Good question. Status is very same than on my last post. After that I haven't compiled anything more for Maemo Reloaded".

Lately I have had less time for Maemo and I haven't used that time for Maemo Reloaded.

I think there must be some bigger plan until I will continue with this.
Maemo5 is outdated, which means there are plenty of new and interesting floss-code we can't utilize. But Maemo5 is not pathologically outdated, there are lots of floss-code (both new and old) which we can use!
(How else you define 'outdated'? I define uptodate="How easily you can compile any random floss-package for it")
-> Issue1: Compiling package for Maemo is harder

There are too few Maemo developers to make miracles. But there are still developers working on Maemo!
-> Issue2: No new packages for Maemo.

I thought that 'merging' Maemo back to the Debian those issues would be solved. Another solution is toss whole Maemo and use pure Debian (People have done much for this, but I think it is not ready). And yet another way is toss Maemo, and use pure Arc (or what not distro).

I'll agree with issue 1, for me uptodate="most FOSS apps from an LTS distro will build without complicated tweaks." Using workarounds for a newer debhelper - I can cope with it, but if debhelper is too old to build an app - it's not up to date. If I need to port n libs, but they'll allow themselves to be ported - ok. If the lib is a core lib and can't be upgraded - not up to date.

But I don't think rebasing Maemo will fix the issue 2. Most devs need only Qt4/Qt5/Gtk plus some core libraries. The problems is that too few devs want to develop for Maemo. A major blocker could be Qt5 unavailable in extras, because of lack of extras-thumb

But let's stop for a moment... Do we need some new apps for Maemo? I guess we could find some, but these are not myriads. Mostly these are lacks of particular features, for example thread view in Modest, offline nav in modRana, full-featured voice nav, so big apps. Or a decent browser upgrade. Having the system upgraded would possibly improve their performance, but if no one wants to add threads in modest now, he won't do it when he has libc6 2.15 and glib 2.35. It could ease up porting software - if you can use SparQl for tracker, or the Harmattan signon libraries, it'll be easier for you to port it and there's greater chance you'll proceed to do it.

The problem is how to motivate people to develop the needed software. Unfortunately there's no Maemo Coding Competition. Maybe we should make a list of what we need, make a community fund to pay the dev a couple of beers (after they complete a task! - might be with other's help), in other words - make developing for Maemo attractive. FOSS is great, but you have to have money be able to develop it.

From another point of view, I see no use in throwing Maemo away - who's gonna redo the UI from scratch?

Summing up, rebasing the whole system, in other words upgrading it, won't be a panacea for all problems, but might give a little boost for what's under the hood.

Feel free to add your thoughts, and/or move it into the Brainstorm section.

only nokia devs can work for maemo? or any developer can?

stupid idea - why not make facebook account as maemo or anything and just go on additing developers around the world. i know somehow it will workout. it worth a try.

seanmcken: Feel free to do it. Anyone can develop for Maemo. And feel free to learn Qt and contribute yourself. (Or you can go for Gtk/Hildon/Cairo if you prefer them)

Aapo: fmg seems to be working on kernel 3.x booting on Fremantle. Maybe he's the one you could talk to about some bigger plan about Maemo Reloaded.

Yeah... But is anyone also allowed to contribute? Or only those who fit some random criteria? (I seem to remember that having to be available on IRC 24/7 was mentioned at least once. That pretty much rules out about 90% of the already limited set of the potential candidates. Those who work and/or have families, for example.)

You mean developing for CSSU? But anyone can try developing an app. If it's a big app - a couple of tmo-ers can cooperate - just like me and Android_808 did with the microb replacement. I've never heard that someone needs to be 24/7 on IRC. About contributing to Maemo Reloaded - you'd have to ask Aapo.

Yes, CSSU. That IRC thing is what I gathered from some heated exchange between two TMOers who may not have been the best of friends (no names ) so it may have been sexed up a bit but I remember my reaction to that was, "even if only 10% of that is true, there is no way I could possibly offer anywhere near that level of commitment, especially since there is also some learning curve to climb, so I won't even try."

But sorry, you are right, this is OT. I apologize, I misread post #13. As far as this thread's topic is concerned, I'm afraid it is "slightly" over my head, otherwise I would have tried contacting Aapo already.

Well, it's clear that CSSU is for what it is, just (considered) stable updates without (most of the time) disruption of the original Maemo experience. And the way people work on it is up to the developers involved (mostly).

But that doesn't mean that a different (or not?) group of guys can provide alternate upgrades (such as this Debian based packages) on top of that.

If some guys can agreed to set up a new repository (out of Hildon Foundation's servers) with all this stuff so users can just apt-get upgrade to it that would be a great step forward.

Or a repository that actually depends on CSS Thumb for applications that are built with newer toolchain. There's no need to set up an autobuilder, that requires a lot of work and maintenance, just a repo to store all those packages that are randomly thrown in the forums.