It's a land rush - suggest ways to include ordinary users that takes into account they might come from MeeGo-deriatives like Nokia MeeGo.

We're also responsible for making the future happen and this is what I had hoped the maemo.org council would have been pioneers within, proposing tangible ways to deal with things like that. - It is afterall what we're experts in and has merit in.

Also, an important part: volunteer for kickstarting the project/proposal in question.

I realize I'm a relative n00b here, less than a year. And I'm just a longtime linux user, not a developer. But I've seen enough of what's happening I'd still like to put in my 2 cents, strictly from a user's perspective.

My list of Maemo missteps and what needs to be done. Mostly obvious of course, some are a little OT, listed just to summarize my impressions and in no particular order, as they pop out of my damaged psyche:

1. Marketing and communicaton - not enough of either and both done poorly.

2. The 'Step 4 of 5' thing has been a complete, confusing disaster. A pubic relations nightmare Nokia should've seen coming before anyone said it.

3. Nokia should bite the bullet and skip releasing MeeGo/Harmatten. It's months away from release and already being trashed as a dead-end OS. There's a lot to lose here and little to be gained.

4. Some of the best, finished parts of Harmatten should be put into a Maemo update and released as Maemo 5.5 or 6 and made available as a regular OTA update on the N900. That would gain a lotta good PR, and show that, see - Nokia really is supporting the N900! Would quiet a lot of criticism.

5. Don't release anything called MeeGo on any new device until it really is real, full-fledged MeeGo, meaning rpm instead of deb packaging, new UI, etc. A half-Maemo half-MeeGo bastard stepchild will only confuse and dismay everyone and be yet another PR disaster. It's lose-lose all the way.

6. If the marketing bean-counters insist a new high-end device must be released before MeeGo is really ready, then Maemo 5.5 or 6 could be used to fill in that gap with less confusion that a MeeGo/Harmatten hybrid. I personally think releasing anything else before a real MeeGo release is ready would be a mistake, Nokia should just burn the midnight oil and get MeeGo ready ASAP, but it would buy some time to give the first real MeeGo release the polish it will need to impress.

7. The first real MeeGo device released must be a monster! And I don't meant huge, I mean truly state-of-the-art hardware. From the start, the MeeGo OS must be polished, full-featured and eye-catching. It must include (to me) silly but common features like individual ringtones and MMS to minimize whiners migrating from other phones or platforms. Nothing but a killer MeeGo release will generate the buzz required to jump-start the interest it will need from the press, public, and by extension, developers.

8. Complete fail of Ovi everything. Unbelievable mess for a company that says it wants to make a serious move into services. The inability of so many to even use a good credit card to buy a N900 or apps for it in Ovi Store is utterly unacceptable and well, downright weird.

9. Monkey Boy Ballmer may be a dancin' fool but he was right about developers and Nokia should make ease of use for them the #1 priority. Nokia has bet the farm on Qt. It must succeed. Yet apparently there's still a failure to even unify all documentation, toolkits and other development software, etc. in a single place. And there's some poor documentation, even now? Again, I'm not a developer and maybe I've missed it, but developers wanting to use Qt should be able to bookmark one site and find links to and complete, well-written documentation for everything they need. The KISS rule must apply.

Completely agree with the above points.

But can a leopard change its spots?

It can paint stripes and call itself MeeGo... errm... zebra!

Thank you. There is also some consideration for Diablo, which Qwerty12 says is more open than Fremantle. I don't know at this point but it's good that people are thinking about it.

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Yes, I agree that there are these divergent communities aligned with 1) legacy maemo UI; 2) OSS; 3) DUI/MeeGo touch. This is not to say they are not complementary and supportive of each other. It is largely a natural consequence of the decision Nokia made to have more open (allegedly) OS and then differentiating UI/UX, apps and services on top of it.

I don't think distancing is good, but I also don't know if a messy merger this year is the best way forward. I'm feeling pressure to be dragged into MeeGo which, given history, makes me more reluctant (not that I have much to contribute to the OS anyway). I think it's best for me to stay with maemo.org for awhile. Perhaps it is best to let each community digest and adjust, and when and if there is a decision to do a merger, to do it in a way where the majority of people are happily "merged".

You've generalised my statement quite a bit. I said that some components that were in Diablo are less open in Fremantle because they now depend on functionality from closed-source libraries. (To clarify: In things like Hildon Desktop, I mean closed source libraries from Nokia; not libraries from external entities.)

That said, some new components introduced (like fmtx-middleware, calendar-ui) are closed. OTOH, some new components like MAFW are open.

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps there should be a separate thread at some point over in the proper forum to discuss the feasibility of Diablo on MeeGo.

I know this MeeGo team is working on something for N900 users. Wait for the MeeGo Handset UX to be published and you will see - and try if you wish.

Thanks to this, making MeeGo-Harmattan apps work on the N900 will be much easier. Each app is a case but overall the situation looks good in technical terms. More when the MeeGo-Harmattan apps are published.

The current assumption is that N900 users will be able to choose between running Maemo 5, MeeGo 1.1 or MeeGo-Harmattan UX including apps on top of the MeeGo base. We'll see, the first step is to run MeeGo 1.1 unstable with the Handset UX.

About MeeGo-Harmattan apps being compiled for Maemo 5: you say it's easy but based on which facts? By definition it is simpler to compile MeeGo-Harmattan apps for MeeGo since they share an API. Don't get obsessed by the packaging. Then again, each app is a case and we will be able to discuss specific apps once they are released.

Ah yes, sorry. The maintainers of Qt for Maemo 5 are willing to get Qt 4.7 in good shape, yes. How well this will go depends of course of the results and feedback from the packages in extras-devel. They are optimistic and really willing to see Qt 4.7 across Maemo, MeeGo, MeeGo-Harmattan and Symbian.

If Qt developers are willing to develop apps using Qt 4.7 and specifically QML on the N900, the maintainers are willing to see the results and get your feedback.

Quote? As far as I'm aware I always talk about software and announced devices. In this thread I have talked about the great benefits MeeGo will bring - to N900 users too.