Notices

YES! That's exactly what we need! Positive examples! Show them potential developers that there ARE alternatives out there. Get them to realise that, while probably not enough to support you, you can earn some fine pocket money by developing for the N900.

Spread it!

Just making sure that this was meant for the general reader, not in direct response to me, for then you would be preaching to the choir. I'm one of the most avid DRM enemies on these forums...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that everybody who writes a line of code and uploads it to the repositories is entitled to anything.
(Though neither the number of lines, nor the complexity nor whether it's new software or recompiled one really matters - what's important in the end is whether it's useful for the customer.)

Nobody wants to be thanked just because it's free, regardless of the quality of an app - constructive criticism to a product is always welcome, and I know few "serious" developers who don't appreciate it.

But there's a fine line between criticism and flaming someone for being "tha worst dev eva so stop wastin repos space with ya ****". And the most harmful thing is generalising free software as "junk by definition" - imagine you're a new developer bracing yourself to release something for this platform and then you read that people think that (no matter how much effort is put into your project) it's going to be junk because it's free...

We have quite a few great applications in the repositories that were made by a single developer, and look at some of the top apps on other mobile platforms: Most of them have a development team of no more than two or three members.

We're not talking about PC games here, but mobile applications, which do pretty well with 1-3 developers.

And who ever talked about not listening to the opinions of the users? Just because there are a handful of quite vocal flamers out there who love to bash projects that doesn't mean that everybody thinks that one-man-applications are junk.

Actually, the less members are in a project team, the higher the probability that the team will LISTEN to user opinions. Look at all the "what do you want for the next release" threads out there, most of which are made by single developers.

I don't remember posting that developers don't get help in this community...

What I wrote was:

Developers get thanks, karma, help, whatever - thus the fuzzy feelings.

Developers get flames, generalisations, and are greeted by "piss off" - thus the disappearance of the fuzzy feelings.

Please read again. I did not say there are only 5 users. I explicitly stated that we have a LOT of users out there and that a LOT of users are appreciating the efforts put into developing good applications.

But thanks to all this talk about how maemo was dead developers who just joined this community THINK that there are no users out there, and that's exactly the problem. WE make them believe it's not worth developing for maemo even though it IS.

Why do you care about why a developer is doing what he's doing? Does someone who does it for spreading the word about "his greatness" develop sub-par applications because of it?

There are more than enough GREAT developers out there who do it for the kick of getting know. Heck, developers being egomaniacs is one of the big IT clichés!

Easier than blaming Nokia?

Again, please re-read my post. I posted what a developers SEES when he's new to maemo and the reasons that throw off potential new developers.

The problem of this community is not that there's no support for developers. It's not that there's no userbase. It's not that there's nothing to be gained from working on maemo applications.

There's LOTS of support, MANY people who would use a good application, MORE THAN ENOUGH money, fame, exposure to be gained.

But WE AS A COMMUNITY make it LOOK like this is a dead platform inhabited by a mere handful of ungrateful zombies. And that image is what we have to fight in order to attract new developers.

I never said you had to agree, but you also dismiss my opinions as invalid enough to tell me to go away. The discussion isn't yours alone to tell me to go away. If I take offense, it's because of your posturing. Argue away, otherwise. I'm not above being deprecated (even self-deprecating) except when you pretend you aren't and when you tell me I should begone altogether. :P That's not being on my side, despite any agreement on the topics.

Anyway, this isn't a Nokia forum--but it WAS the ITT and it IS the Maemo forum. Prey tell, what devices DO we run Maemo on? What do YOU run it on?

I disagree about the topic of constructive criticism. Despite the fact that there ARE Nokia folks who DO go through here and read, why would you want to stop any of the debates and rants? Whether or not Nokia pays attention, knowing that this is the Maemo community's forum, is just as much an important point as anything else that goes on here. If they never bother to read and consider the things said in the forums says just as much about what they think of the community itself. This probably shouldn't be the ONLY barometric to customers and developers, but it should speak volumes.

I thought I was relentlessly pointing out that the community and customers should be supported better by Nokia. You're a terrible mind reader.

I'm clearly pointing out that Nokia would be much better served by getting OUT of the operating system, letting the community handle that and let it flourish on its own and get back to the business of crusading for more open-source friendly hardware and providing developers with what they want so that customers can get what they want. If pointing out these issues drives developers away, it might be for a good reason. In an analogy, you can till and plant your seeds--but you're very unlikely to get a good harvest unless you nurture what you've planted.

What's with all those Fixed in Fremantle and WONTFIXES and other various bugs that I'm still living with? Know any Maemo developers that can fix it outside of Nokia? (Hell, even INSIDE Nokia?) How do you suggest anything will get fixed on my device by bringing on developers while the OS is riddled with closed dependencies and drivers?

So, I'm here because I wanted to be able to wait out two years and several Nokia purchases to tell you I predicted how it would go badly? Uhhh. heh. No. Like I said, you're awful at this mind reading games. That's alright, most people aren't. Neither am I. So, what are you doing here? Trying to attract developers? How are you doing it? How's it going so far?

I'm there. I've read stuff and I've maybe commented once on something. I just not much to say yet. It's not like there's anything for me to try on my N800. I'm cynical about it right now, but I have a small sliver of hope for it yet and I'm hesitant to complain about anything if I can't even use it. Dead or not, where else would you recommend I hang around if I'm on an N800 running Maemo, other than maemo.org--At least until I see MeeGo running on it (or another device I might want).

You've clearly not followed my comments enough to read that although I think my Motorola Droid is an EXCELLENT phone, the N800 (and even N900) are far more suitable little computers. It's shameful that Nokia took an excellent, relatively rare market that they pioneered and ruined it. Pointing that out isn't the same as telling developers to stay away. It IS pointing out the shortcomings--something that Nokia and Maemo could fix. Complaining to Nokia has done very little and Maemo is tied to Nokia's devices if you intend to run the OS in any meaningful way.

Why are you taking it so personally that people have complaints about this platform? And why are you insisting that they should withhold pointing out their experiences with using Maemo on Nokia hardware?

Yep, right, I did. No reason to read on if that's how you want to see it. Have a nice day.

Comparing android market, iOS app store and the maemo extras I have reached the following conclusion. There are a million apps for the android and iOS but the quality of a great percentage of those apps is below average. And i don't mean the graphics. I mean the actual usefulness. If i carry a 160 gram brick in my pocket I want it to almost replace my netbook. As stated in the adobe website only the nexus one is capable of full flash. I couldn't find a decent ftp app for the iOS. Almost all of the free apps in both market and app store are merely stripped down or demos of a paid app. On the contrary each time I check extras I find one or two new apps that are really useful. For most of them there are no alternatives in other platforms. And they are all free. No disabled features no ads nothing. No other device has a full spreadsheet app, even office mobile for wm is poor compared to gnumeric. Mypaint is something you can find in no mobile device. All major browsers can be run on maemo. It is not perfect, I am sure more apps can come (eg the gimp) but let's stop asking for just a bigger number of apps. I wouldn't like the money making noise of the app store, all that crap that hides away the really useful stuff. Let's keep the quality up, focus on migrating the existing apps to meego or ubuntu mobile (because inevitably maemo is going to fade away).
________
Milana cam

it has been months already, i hope nokia won't abondon this just like what they did with the ngage

For The Gimp, try Easy Debian.

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.

I did, and I also like Ice Weasel, and OOo, but they are quite slow, quite large, take a minute to start and some crash because they are basically hacked into the N900.

They don't replace actual N900/Maemo apps. For example, Ice Weasel crashes on flash, OOo has some options that ram it into the ground, some dialogs don't fit, so there's the options you can never toggle problem. On the plus side, real addons!

A very good aid, but not the answer.

@qwazix

Oh, you mean like vuvuzela, moobox, candle, etc?

Heh.

Anyway, some platform has mostly free stuff, but few apps, another has a truckload, but most cost. I don't see this as a no-brainer.

Besides, they don't have MyPaint because it's a Linux app, but they have equivalents. Also, they have FTP, as well a SSH, VNC, VPN. Not exactly poor.

So does WM.

As for office, WM has it, iPhone has it. Android is a Linux OS, so it has the same issues as us, but they are Google-based, so I'm guessing online editing comes natural.

While I agree that asking for quantity is wrong, let's be fair, it's not like they have all-quantity-and-no-quality.

WoW! Lots of Essays... Nice essays..

N900 + Community = Living
N900 - Community = Dead

N900 + Community - Nokia Support = ?
N900 + ( MeeGo - Community ) = dead