be very smart anyway, but is there is only duplicate files with gstreamer packages in the way to install skype from nokias certified or non-certified repo.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Thanks, not opening up (that is a bit imprecise language), but allowing to use some components in Mer and allowing Mer to be freely licensed...


Naturally, Mer inherits licensing status from Ubuntu. Just to get clarity. There will be a version of Mer with closed bits from Nokia that will be licensed to NIT MAC addresses and distributed from maemo.org, and an open source version of Mer available for other devices?

I don't mean to take the topic to something you don't want to discuss and if you instead want to focus on the nuts and bots. Thanks again for all your work.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Yes, - the hope is to make a community firmware image of Mer that contains the closed bits, downloadable in similar way to tablets-dev.nokia.com. This image would be the fully free Mer image plus closed source differentation (binaries, Nokia applications, etc). Mer itself will be open, both for tablets and other devices.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

About the closed source items, this is a field where I think that less is more.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

I think the N8x0 users who don't get Fremantle might disagree when they don't have:

1. Flash
2. Operator wizard
3. Handwriting recognition & word completion
4. Battery charging
5. ...

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

EDIT: Don't reply to this post until you've read the replies below, thanks! ;)

Ok, I guess I wasn't very clear; I'll try again...

Why are we being asked to justify every closed-source component? I would think it would be a more simple case than that; can we have the closed source bits for Mer? Yes? Thanks!

It seems weird that Nokia is saying, "Yes, you can have closed source bits, but you have to work for it; you have to justify each one -- why do you need that one? And why do you need that one? Are you really, really sure you need that one? Show me how much you want it. Oh, come on, you can live without that one."

It seems obvious to me that the Mer team isn't asking for closed source bits because they're lazy; you guys are pouring a lot of sweat into this project. Anyone looking at the project can see that you're doing your best to find open source components wherever possible. So it seems kind of insulting to ask you to justify your need for each component. If there were good, easy-to-find open source replacements for these bits, wouldn't Nokia use them instead of developing closed-source versions?

I say you build Mer using as few closed bits as possible, but without losing any functionality found in Diablo. After you've built the thing, tell Nokia what you've got in there, and they can argue with you over the stuff you've got.

If anything, I'd like to see Nokia ask the Mer team, "Have you tried project x instead of our closed-source component y?" I'm pretty sure Nokia's developers looked at the open source offerings before they started in-house development, and the developers probably know all of the alternatives out there. They'd be your best bet to suggest an alternative.

Is Nokia worried that you could build a viable competitor to Maemo 5? They're afraid that they're handing you the weapons that will destroy them? :eek:

Naaahh... that's silly...

Or ... IS IT??? :confused: :eek: :D

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Ignoring the rest of your post for the moment (which seems to have gone slightly off the reality wagon), Nokia sell devices. Mer uses lots of Maemo open source components.

Why would Mer reusing Nokia-shipped closed-source binaries for N8x0 releases "destroy them", or be a viable competitor to Maemo 5?

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Of those, Flash is the only one that needs additional closed components. There are ways to handle the Operator Wizard's role (possibly even ones that aren't broken by default, and can have their database updated when a problem is found with it), and several open-source handwriting input methods, and IIRC xvkbd can do completion, so the code's out there. And unless I'm mistaken, Mer already includes (i.e., steals from existing Maemo install) bme.

You didn't mention it, but I'd put Skype with Flash; those are the two things I can see that have substantial impact on end-users and don't have plausible replacement paths.

As interim components until we get some of those worked out, I'm not averse to other things, but I don't see them as very important.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

@qole: It's easiest to understand the situation if you don't think of Nokia as one entity. I have little doubt that if the people working on Maemo were calling the shots we could get anything we wanted, but the issue is that *they* have to justify releasing closed source bits to *their* legal department. Then their legal department has to vet all of the request to make sure Nokia actually *does* own the IP rights to those pieces of software and that it doesn't have some other legal ramifications.

Now, *technically* we could just go ahead and cobble together a release using any Nokia closed source software we wanted to, but there are a couple good reasons why we won't. One of the big reasons is that it completely compromises our goals of working providing on a truly open source alternative distribution. This might also prevent people from being interested in contributing. I know *I* wouldn't contribute to something in such a questionable legal state. I can only imagine some others feel the same.

EDIT: I should emphasize as Stskeeps said further down, that they never asked us for justification. We asked you. :) We want to go with open source wherever it makes sense, so we want to find out specifically what functionality people care about the most.


-John

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

I do believe you've been Qoled. :p

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

OK, I really have to defuse this one, sorry :) This is -me- asking, what we need to put our focus into looking at trying to make work in Mer. All Nokia has asked for, is a list[1]. No justifications, just what we think would be useful and what we would want to distribute, and to isolate early on as possible to see what would be possible to distribute, both of Nokia applications and 3rd party code.

They are doing us a huge favour through this opening, - allowing Mer on tablets to accelerate to Fremantle-level functionality so when Fremantle (and RX-51) comes out, N8x0(W) (and maybe even 770) will have quite similar functionality.

Why we're asking for reasoning, is to make it possible to prioritize our time in determining where it's even worth spending time on trying to integrating the closed source bits.

Yes, we are. The closed bits stuff is added value to make it a more viable backport of Fremantle functionality, so people doesn't have to sacrifice functionality of their tablets. For my sake I could live with HW interfacing closed source bits, but some people are more picky :)

The open source replacements question is to make us aware what things people would agree on would be good to include in base firmware images, or things that could be useful to spend time on integrating, - to see what people want and what they can live without.

On the other hand, Mer might just be the thing that could make the Maemo platform a more viable platform, and an even more powerful and useful one to developers and users :)

[1] http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...ry/002946.html

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Dude. I was trying to be funny in that last bit. If you were to ignore anything in that post, it would be the last bit where I was being silly.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Thanks for clarifying. It seemed like you were saying Nokia was asking for justification, and I didn't understand. This makes more sense.

I'm much more of the Ubuntu mindset, as opposed to the Debian mindset. If Nokia or nVidia only has binary blobs to give me, I'm not going to stick up my nose and say, "I can live without that functionality, if it means my device can be truly free!"

However, I know that there are people who do have a free-or-nothing attitude, and I respect that. Again, I like how Ubuntu does it. They don't install the non-free binary drivers by default, but they don't make it difficult to install them, either.

For instance, I would like the GStreamer DSP stuff and the Hantro encoder, but I know it's not strictly necessary to have it...

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Thought you may have been. The whole country's broken at the moment (no, I don't know why either) so maybe it leaked into my brain.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Emphasis on "needs".

Are there any open source operator connection string databases already available? Would it have to be compiled (in the literal, rather than computing sense)? Is there a Hildonised UI for a front-end?

Presumably the use of Network Manager could help here, especially with the efforts Ubuntu are touting for 3G & Bluetooth access.

None of these are cheap though, or trivial to integrate to hildon-input-method.

...which isn't an option for an end-user flashable image.

I purposely left Skype off as, without investigating it further, figured it should be installable off the network, and doesn't require anything in the FIASCO image.

But even interim components need to be in the list, no?

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Thanks, your explanation is good. Yes, and the request to Nokia has to be judicious. For example, for things like Flash and Skype, Nokia may not have the ability to grant the request since they are downstream themselves and may or may not want to pass along the request upstream. There have to be considerations to Nokia's perspective in the request, but there should be some cooperation because it is in their interest to prevent a backlash from perceived abandonment of legacy NITs. Also, you can factor in considerations like the efforts in Ubuntu to get some open component for Flash/my tube for ARM.

These comments are also the good reason why there is benefit to having two versions of Mer. One for the backport to legacy NITs and one for more open version. It is beneficial that there will also be a more open version so making a request for a closed component does not preclude a version that might include an open component and we will not be in an either/or situation.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Because otherwise you are breaching the licenses of the software you want to use?

We asked the Mer team to list the *3rd party* closed source packages they need, since they don't belong to Nokia and therefore we need to make sure the owners are fine with the deal.

For instance, Flash belongs to Adobe and Skype belongs to Skype Inc. The agreements signed with these companies are framed for official releases going through a quite demanding quality process. If Nokia would let the Mer team (or whoever) grab those binaries for other purposes then those agreements would be in trouble, affecting e.g. the negotiations for Fremantle.

EDIT: By the way, forget about an official endorsement on 3rd party applications. 3rd party platform components essential to get the hardware running are a different and more feasible story.

This is more or less what we have already said about the closed source components owned by Nokia:

We don't see any problem with the idea of redistributing Nokia owned
software to owners of Nokia devices, and the question to be decided is
only the best way to do it.

Nokia has never said anything like that.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Supposedly, Adobe is in alpha/beta stages with flash for ARM V6 and V7 with an estimated release of this summer. I realize it will still be closed source, but it would at least be freely downloadable without the Nokia middleman at that point.

Otherwise, I think we really just need the sound components and if someone would like to steal functioning 3D video drivers which Nokia doesn't even seem to have that would be nice too.

If someone could rewrite WINE to work on ARM with Windows Mobile compatibility that would be stellar too. ;)

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Have you a source which says it'll be freely downloadable? For what platforms? What calling conventions? Which EABI?

Having the ARM code isn't the end of the matter, even if it was freely downloadable (which I've seen no evidence of plans for)

Well, Nokia have something approaching them. They just can't release them. And steal them from whom, exactly?

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

From Nokia, of course. They have them, after all. :p

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Thanks Quim. Between you and Stskeeps, I've got it all straightened out in my head now.

This seems much more sane now that I understand that the Nokia request is about third-party components, and the justification for Nokia components is a request from the Mer team, not Nokia.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

I just would like to warn here about some possible mis-interpretations from readers and to make some points.

Nokia tablets are not open devices/platform neither: HW is closed, no documentation/schematics, you can't install any other operating system standalone without relying on their proprietary bit-banging controlling software. SW platform is closed too, you can't install Maemo on any other device without the important bits that are proprietary and without Nokia blessing or changing the branding name.

I don't see the point in GPLv3 for Mer self components when Mer itself (as any other operating system for Nokia tablets) relies on proprietary components. If binary object linkage exists it would be incompatible.

I myself applaud Nokia for being a contributor to the open source ecosystem but selling or saying that the tablets are open devices is misleading, a trap I fell myself once.

Good news is that it seems the new tablet RX-51 would be more open, probably at the same level as the ADP1 (and at a lesser degree, the G1) which have all it's hardware fully working with GPLv2 drivers _and_ without bit-banging interfaces.

Anyway as always keep the good work!

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

I have no proof that they will be freely downloadable, but Adobe has released pretty much every other version of flash for free download, so it seems likely that they would intend to release the ARM versions for download as well. But, take a look at this link: http://adamcohenrose.blogspot.com/20...n-project.html

The rest was a joke...take it easy.:p

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

And to just illustrate what I meant by open vs closed device, - You need a developer key (and special T-Mobile G1!) to replace firmware on a G1. On a tablet, you have full root access and you can run NITdroid, Mer, Gentoo, Debian, etc. Without having to jailbreak or 'telnetd' your device.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Sorry in insisting on this open discussion, but in reality both are closed locked devices, just that the G1 have it's lock on the bootloader (easy to circumvent) and the Nokia tablets have it's lock on _required_ system software (_very_hard_ to reverse engineer).

Knowing what I'm talking about, ten years from now everybody would benefit from updated open source drivers, updated kernels and documentation for the G1/ADP1; but for the tablets... you simply can't, you will always be stuck with the historic 2.6.21 Nokia release.

My point is that you should not consider the current tablets as open, the next one probably...

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Not sure about that that: http://nmacleod.com/nokia/schematics/ *cough*

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Desn't link to an official Nokia domain...

Was illegally leaked? :rolleyes:

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

Mer is not just for the Nokia tablets. There will be a distribution for devices other than the Nokia tablets. See post #11.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

I just had something pretty cool happen... I clicked on the install file for diablo on N8x0 ( I have an N810 ).. went through the install and everything was successful. Now I go click on the menu icon and all of my icons are gone!! lol.

It's pretty nifty.. I have No categories, no nothing.. just the 2 column layout completely blank! My personal menu still works.. and Control panel was in there.. so I went through and added a bunch of needed apps to my Personal Menu.. but I can't the original menu to work.. and no idea where to look for trouble shooting!!

Any ideas? Pretty cool side-effect IMHO :D

ETA:
Ignore me.. I think this has something to do with the way I had some stuff tied into my /media/mmc1 directory and I currently have it unmounted... it's causing MCE and pre-installed-documentation to fail on apt-get .. very much like described here http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...=23958&page=20 ...

I don't think this is cause of Mer but because of my tinkering with crap..

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

This probably seems silly, but did you try a complete reboot? I've had weird stuff like that happen before when I maxed out my RAM. Maybe you have a swap partition activated that got messed up.

Edit: Nevermind. Looks like you fixed it already.

Re: Mer v0.7 release, and community firmware contents discussion
 

No.. still not fixed but yes I rebooted. It's quite odd.. I've remounted my mmc1 so it can access the MyDocs/.sounds and stuff .. but mce keeps failing on "start" with no real error. Still digging into it.. I evidentally broke something good :D.