Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

I have been asked to interview Dr. Ari Jaaksi, Vice President of Nokia, in a "Maemo Devices/Maemo Community Face-off". I have been told that the "[f]ocus of the dialog should be on how the community interacts with Nokia and how Nokia sees the value of the community."

It seems to me that a dialog with a very highly-placed Nokia representative about community would be very weird if there was no community input into my side of the discussion.

I see this talk as having three or four sections.

1. Early days, the 770, Nokia goes OSS
2. N800, N810, development of Maemo
3. Summit '08 (Fremantle and new device specs) to Summit '09 (present)
4. Future

My rough outline will start in the days of the 770, when Nokia first jumped into Open Source, and then move through the years of the N800 and N810, with a final section on "what now?" which will focus on Fremantle and future plans.

I want to ask about Nokia's take on the Linux community when they first started exploring OSS, and how much friction there was internally as the Maemo department/unit came into existence. What kind of culture clashes did they see? What did they expect would happen when they released their one-of-a-kind product (not a phone, running Linux)? Did the community teach them anything in those early days?

I am also curious about the relationship of Nokia to its community through the last few years, as they dealt with the inherent cathedral-vs-bazaar tensions of Linux. I think they understood that Linux brings a developer community with it. But, did they expect the enthusiast community that grew around their tablets? (I think not; they had mailing lists for developers, but no forums for users.) Were there any surprises along the way?

Finally, I want to talk about the current generation of software and (hopefully, eventually) hardware, and the future of Maemo and the community. What is Maemo's current strategy regarding open source and community involvement? What kind of problems have they seen as they try to implement their strategy? What successes have they seen? As Nokia takes Maemo mainstream, now and in the future, how do they see the community changing, and how do they plan to adapt?

I'm particularly interested in how recent announcements are going to impact the community and Nokia's interaction with it. What will happen as Nokia teams up with Intel? What about the switch to QT across Symbian and Maemo platforms?

When formulating your questions, please don't phrase them like accusations or demands, and always find the community angle.

For instance, one of the big recent discussions on the forums has been about the lack of a D-Pad on the allegedly leaked N900 specs. If you want me to ask a question about this, don't write, "Why didn't you put a D-Pad on the new device?!" but instead, ask, "Comments from Nokia representatives in the forums suggest that, up until now, a focus group approach has been used to get feedback regarding new device designs. This has led to some heated discussions in the forums about missing features such as the directional pad. Do you see any change in the focus group approach now that Maemo Devices will be designing hardware? Will there be any more community involvement in these designs?"

I also expect that everyone will be eager to contribute questions about the recent changes in maemo.org, Fremantle, Harmattan, the N900, etc., but I am really hoping for some good community-contributed material for the other parts; I know we have members that have been around these forums since the beginning. Now's your chance to get those old questions answered.

I have to the end of August to submit my script so let's get to work on this!

I'll keep this post updated and if things fall silent, I'll bump the thread periodically with prods and musings...

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Maybe its just me, but I believe the N810 would sell much better if it had a decent GPS receiver. If the N900 fails in this regard, I will buy one of those "slim" credit card sized bluetooth GPS receivers and "velcro" it to the back of my N800.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

What is the interview scripted? I thought you could ask him any question. There is really no fun in well prepared answers to scripted questions!

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Oh, I would rather he have well prepared answers. While there is some fun to be had watching your interviewee squirm in the hotseat, I honestly believe everyone will gain more from the talk if he has had time to prepare robust answers to the questions.

I'll probably leave a little wiggle room in my script so I can push him a bit if he dodges a question with vague answers.

I also am expecting his script, which will have questions to the community. This will be going both ways...

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

It is better than it was back in 2005/2006 (oh, those heady days constantly hitting reload on the expected URL in the Nokia shop for the 770; I don't think I told anyone I really badly sprained my ankle at work going downstairs to collect the parcel when it arrived).

However, we get things like the new "third party package policy" which get discovered in Fremantle when people start having problems. And that's in an open, community-involved package like Application Manager.

My question (and I'll ask Ari/Quim this myself when I see them at the summit) would be: "Accepting that some things need to be kept behind closed doors for commercial reasons, when are Nokia engineers going to be operating in the community for everything else?"

I think this package policy thing could be my drum I bang on about as an example of the closed source thinking for months, if not years :-(

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Jaffa: That's an interesting question. Are the Maemo developers going to continue working mostly behind closed cathedral doors, with liaisons like Andre and Quim trying to keep the community bugzilla in sync with the internal bugzilla, or are they going to move to a truly open development model, where the community sees the same code and the same bugs that the Maemo developers see?

Am I on the right track? If not, please elaborate...

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Pretty much yes. API design discussions in advance, on maemo-developers, let alone same bugzilla & open code.,,

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

I'll give you a dollar if you start the intrview with.. "What's up Doc?".
:D

***

Who or what is the intended market for these things?

How many smart phone OS does Nokia intend to support?

Will Symbian go away in favor of Maemo?

When?

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

This may not be a question that can be answered right now, but I'll put it up here in case the situation changes before the interview script is finalized.

I'm not really happy with the wording, but what I'm essentially wondering is, how is Nokia going to find a way to make a successful, popular, Linux device without losing what makes Maemo what it is? To date, most Linux-based products I've seen have been niche-market products, or "linux-based", without embodying the spirit of Linux. I sincerely hope that they can pull this off, and if they can tell us anything to reassure us of that, I'd rest easier.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

jaem:

You're not alone. Good question!

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Great idea, Qole! I hope others join in and give you some good questions... I will try to think of some myself. :)

Tim

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

What happened since "It is not a cell phone -- and it is good" to change his mind? Are those reasons not valid any more, or are there more compelling reasons (and if so, what) pushing in the opposite direction? The compromises/sacrifices necessary to turn a tablet into a phone (finger UI, screen size and so on) have been very controversial here, does Nokia plan to still address the market segment that prefers a tablet to a phone?

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

a) what role does the community play in the whole maemo-thing? what are nokias expectations? does the maemo community live up to these expectations or are there still things that must be done internally (or don't happen at all) because the community fails to deliver?

b) how much community input could nokia handle concerning hardware? could they envision that some day a future product is designed via a bugzilla-system, with people voting for enhancement requests about hardware (spell: d-pad)? could there be something like a community edition of existing mass market products that has basically the same hardware internally, but differs in things like screen size or keyboard layout etc. according to the wishes of a reasonably large part of the community?

c) on the business side: is handling community input (or better: dealing with the community in general) more expensive/difficult than handling uncoordinated customer feedback?

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

That would be awesome. :)

Tim

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

This is presuming that they are, in fact, making solely phones from now on... Many things would point to that, including the "reasonable"-sounding leak, however, Nokia has been very, very careful to tell us what we need to get coding, while leaving out certain critical details regarding both hardware and software, so I don't think we should go at that angle (or similar) too much until we see an actual press release.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Did he ever use any of the internet tablets?
If yes which ones?

His thoughts about the future of TABLETS as large screen devices!

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

This is a bit of a silly question, and (not to pick on you) the problem with such threads of questions (although I expect qole to filter/polish): it's well known what tablets he's used, there are blog posts about using the 770 with his daughters etc.

Perhaps it'd be better as "what do you use your Maemo devices for on a regular basis? Do you augment it with a Symbian smartphone for 'real' work?"

This should be addressed in the various keynotes and Q&As. Let's keep this focused on the Nokia/community relationship.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

I'm going to try to distill some of this conversation between ragnar and Jaffa into a question for Dr. Jaaksi.

The discussion seems to focus on the tension between corporate concepts of "competitiveness," "testing methodology, target user gathering" and "consistent reporting metrics" and the open source, community concepts of openness, freedom, and "an empassioned expert community."

Essentially, I'd like to know what Nokia's big picture view of this is, as seen from the VP's desk. Will corporate interests or "openness" win out? Can the two concepts climb into bed together?


The conversation starts when ragnar ponders the question, "Will we get a glimpse of [the Harmattan UI or app suite] before it is released? Will there be any community input regarding the new UI?"

ragnar asks:

Jaffa replies (in part):

ragnar responds:

And regarding Jaffa's "free consultancy services from an empassioned expert community" comment, ragnar comments:

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Obviously i meant on a regular day to day business. Well we have come a far way from the 770 and the n800 and n810 are quite different from those days. My idea was that only a day to day user can really understand the pros and cons of the tablets and it is hard for me to see a businessman in such big a position carrying a tablet on a day to day basis.

I understand that you dont like those questions, but those are my questions and i would like qole to ask them, just like you have other questions to ask.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Yes, thanks qole. Having slept over the question, you could probably even continue, or split it into pre-release and post-release parts. Once something is published, then there is of course not the same problems in relation to secrecy. How could we improve the methods of community members - or "anyone with a good idea" - to give it to us and possibly influence future releases. Bugzilla is for bugs. The Brainstorm perhaps tries to fulfill this: is it doing its job properly, should there be something else, something more? Focus groups, concepting sessions, per-feature discussion pages etc.? Basically the same kind of iterative questions as for missing API's.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Actually, Ari's day-to-day use is probably the main reason why the next version is a phone. :p

Tim

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Jaffa - good luck with that, I've been banging my personal drum for over 3 years now and I've seen little real progress, just lots of promises to improve which never really materialise. I can count the number of Nokia/Maemo developers actively involved in Bugzilla on one hand... :(

Contrast the Maemo situation with Moblin, as Intel put Nokia to shame with the amount of involvement from Intel engineers in the Moblin bugzilla.

Perhaps the question for Ari should be why Intel are able to achieve a much greater level of transparency than Nokia when discussing defects and enhancements?

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

It still sucks, yes, but there have been lots of improvements over the last year or so. It's slow in coming, but I suspect things will get a lot better once Fremantle gets a real announcement, etc. Though, of course, that'll all be much too late for the community to attempt save Nokia from themselves. . . .

Because Intel sells to OEMs, not consumers.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

What difference does it make? Moblin and Maemo are both operating systems (with associated applications) that will find their way into the hands of the consumer, either directly or via an OEM.

Intel appear willing to publicly file, and more importantly discuss, the bugs in their product whereas Nokia prefer to keep their dirty laundry a secret and are doing a very good job of ignoring those bugs raised by the community (there is little if any direct input from Nokia developers against publicly filed bugs, many of which are closed as WONTFIX when the respective OS version is end-of-lined).

I can fully understand that some bugs need to be kept secret (ie. security related bugs, or bugs against as yet unanounced products/features, all of which can be handled by existing Bugzilla configuration) but the demand for more involvement is there and has been there for for 3+ years, the management pay lip services and say they want it to happen... but nothing ever does.

If you wanted to work on an open source OS, and had to choose between Moblin and Maemo - which bunch of developers would you rather work with, or alternatively be ignored by?

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Here's a question, and I don't know how to better phrase it so please feel free to edit but keep the core idea:

Nokia seems to be going in two directions. However, these two directions do seem as if they will meet at a head. There's the transition from a device to a services company with Ovi; and then there's the change of a closed development mindset with S40 and Symbian S60 to the open source/open community nature of the new Symbian and Maemo. Its almost as if Nokia is setting itself up to be a RedHat of mobile open source. And that isn't a bad thing if the services piece can come together and be totally seamless inside and outside of Ovi. So here's my question: is "mobile" really the best playground for a company which is basing its value on the services it provides and the relationships that it has maintained? Or, in Nokia's way of looking beyond what we see now, does the pointing to Maemo, open source, and this services-orientation point to a key element of technology-as-culture that we miss because we don't have the same view that a company such as Nokia has? If the latter, can you elaborate on what Nokia sees, and why this viewpoint is significant for a community like Maemo to understand.

Sorry for the length, the question is deep and has a lot of backing needed. Thanks for proposing to ask the questions from us and present those.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

The main difference is that Intel sell chips, not devices - ie in a moblin vs maemo comparison they are are more analogous to ARM and TI than Nokia. Moblin is important to them because every vendor who stuck Linux on a netbook or MID in the last 2-3 years made a complete hash of it, but they don't care about things like UI "differentiation" and such.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

A couple of more related questions:

Arguably one of the biggest causes of community frustration is the status of Diablo updates, or lack thereof. With that in mind,

a) Can you comment on the supported period for Fremantle, either in absolute (eg "X months after lead device goes on sale") or relative ("until Y months after Harmattan is released") terms? Setting realistic expectations seems like a good thing for both sides.

b) Mer may be the future for current devices, but unfortunately it's not quite ready for day to day use yet. Is Nokia open to the possibility of handing Diablo maintenance over to the community, assuming that that would cover only open source packages and community updates would be clearly marked as such, unsupported by Nokia and installed at the owner's risk? There are several community-contributed patches for existing bugs in Maemo bugzilla and other places, but with the official status of Diablo SSUs in limbo no one dares set up a repository and publish fixed binaries as that could break a possible future SSU.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Will you believe the answer? I won't.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

i won't, either. but there is a point in asking this question: bug them with this issue. make them understand this is not something we will easily forget. ask this question in memory of my beloved 770.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

I will try to work at least one of these very contentious issues into the conversation, but please note, "what is the proposed support timeline of Fremantle" is not directly related to Nokia / community interaction. Sure, it has a direct bearing on us, but I think I will ask something along the lines of, "Would Nokia consider giving end-of-life versions of Maemo to the community to maintain? Or does Nokia expect the community to exclusively use parallel versions of Maemo, like Mer, if they wish to take control after Nokia ends support?"

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Sorry, I still don't buy into this OEM vs. Consumer differentiation as a justifiable reason for the lack of openness in the "bug fixing" process - once a bug is reported by either an OEM or consumer, what is to stop free and open discussion? Intel achieve it, yet Nokia just don't want to communicate publicly. At all. Period. Maemo Bugzilla is a black hole.

But we can agree to disagree - let's allow Nokia to continue to trot out their "consumer device" excuse while making the most of open source code when at the same time making a complete hash of the supposedly open development process which will only serve to alienate the community they so desperately need if this product/project is going to succeed in the long term, which is by no means certain.

Intel and others will continue to show how commercial open source development can be done right, and will gain a much larger and devoted community as a result.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Ah... questions related to Nokia / community interaction.

Never mind then. :)
I had a technical question regarding voice recognition. With smart phones allowing people to do more and more tasks away from their desktop, more people will eventually be doing these things at inappropriate times. While driving for instance.

Many local governments are moving toward enacting laws prohibiting manual text entry while driving. It seems to me robust VR built into the OS of a mobile device will be the next big thing.

Where does VR fit into the Maemo road map?
How could the community help promote VR's value?

(See how I did that^ :) )

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Thanks, just make it clear that this is not a request for opening up any components that are not already open, but for enabling the community to publish its own unofficial updates.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

We already have that deal with Mer -and- for community editions of Diablo etc. Nokia has no problem distributing Nokia-closed software to Nokia tablets (qgil posted this somewhere). It's just a tough task to set up, get all stakeholders involved, etc. Heck, we're still in progress with Mer to do this.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

As Stskeeps says, Nokia have expressed interest in allowing us to do this at a management level; and have explained the technical approach we'd take:

http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...il/018816.html

Basically, the plan is as follows - and anyone in the community can help with this:

1. Community: develop "opt-in" package which promotes a "community-updates" component in Extras to SSU-status when installed.
2. maemo.org: add "community-updates" component to Extras.
3. Community: build new hildon-application-manager and osso-software-version-rx* packages. Upload to community-updates.
4. Community: install opt-in package and test upgrades.
5. Nokia: ship final SSU which includes the opt-in package, giving all users the community updates without having to opt-in.

Given this concrete plan has evolved over the past few weeks, this is now in a position to be actually enacted. I'd like to see some extra volunteers on this (promotion, packaging, testing) rather than "the usual suspects": this is a perfect opportunity to get involved at a high-level in the Maemo community quickly, without lots of technical skill necessary.

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

If I may, I'd like to be involved. I have built versions of h-a-m using community patches before and I have packaged a clone of Nokia's "maemo-extras-domain" package for Mer (extras-repository) when it was thought that adding Extras would be a good thing. :)

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Step 5 isn't an absolute requirement, but one thing that is necessary is an official "there will be no more Diablo SSUs" statement from Nokia. Imagine the mess if the community goes ahead with the plan, publishes a few updates and a few weeks down the line there is another Nokia SSU.

Hey, I'm up for it! (But this is becoming off-topic here, perhaps we could take it to another thread?)

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

My question: "The community is in desperate desire for some sort of development/release roadmap for Maemo hardware and software. We understand that Nokia cannot be completely forthcoming due to competitive needs, but can't at least some degree of rough guidance be provided?"

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Thanks Texrat, both for your question and for bumping this thread. Only a couple more weeks before the deadline. I'm going to send my rough set of questions to Ari in early September...

Re: Summit 09: Call for Input for Ari Jaaksi dialog
 

Hey, I owe you for jogging me toward including the hottest topic for my proposed presentation. ;)