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2010-12-09
, 12:20
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Posts: 1,671 |
Thanked: 11,478 times |
Joined on Jun 2008
@ Warsaw, Poland
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#92
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MeeGo is in future, work-in-progress, no apps and hardware support is incomplete.
This means n900 implementation is not practical for every-day use, questions over Nokia implemenation (e.g. how much will be closed-source)
Let's suppose that people start writing open-source versions of the stuff in maemo and is ready for everyday use.
Let's suppose when Meego is "formally" released we discover some apps are closed-source.
The Following 14 Users Say Thank You to Stskeeps For This Useful Post: | ||
attila77, cfh11, harrihakulinen, Helmuth, Jaffa, javispedro, johnel, lardman, mece, MohammadAG, OVK, pelago, timsamoff, Venemo |
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2010-12-09
, 14:13
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Posts: 2,121 |
Thanked: 1,540 times |
Joined on Mar 2008
@ Oxford, UK
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#93
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2010-12-09
, 14:28
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Posts: 2,535 |
Thanked: 6,681 times |
Joined on Mar 2008
@ UK
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#94
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Sometimes a developer doesn't want to write a whole calendar or media player or file manager or web browser from scratch, and just wants to fix a little bug or add a little feature to the existing Nokia-developed one. I understand that Nokia might want to keep these closed-source initially, but once they've lost interest in them, I think they should open them.
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2010-12-09
, 15:16
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Posts: 5,795 |
Thanked: 3,151 times |
Joined on Feb 2007
@ Agoura Hills Calif
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#95
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I agree with both points, but opening them consists of a number of steps: it's not just throwing the code over the wall:
- Has it been cleared by Legal?
- Does it expose any internal/company confidential information? (In particular, in the build system)
- Does Nokia have the right to open the source code up; or is some potentially owned by a third party?
- Has it been reviewed for any inappropriate comments in the source?
- ...
So releasing existing apps will cost Nokia real time & money; despite how sensible it seems to be (and I'd love to fix one or two bugs rather than help Mohammad in the effort to port the existing media player to Qt in an open source way)
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2010-12-09
, 17:31
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Posts: 2,473 |
Thanked: 12,265 times |
Joined on Oct 2009
@ Jerusalem, PS/IL
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#96
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Sometimes a developer doesn't want to write a whole calendar or media player or file manager or web browser from scratch, and just wants to fix a little bug or add a little feature to the existing Nokia-developed one. I understand that Nokia might want to keep these closed-source initially, but once they've lost interest in them, I think they should open them.
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2010-12-09
, 17:51
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Posts: 3,105 |
Thanked: 11,088 times |
Joined on Jul 2007
@ Mountain View (CA, USA)
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#97
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Ok, so that is useful information. Out of interest, what about the Meego reference media players, are they not considered worth using/working on?
Why nokia can not adopt this for its own products?
In my opinion, developing and producing an open OS based, open
community supported device and deliver it with closed source application is a big mistake.
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2010-12-09
, 19:07
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Posts: 968 |
Thanked: 974 times |
Joined on Nov 2008
@ Ohio
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#98
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The current situation is that you have Qt 4.7 in Maemo and MeeGo, still Qt 4.6 in Symbian and you also have a recent Nokia announcement saying that the company strategy is to focus on Qt, Qt Quick and HTML 5. Qt Quick is precisely the main difference between Qt 4.6 and 4.7. Once Symbian integrates Qt 4.7 with the corresponding wider support of Qt Mobility the cross-compatibility promise will be fundamentally there. Looking at the Qt roadmap it looks like Qt 4.8 (expected next year) will bring the full materialization of this promise.
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2010-12-09
, 19:51
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Posts: 4,783 |
Thanked: 1,253 times |
Joined on Aug 2007
@ norway
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#99
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The engine is open, the rest is an exercise left to the reader ;-)
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2010-12-09
, 20:27
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Posts: 3,404 |
Thanked: 4,474 times |
Joined on Oct 2005
@ Germany
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#100
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The developer community can contribute to community projects under development with a good chance to become a top notch media player, a top notch calendar, etc. The frameworks and APIs are all there - I would argue that the candidates as well.
Maemo is here, now, stable, many apps and mature.
This means any software the community develop can be run on the n900 now, source code is available and actually working.
MeeGo is in future, work-in-progress, no apps and hardware support is incomplete.
This means n900 implementation is not practical for every-day use, questions over Nokia implemenation (e.g. how much will be closed-source)
Let's suppose that people start writing open-source versions of the stuff in maemo and is ready for everyday use.
Let's suppose when Meego is "formally" released we discover some apps are closed-source.
Let's suppose Nokia release the "next-gen" Meego device and make the same decisions for "first-gen" meego devices as for the n900.
E.g. Nokia: "Meego 1.5 will obsolete by YouGo 1.0. We will endeavour to use your old meego device as a reference platform but will not be supported. Due to third-party and licence agreements the source code will not be available for Nokia developed software".
Nokia continue as they have before and that lovely shiny device you own now looks a little redundant.
At least with the community-written software "developed way back in the days of Maemo5/n900" the source is available and people will be able to keep porting the software to other devices and keep up with the pace of technology.
Imagine mohammadAG's media player running on the n900 and everyone enjoying contributed enhancements (e.g. gapless playback). Imagine Nokia release a meego device and people discover the media player is buggy and keeps crashing or does not support OGG files.
Just install mohammadAG's media player instead.
Finally we would have some future-proofing of our software collection and means no matter what "iteration" of device you own at least the software can benefit from years of refinement, improved quality and more features.
I mean honestly, this community has been through more reboots than The Matrix!
(Except Nokia haven't learned anything after each one)
(And Carrie-Anne Moss is not in it)
(And no bullet-time)
(you know what I mean)
I like cake.
Last edited by johnel; 2010-12-09 at 12:02.