Maemo Weekly News: 28 March 2011
 

Nokia architects not involved in recent MeeGo architecture decisions

We covered Arjan van de Ven's announcement of some architecture decisions two weeks ago. The following week, Tracker developers - seemingly unhappy with the decision, and the lack of feedback on the perceived problems - posted a performance analysis between Evolution Data Store (EDS) and Tracker, when storing contact details. This week, Sakari Poussa posted a surprising response to an assertion from Arjan that "the MeeGo architecture team" made these decisions together:

So, what's going on? Answers on who was involved; and what is actually happening within the corridors at Intel and Nokia are scarce. Friction, resulting from two corporate cultures trying to work together, is being released now that Nokia's board have changed their strategic direction. However, the people on the ground at both companies are probably equally shocked and disappointed.

One point that seems to have become somewhat lost during the technical discussions resulting from the announced architecture changes is the implications of Intel making, seemingly, unilateral and opaque decisions about MeeGo. The MeeGo Governance page describing the team who are "responsible for defining and communicating the MeeGo's technical architecture" lists three names. Arjan van de Ven, Sakari Poussa and Mikko Ylinen. The latter two are employed by Nokia. The MeeGo "who's who" wiki page also lists Intel's Sunil Saxena, who was also on-stage during the "MeeGo Architecture" presentation at the MeeGo Conference.

The only thing that seems to be certain is that the MeeGo is not living up to its promised openness.



In this edition...

1. Front Page
   • Nokia architects not involved in recent MeeGo architecture decisions
2. Applications
   • GOM Reminder - a handy organizer for the N900
3. Development
   • Beta release of Qt Creator 2.2
   • Official support in Qt Creator for uploading to Maemo Extras
   • QBadgeButton for displaying notification counts
   • DON - Develop on N900
4. Community
   • MeeGo Technical Steering Group down to one person, but Nokia still have a seat
   • Public handover meeting for Maemo Community Council
5. Devices
   • Intel's MeeGo Tablet UX running on N900
6. In the Wild
   • Linpus MeeGo Touch, Glow on WeTab, Concept Tablet UI Brought to Life...
7. Announcements
   • MobWebMail - Gmail for optimised online Gmail usage
   • My Little Artist drawing app
   • Updated MeeGo input methods for Ubuntu
   • ...and 5 more