Certainly coporations have made great contributions to open source, I agree. Many corporations have contributed to Linux along the way, and that is GREAT. Nokia runs the whole show with Maemo though, it is not just contributing peices here and there to something that it doesnt own, Nokia calls the shots. If that had been the case with Linux along the way, I do not believe things would be the way they are now.

Zerojay, the PANDORA is being released by a corporate entity created just for the production of the device, it was really a group of enthusiasts that got together. But that is not what I am talking about, or are you telling me that a *real* corporation controls Angstrom linux?

Ultimately, Nokia is developing a product with Maemo, they are not CONTRIBUTING to something, they are DEVELOPING something for themselves. Maybe part of the problem is that Nokia is focused on the OS and the device, its possible that Google has a good thought that the same company that works on the OS shouldnt make the devices... but I am not sure. Google scares the hell out of me, and id trust Nokia to control an OS long before I would trust Google to.

This is way off topic though, I wanted to present the pandora as an alternative. Someone had said I would still need to carry a phone, and asked why I would not just get the N900. I had explained why I would not do that, but I was not trying to start a great open source debate, I am certainly not qualified for that.

I have presented how I feel about it, im sure many people feel I am wrong, and more power to them. To each their own, this is how I feel and because of that, I wanted to let others know about a great device out there that could be an alternative for anyone that gives up on the N900.

Well, I'm glad you did mention the Pandora. It's good to see what else is happening, and the internals are so similar that it's quite relevant.

And yes, you're right to some extent that Nokia is running much of the Maemo show.

On the other hand, if Nokia closed the project tomorrow, Maemo would still be here for someone else to put onto different hardware.

Just as people are talking about hacking Android to run on the N900, perhaps as an app so you can run Android apps and Maemo apps side by side - it's not out of the question to talk about hacking Maemo to run on sufficiently powerful Android devices.

Not that anyone would want to at this time But maybe if it gets somewhere, we'll see some cross-pollination. Especially of app frameworks, libraries etc.

That's the beauty of Free Software.

Even if Nokia, Google et al want to control it, they can't completely control it.

yes. pandora is THE solution. if you live in china that is.

If you have checked Pandora website ... you may find people run into bricking their device without any clue too. It's way more hackish device than N900 I would say.

I have to say 'grass always looks greener on the other side'.

Yes, I did mention it was a more enthusiast/tech savvy device.

I wasnt aware anyone in the general public had the device though, could you point me in the direction of one such thread? I have checked the forums and have not seen any, perhaps I missed them.

I understand what you mean though, it is not for everyone. I would be suprised if people did not have issues with the pandora also. However, as noted in the specs, they do take this into consideration in the design:
un-brickable design with integrated boot loader for safe code experimentation

Well, the N900 is available now, while for the Pandora you will have to wait two more months ... so there's that...

PS: The irony of this thread's topic -- priceless!

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=27343

It's during the beginning of this year when some people got the dev boards. And I was investigating major OMAP3 platforms for development OpenGL ES2 apps.

Thought the posts might be buried somewhere since it's very old.

To develop OMAP3 apps, you have several choices:
1. iPhone 3GS: easy, convenient! but you live in the fruit basket cage.
2. Palm Pre: no SGX access even it has equipped the graphics card. and you shoot yourself to write javascript like apps if you wanna pursuit performance.
3. Pandora: yeah ... not available. And it does not have camera or other decent integrated HW sensors. I prefer to develop touch experience apps.
4. Beagle board: cheapest way and you can extent HW capabilities with modules. yet, it does not come with decent integrated HW sensors and touch.
5. Android: well ... I don't know any OMAP3 platform Android yet. Snapdragon platform might be worthwhile to take a look though. But it's not as open as Maemo.

It's like shopping ... you want everything come with well pack, go for Android of iPhone. If you like to customize built, go for Maemo.

But things may change since Qt is available on Maemo. I am actually writing Qt app on Mac and compile it under scratchbox (with another Linux box). Hopefully we can get rid of scratchbox soon. Only Qt-Creator is needed (Qt-Creator already added experimental Maemo support in the latest Git but not sure how to turn it on ...).

LoL, that poll is hilarious!

Well thanks for clarifying, was unawares that any of the 105 were released to people. Also, I appreciate the run down on developer considerations, I am wondering what you mean about not available though for the Pandora? Is that, no way to develop yet, or too dificult, or there will be no option after its released? I know it doesnt have a camera, but I thought it was resistive touch like the n900, along with the ability to add external sensors? Please forgive my ignorance if I am missing something.

I wouldnt be talking about n900s release problems with pandora. how was the speculation that pandora ships first a while ago?

@11/(14-17)/09:
No offense, but I bet you haven't developed any serious SW project yet. =P Spending the energy to hack the HW, I would rather focus on SW side. I have tried soldering HW packages loooong time ago for college project. Measuring those voltage output, stability and wakeup test ... Man, you definitely don't want to do it again. Even though I don't like QEMU at all.

You could order one Pandora and let me know how good the experience is. =]

And to develop your Pandora apps now without even a board on hand while Maemo is far less painful (even Beagle board is much friendly!)? (Note that Nokia has provided RDA service if you don't have device: http://www.forum.nokia.com/Technolog...Device_Access/)