PETITION to Nokia to release the full source code of the Maemo OS to this Community. - Page 30 - maemo.org

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9000	2011-05-30 , 15:15
Posts: 1,425 \| Thanked: 983 times \| Joined on May 2010 @ Hong Kong	#291

Originally Posted by Daneel

This thread is just a huge amount of wasted energy that could have been spent elsewhere, on something useful, like fighting for equal rights between cacti.

but you are still reading it regularly.

I really can't digest everything written but people are making good points here, even most of them are sidetracking.

Say I don't see how asking for release source code to Maemo community would make MeeGo supporters as jumpy as such and end up in Maemo vs MeeGo debates. I thought it's beneficial to both, no?

Just a simple poll to express your view, your dream whatsoever. Come on, even I personally don't even believe that would happen, but this is just a simple poll.

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momcilo	2011-05-30 , 15:19
Posts: 673 \| Thanked: 856 times \| Joined on Mar 2006	#292

Originally Posted by Stskeeps

This is also what we thought about the N8x0's, so pardon if I doubt it There is of course always the danger of a "N950" having same effect as N900 had to N8x0.

It will be "effected" for sure, there is no doubt in that

As an owner of 770 and n810, I did not like the multiple "effects" we had. I don't appreciate it at all.

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	Stskeeps	2011-05-30 , 15:21
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Originally Posted by joerg_rw

@stskeeps: how about inofficial out-of-major-release-turn bugfixes of single binaries then? Esp if they have a clearly traced down bug, that probably would need less than a man-hour to fix, given you've access to sources. Then inofficially "release" the binary and leave it up to community to do the evaluation and integration (can be done in cssu)
How about stupid plain header files that often come even without GPL as nobody really cares and never would deem them worth any (C)? Same procedure, push to $RANDOM, "leak" a URL to $RANDOM. No responsibility whatsoever for Nokia. Community will cheer.

Regarding binaries, I suggested something similar in the past and I think it might actually be possible to do without big hassle. But it requires someone doing the work and I'm not personally one to do it. Hardware support stuff, maybe, but GTK+/Hildon, no.

don't you think this would help a lot to feed us with some common sense about what's really up, and thus would help avoiding a lot of the high temperature that's arising from those issues seemingly getting completely ignored?

I'm trying to be informative about this process but people seem to overlook any blog post, tmo post or wiki post done about this.

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abill_uk	2011-05-30 , 15:25
Banned \| Posts: 3,412 \| Thanked: 1,043 times \| Joined on Feb 2010	#294

Carsten if you read joerg_rw last post and you will see the answer to that remark i made you did not understand fully.

Last edited by abill_uk; 2011-05-30 at 15:35.

abill_uk	2011-05-30 , 15:33
Banned \| Posts: 3,412 \| Thanked: 1,043 times \| Joined on Feb 2010	#295

Originally Posted by momcilo

What do you think about reviewing code in light of:
http://gpl-violations.org/faq/violation-faq.html

I very much doubt a heavy handed legal approach would do anything else but stall Nokia's rattled determination to hold fast, rather a friendly request to bring back at least some of the lost customer support by releasing some or all of the code they have full control over.

Last edited by abill_uk; 2011-05-30 at 15:37.

momcilo	2011-05-30 , 16:55
Posts: 673 \| Thanked: 856 times \| Joined on Mar 2006	#296

Originally Posted by abill_uk

I very much doubt a heavy handed legal approach would do anything else but stall Nokia's rattled determination to hold fast, rather a friendly request to bring back at least some of the lost customer support by releasing some or all of the code they have full control over.

Well based on the conflict you and stskeeps had, this is all but friendly conversation.

I am trying to offer reasonable course of actions. Please note that I don't wish to see a burning hole in place of Nokia's HQ.

Here is what I suggest: we do have option of asking politely(which includes 770, N800, N810 and N900), than hopefully receive polite yes/no answer from Nokia. Depending on the answer we can explore the further actions, including investigation if there is a clear GPL violation.

If there is an GPL violation, accepting of the "fixed" closed-sourced binaries would be equal to bribery.

On the other hand if there is no such violation, closed-source binary fixes are acceptable and only solution.

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	Texrat	2011-05-30 , 17:03
	Posts: 11,700 \| Thanked: 10,045 times \| Joined on Jun 2006 @ North Texas, USA	#297

Originally Posted by joerg_rw

@texrat: don't tell me you must not tell details about WHY Nokia allegedly can not disclose the sources. "It's too ugly" COME ON!!! Are you kidding?

You're misrepresenting what I said. That's rude.

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abill_uk	2011-05-30 , 17:09
Banned \| Posts: 3,412 \| Thanked: 1,043 times \| Joined on Feb 2010	#298

Originally Posted by momcilo

Well based on the conflict you and stskeeps had, this is all but friendly conversation.

I am trying to offer reasonable course of actions. Please note that I don't wish to see a burning hole in place of Nokia's HQ.

Here is what I suggest: we do have option of asking politely(which includes 770, N800, N810 and N900), than hopefully receive polite yes/no answer from Nokia. Depending on the answer we can explore the further actions, including investigation if there is a clear GPL violation.

If there is an GPL violation, accepting of the "fixed" closed-sourced binaries would be equal to bribery.

On the other hand if there is no such violation, closed-source binary fixes are acceptable and only solution.

Yes i fully understand where your coming from and going too BUT i have had many a litigation with various companies in my past and i can tell you once someone starts the legal routeof obtaining one's closed code they immediately button the hatches and give you a hard time closing the door on you forcing you to go the legal red tape routine.

Better to give them good enough reason to release that will be to there advantage, then if they agree, usually all the doors open for you.

I have a strong feeling this will be the best route with Nokia as they are no way short of legal representation.

I know for a fact they are reading this forum so they will know the situation going on and you just for-warned them hehehehe.

A lot of conditions would have to be met before release of anything for sure so more the reason for a soft approach, remember this code is not life threatning, or at least i hope not

demolition	2011-05-30 , 17:19
Posts: 560 \| Thanked: 422 times \| Joined on Mar 2011	#299

Originally Posted by joerg_rw

... I have to say it's frequently maemo's middleware that's our problem. [...] what's missing are the interfaces to the higher levels,
[...]
@stskeeps: how about inofficial out-of-major-release-turn bugfixes of single binaries then? Esp if they have a clearly traced down bug,[...]
How about stupid plain header files [...] No responsibility whatsoever for Nokia. Community will cheer.
[...]
Anyway thanks for bringing a bit of sense to this debate.
[...]
don't you think this would help a lot to feed us with some common sense about what's really up, and thus would help avoiding a lot of the high temperature that's arising from those issues seemingly getting completely ignored?

cheers
/jOERG

This seems sensible and dicussable. There's no massive grab for the whole lot, just a means to fix what doesn't work and extend what does, while the platform is still alive.

Originally Posted by Stskeeps

Regarding binaries, I suggested something similar in the past and I think it might actually be possible to do without big hassle. But it requires someone doing the work and I'm not personally one to do it. Hardware support stuff, maybe, but GTK+/Hildon, no.

I'm trying to be informative about this process but people seem to overlook any blog post, tmo post or wiki post done about this.

On matters like this there are a lot of posts to look at so some of us are likely to miss bits (large chunks sometimes), apologies all the same.

Thank you for previous endeavours. Did you get a clear answer of what might be permissible? As far as who attends to this, well, if your ISP goes on te blink, you don't ask the nice chap down the road if you can have his monthly bndwidth; no, you contact the ISP and get them to reconnect and refund for the lost days. As kind as you might be, no one is suggesting you should do this (or anyone who isn't paid by Nokia for the task at had).
We have all paid, or are still paying, for our devices so the onus is on the manufacturer: Nokia.

Apologies if you object to my précis-ing. Just trying to trim the post!

Re: the request being polled for, can anyone clarify what the extent of Maemo is so we roughly know what the vote is for? Nokia could quite easily say something like "you've got it already," if it's not set out very clearly.

Re: releases of code to date, can anyone (apart from joerg_rw) confirm that items that the Maemo team (council?) have requested for some time and would really help with OS fixes/extensions has been provided to the Meego team?

Re: action following a "no" from a request to Nokia (& partners), it's not just GPL etc. that might be up for debate (I don't know enough to confirm one way or the other), it's the functional discrepency between advertised and actual performance, which would be of contention.

I am concerned about the number of bugs which are in the camp "oh it'll be sorted for Harmattan" (or Meego). What about areas which end up going in a different direction so fixes can't work on the N900, for example incompatible hardware or drivers?

In this vein, I'm very worried about the treatment of the N900/M5, if the N[?ever]/M6 device arrives. I'm surprised there isn't a thread called something like "Maemo6: shrug or hug?".

- can anyone alay these worries with M6?

Last edited by demolition; 2011-05-30 at 17:43.

momcilo	2011-05-30 , 20:57
Posts: 673 \| Thanked: 856 times \| Joined on Mar 2006	#300

Originally Posted by abill_uk

Yes i fully understand where your coming from and going too BUT i have had many a litigation with various companies in my past and i can tell you once someone starts the legal routeof obtaining one's closed code they immediately button the hatches and give you a hard time closing the door on you forcing you to go the legal red tape routine.

It seems they have dug up already. At least based on what Stskeeps said on page 29. Besides, I remember one epic bug report requesting the opening of certain hardware components. There were like 200 posts there, and multiple open/close events.
All of them resolved as WONT FIX.
So I guess we are already in a red tape situation.

Originally Posted by abill_uk

Better to give them good enough reason to release that will be to there advantage, then if they agree, usually all the doors open for you.

I have a strong feeling this will be the best route with Nokia as they are no way short of legal representation.

I know for a fact they are reading this forum so they will know the situation going on and you just for-warned them hehehehe.

I like the fact they read it.

Originally Posted by abill_uk

A lot of conditions would have to be met before release of anything for sure so more the reason for a soft approach, remember this code is not life threatning, or at least i hope not .

It is worth to note that in this case we have following entities:
1. policy makers (they don't read it at all, they are most likely very remotely connected to the project itself)
2. policy enforcers (project manager/architect, legal departments etc.)
3. common developers

Group 1 is beyond the reach, they simple don't read it

Group 2 is the one that keeps us locked at the moment (red tape). We see smaller part of them. They might read it.

Antagonising people from group 3 does not help, they can not help. In most cases they will remain silent(which is understandable) or redirect us to the policy or group 2.

We all know we can grab a shotgun (GPL). Wether on not we can find ammunition to shoot the bear that's another thing (I don't intend to hurt anybody

).

Reviewing the code itself is not a trivial task, and most people simply don't bother even if there is a clear case of violation.

If I were to pursue this approach I would avoid doing by myself alone, since the effort may not be worth of the results. On the other hand, a company/project producing the open-source software used within maemo might be more than interested in pursuing the matters.

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