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Posts: 751 | Thanked: 522 times | Joined on Mar 2007 @ East Gowanus
#37
That is a great story from the insiders perspective . I worked on a software product from its inception as a small database to its current incarnation as a cloud/web based powerhouse, 6 employees and a foosball table to now where there are 50+ and direct phone calls to President Obama in the WH.

I have been following maemo since about 2005 and the 770 and learned about linux and open source ethos through it. It is easily the coolest thing that I have ever been part of.

Originally Posted by karoliinasalmin View Post
Well, my join date was in 2004 when Maemo Devices was not yet Maemo devices and Maemo was just one server name (that Jesus had invented with password generator) we were using to flash new rootimages to boards which did not even have any cases yet. My macroboard had a external hard drive and it was booting from it. And back then, there was no Internet tablet talk yet (and the device was not yet called Internet tablet), because it all was a secret. But it was a lot fun.

Carlos had written to job advertisement that needs to master either Gtk or Qt. I was betting on Qt. However, I soon learned that they had chosen Gtk.

And then it was about to become public, and there was a horrible Maemo logo (it was a placeholder), and I went and designed my own. It became the first Maemo logo before the current one (which I think is very cool).

So I think Maemo was very cool thing already in the beginning (the device was not so extraordinary, but the cool part back then was that it was running Linux, today a bit more is required than just running Linux, it also needs to be cool otherwise), and now the N900 and Maemo 5 makes it even cooler. And the Qt will make the UI development easier than ever. There was no way to make the C-based gobject code to become easy and the Qt will fix that issue pretty well. Also there will be better development tools (like Qt creator) than ever before. There is HW acceleration and OpenGL-ES 2.0 support on the device [N900]. I think it is cool and it is by no means fading away, quite the contrary. With N900 many of the wishes I had already when we were doing the 770 materialize.

So status check where is Maemo today:
- N900 is the coolest device out there in this segment
- It runs the most powerful mobile operating system ever made to the date
- It is the most open production phone ever made to the date
- It is the best innovation platform there is currently
- Maemo 5 UI innovates new instead of keeping all the old metaphors. And after getting it, it is really great.