I think that some usable hardware is very important as well.

First of all, the motivation (from an "occasional software developers" view) to write a software that solves a particular issue is much higher when you have a device at hand that you use on a regular basis and on which you will use the software yourself.
Additionally, it is much easier to experiment, play around, and develop software if you really have some "hands-on" device you can run, test, and maybe even write code on.
Furthermore, when you use a device on a regular basis you are getting much more and better ideas of what kind of software might be missing or what new use-cases could open up, so creativity would also profit from this.
Also exploring new possiblities by messing with the inner bits of hardware and low-level software requires having some device one can tinker with.

With usable I mean that one can use a device on a regular basis.
Additionally, it should be publically available via "normal" sales channels.

For now we have the N900 and N9 which are really great devices but I think we also need some perspective in the longer term.

Vivaldi is a very nice example and effort, but personally I would also like some perspective in the N9 form-factor smart phone area.

Please excuse me if this is too off topic. But as we are discussing something that, in my opinion, will affect our (the maemo) future in the long term I felt like this should be mentioned.


Edit: Having real devices that can be used on a regular basis in everyday life is what distinguishes Maemo from all other Open Source "hand held" initiatives I know and was, at least for me, the primary reason to join this great community.

Well if Nokia aims to have any role, then Nokia has to release Nokia products that are suitable for us here, no?

I'm not going to be swept away by any WP7 or WP8 devices, so if that's all Nokia is going to trick me with, then forget about it.

If meltemi is going to be low end, like the current S40 devices, or the lowest of the S60, then that is not very exciting either.

Nokia had two good products running Harmattan, but only decided to sell the one that was less useful to me (and my wife). As a result I've not bought anything to replace my N900 and now my wife is on the lookout for a replacement for hers. At this stage Nokia has nothing to offer her, so she'll be jumping ship for something Android powered. I doubt she'll return to anything Nokia.

When my N900, and my brothers N900, will finally give up we will probably also jump ship for a hw keyboard Android.

I think Nokia's misfortunes can be easily seen in my family. 3-4 years ago in my extended family of 17 people, 16 had higher end Nokia's. People defected for Android and iPhone, so now only 3 of us have Nokia, and soon it'll drop to 2 (once my wife finds herself an Android).

Many other people out there will probably go the same way. Without a hw running Maemo/Meego (from Nokia or anyone else) there will not be a very prosperous future for this community and the whole discussion a moot point.

I would have to say it is my belief that we will need Nokia to play a greater supporting role in the future of maemo.org.

Maemo.org has a device identity with their NIT family and it has been Nokia who has provided us with their continued support for the last 7years, like many have said. Now I would agree that we could argue over what Nokia's idea of support is, but they have given us a common device for reference over that time.

Now keeping with ideas of looking for a suitable replacement reference device, the community would need to take in to consideration the support we have received when looking at other manufacturers and if can they provide a family line like we have become accustomed to? It's not that I don't appreciate the efforts from the people who make these tablets/devices such as the vivaldi but we see far too many of these companies come and go these days that I personally be wary of investing in them. It's not just the start up companies either just look at HP/palm, we would have called them a safe bet this time last year.

I guess my fear would be that if maemo.org agreed to back the vivaldi (or similar machine), then what would happen if they decided to close shop in 6months time? The community would have to re-do a lot of their hard work for the next reference device or continue with that as the reference model and creating a danger of forking projects.


Now whilst we all know that Elop has said they are not going going to make anymore meego handsets (for now) it would be better for nokia to show a more active role in supporting maemo.org to prevent the wide spread forking of maemo like I said above.

Not much of a problem, as their work is 100% FOSS (everyone can buy device from somewhere else and put their stack on it, *legally*), so anyone else - including us - may open "shop" as soon as they close it, without much hassle. which we can't say about Nokia binary blobs, unfortunately :/ Try now getting source code of something belonging 100% to Nokia and being no use to them - now or in future - and you'll get what I mean. They'll rather take it to the grave with them, than release for any use.

But we don't want to start another *this* discussion here, do we? In some matters, big companies are - and probably must - be unimaginably dumb, despite having smart employees. Paradox, eh?

/Estel

Disclaimer: I started this thread as a community member, on a Sunday after midnight and after some beers with other community members. My personal belief is that maemo.org can have an evolution as a reference location for mobile free software and hackable devices. Yes, I'm a Nokia employee but I'm a free software user and contributors as well, and for a quite longer period of time.

If you want to have an all-community discussion then let's go for it. If you'd rather end up in a dialog maemo.org vs Nokia then I'll have to wear my official Nokia shirt, and at the same stand back and wait for the community to discuss and decide "How will maemo.org introduce itself in 6 months?" - if a decision is needed at all.

Let me try again as community member.

And this is the point I was trying to reflect before: some members of this community are saying that Nokia plans are needed in order to plan maemo.org, while others are saying that maemo.org should plan the future without depending on Nokia plans.


Fully agree.

No matter what happens we need to make sure that we keep the community welcoming to everyone. This is what made tmo so appealing to the users of the N900 back in 2009 and that is what we need to go back to. A more holistic acceptance of anyone that comes here looking to be involved or ask for help. We never know who could show up and we wouldn't want to turn away our next javispedro or itsnotabigtruck.

You describe a binary scenario but is it so?

Nokia doesn't depend on maemo.org but Nokia is committed to sponsor the maintenance of this site.

Even the "participation" (not only from Nokia but from anybody) is related in the mid term to the scope of maemo.org. This scope is something that the community defines on its own. Is this strictly about Maemo the OS? Is this about the line of Nokia devices running Linux? Is it about Qt enabled mobile devices from Nokia or else? Is it about mobile OSS? Is it about hackable devices? Is it about... ?

Or maybe defining formally this scope is actually not needed and this community can evolve through ad hoc steps?

I think that You defined it here. No one have a FCKD idea of how future of hackable FOSS devices running Linux (not necessary QT, but why not, if it's possible?) will look like. Except for the fact, that many people - including me - is sure, that there *is* bright future for such devices.

Be it great device from any random company (most preferably, Nokia, but nothing seems to indicate that, for now), or something Vivaldi-like, we would stick to it, if it's made the way we like (as much FOSS and hackability as possible, extensibility/moddable, Linux - preferably mainstream kernel - based, etc).

So, generally, inclusive. I don't try to push You into "Nokia shirt" - as I prefer to talk with You as with Community Member - but there was some binary irritation turning hate towards Nokia, due to last few years mess. I think, that now it calmed up a bit, and everyone can care about own projects + collaborate where it's feasible, without shouting "You did that to us in the past!" (from both sides).

/Estel

"agreed to back" would mean having a subforum here, a reference in the homepage perhaps, the wiki pages that the own XYZ devices users would want create... That's it? Each product would have the life span their own users would like to give it.

The bottomline is: could other devices feel at home here?

Note that the boundaries are already blurring at the app developers levels, with the discussions around the Community OBS and the possibility of having Fremantle, Harmattan, Mer, etc targets hosted in a same server and compiled by the same build infrastructure. The technical solution being discussed can have one frontend for multiple targets (as an evolution of http://apps.formeego.org ) or it could offer (afaik) separate frontends for different targets. Independently from this, each product could have their own related client, like MeeCatalog for the N9.

Another way to pose the same question would be: does maemo.org have an interest in becoming a user space for the platforms / products using that Community OBS?

This is the exact problem we are facing in the Harmattan Community. My original home was suppose to be forum.meego.com, but that is a ghost town.

Most of the developers are here, but most people are telling me Fremantle is better, when I am heavily based on Fremantle. How am I a Harmattan user, a brother to Maemo, suppose to feel when I am not accepted here?

How would an iphone user feel here?

This is what I have been stressing overall, we need to fix this fragmentation and idea that it's better or it's worse or anything. We are here to do the same thing. We need to be a community, not split up amongst factions.

Until we don't fix this problem Other people won't feel welcome here either.