Most is. I usually tag my replies with the usual language barrier waning, but sometimes I forget. It's a forum, though, so all discussion is open.

You shouldn't fall back on minority examples when the majority doesn't agree with theory. 99% of apps that are any good are quite a lot of work, mainly because if it would be easy, they'd already be out there.

If it's good, odds are overwhelming there's a lot of work into it.

Again with the minority. The vast majority of this forum, and of this community is not made of whining, cry-babies with an attitude made of 50% "I am the toughest and best" and 50% "stop making me cry".

And if a few idiots throw insults out there when unfounded then:

a) this is the job for the mods, feel free to report posts.
b) as a developer, if your day is ruined by one dolt versus 99 who appreciate you, then you shouldn't be signing your app.

Idiots aren't numbers, they are percentages. And as a community grows, be it the Maemo, Nokia or your app's user base, sooner or later that percentage will become more that one person.

You have to have SOME resistance to this. Don't sign the app, only take bug reports, I don't know. And frankly, don't really care, either, because from the user's point of view there is no distinction between "I'm insulted, no version for you" and "I'm a behind, no version for you". Or "I have to lie in my bug report and say that it's not really a collection of bugs so I don't upset the developer".

Now, if it's not true, then, again, it is the job of the moderator to slim down flaming. But if it's true, then it's feedback. We're a community, not a funhouse mirror.

All right, another fall to minority fallacy. Yes a few have a few developers. but let's be fair. How many of the top, selling or not, free or not, most downloaded, most whatever you want are one man shows? One in 10? One in 20?

You see, just because one man has made one good app, it does not mean that good apps don't require teams. Also, when making an argument, it doesn't help if you fall back from one man to one or two, then 1-3.

3 is a team, where one or two write code, checking each other, another does graphics, and the supplement each other's limitations.

Team efforts are like getting 3 good apps and melding the best look with the best functionality and the best stability. It's just not the same.

And, since you are so fond of opening new ideas for the developers, like they can't see them just fine, then ask for help. Like I said, allow skinning, allow translations, align yourself to localization via text files anyone can edit.

That, however, requires more work.

Also, most of what we want is games, fun apps, work apps. These require finishing. Sore a few could be one-man shows, and they are, but the things we want most badly are not. Sure we want VNC ported, SSH, etc. These can be simple ports. But Office isn't really a one-nighter, let's face facts.

Boy do you love exaggerations. Not everyone thinks one-man-shows are junk. But most of us know that one-man shows don't have the resources of team efforts, especially larger teams, especially commercial larger teams, and, thus, large scale projects are superior.

I have no better word for it. Do you? If I write a quick Python web server that serves a single page, and compare it to Apache HTTP server, how would qualify my project? Superior? Just as good?

Insulting is one thing. Outright lying is another. I will not lie to the developer.

Where did you get that, anti-trust weekly? How about Mozilla? Have you looked at the options and extensions on that baby? Apache? Postgres?

I've deleted my previous answer because, frankly, a whole load of examples isn't going to do any good to people who don't use that much commercial software. Point of it was, if you are deaf to user requests, you are going down, and it's not like someone will take over the project. In commercial land, you lose money and start firing people.

You have an example right here. Nokia.

That segment is from the one-man apps and why that is, not in the thanks part of my post.

I did, you placed that opinion in the minds of developers, then proceeded to take a stance as if that were true. Moreover, you think that developers think they have 5 users because of the rest of us.

Any developer that deduces the range of a market by the opinion of 5 idiots on this forum has a problem. Especially when there's a list of projects sorted by downloads.

That is no more than a blame shift. That's akin to saying transportation companies don't work because Trucker Dave said transports stink. Market dynamics don't work based on trolls.

I don't.

Please don't extend your opinion over them. As a developer, I take offense in that. I have several software out there signed by alias, with no link back to me. If it's free, then it's free. Some of the apps I really, really like and where effort has been put don't even have an about box.

There are some who don't have the concept of free, something for nothing. These people need to be rewarded, and if nothing tangible comes back their way then at least fame they can (maybe) cash later.

I understand their desire to get something back, ESPECIALLY if it's not a simple project. But from here to "all developers are egomaniacs" is a great leap, and one that is false.

Not everyone is an egomaniac. Some of us are cheap.

Well, I kid, but the fact remains that not everyone does this in exchange for something.

Case in point, I have 9 apps I would pay for, given a reasonable price. Out of those, 2 are can't-profit ports, 5 don't take donations (some even after being asked) and 2 have taken to OVI and refuse to sell through other channels.

The problem with new developers, Nathraiben, is lack of documentation, lack of examples, short OS lifespan, together with no backwards compatibility.

The problem with new developers is that there's a steep entry curve for people who want to do something other than a simple widget, and by the time anyone actually gets to know the OS and really develop it'll be dead.

That's why some of us say it's stillborn.

We make it LOOK like dead? Didn't you watch the news? Check the pulse. Maemo is dead, it has been abandoned, whatever useful code has been merged into MeeGo.

What do you propose, jam a stick up its corpse, put a little makeup, some deodorant, some strings and pretend it's kicking?

Some of the apps that were written for Maemo will work on MeeGo. But Maemo 5 IS dead, as it was only installed on one device, N900, and of those a lot will upgrade to the next OS, even more to the next phone. In less than a year, this OS version and its hardware is going to be less widespread than Sinclair Spectrum.

Once Qt Mobility is here, apps will be made cross-platform (ish), and we can finally upgrade without renouncing out beloved apps (ish).

One must not mistake a platform that still runs on some devices with a platform that actually has a future. M5 will run for a few years, until the last N900/M5 bites the dust. So will this forum.

Developers don't come to platforms that run, but to platform that WILL run.

And finally, the thread is why N900 is lacking in OVI store and Extras, not extras-devel. The reason that is is this:

* OVI sucks
* OVI doesn't take a whole load of cards/payment methods
* OVI is beta
* OVI starts you off in the negative
* OVI has approval to enter, but has no disapproval for bad apps.

And as long as the commercial part of the app mechanics is busted, you are reduced to begging. Sure, some free stuff is nice and wide, but they have amassed their awsomeness through years, some through decades.

Firefox started 2003 (7 years), standing on Mozilla's shoulders, standing on Gecko's. Apache started 1996 (14 years). PostgreSQL prototyped in 1988, released in 1989 (21 years). Qt is being developed since 1991, commercially.

Open Office took 10 years to get where it is, in spite of the fact that it's free office, the wet dream of every company out there, runs on who-knows-how-many-platforms, has 110 languages, and is a walking commercial for the Oracle Open Office, 100$ a pop, with a minimum order of 100 pieces. So it is, indirectly, commercially driven by damn Oracle and Sun.

(Oh, and, the fact that they support .doc was a plus, but the fact that MS Office and Windows 7 now support OD* is even better. Not everyone has that kind of stuff going for them)

We don't have that long. M5 was out in November. Until December there were virtually no users. Jan-June, that 6 months, out of which 2 had Qt locked/help back, more had optification issues, so, basically, we're a few months old.

Oh, and, out of those 3-4 months, 2 we spent after they announced M5 is dead, long live MeeGo (Feb 2010).

That's why there are no apps in OVI and Extras. Not because User #234 commented while being upset.