Sorry for the multi-reply.

> I tried the MicroB engine on the N800 browser (...) and found to be inferior

I'm not a browser performance expert but a quick answer is that it depends on what you look at. The Mozilla based browser will open properly many popular websites that Opera can't render totally (see all the rich AJAX family).

Think also that the Mozilla based browser released this summer was under development, explicitly imperfect to gather user feedback and bugs. I'm overall happy using the OS2008 browser. The fact of having an open source engine opens many perspectives in terms of development (including runtime, widgets, extensions...) that non-free alternatives can't offer in the same way.


> I don't get Nokia sometimes.

It's good to ask, then.

> They release the microb and RTcomm as open betas for us to do some free
> bug testing for them

It looks like someone forced you to download and test. If you perceive it like this, please don't feel exploited and refuse to use and report any feedback about software under development.

> but they do NOT release betas of any new firmwares?

Releasing one application under development (1-to-few packages with a simple relation of dependencies and a single owner) can't be compared to release a whole firmware under development (hundreds of packages, multiple owners, tc). In the way we work now, preparing such release would take a lot of resources.

We are considering the possibility of releasing the open source stack of the OS (aka maemo Linux) earlier to help developers integrating and testing their software earlier, and receive feedback & bugs from real users about the code under development. See http://desdeamericaconamor.org/blog/node/378 . Looks like simple to execute? Well, it's not.


> mostly I deal with things that can't be adequately tested in scratchbox.

Yes, we understand. This is one of the main reasons why we would push these early maemo images (NOT full firmware because including non-free software just complicate things from a licensing and operational point of view).

> *****s, the lot of them. You'd think a DEVELOPER would know Opera isn't open source.

Thanks for insulting me. Alright, what I meant is that Nokia is not partnering with Opera to bring their browser to Chinook/OS2008. btw I'm not a developer but I do know what is and what is not open source in the tablets OS.