Maybe it's because one requires porting an existing OS and the other requires building a new OS

MeeGo 1.0, I believe, had a lot of re-work done on the CORE OS to make the foundation of MeeGo releasable for people to work on.

The RPM subset, package names, dependencies, file paths, etc were all decided on and built.

MeeGo, actually at it's spirit, is just the raw OS that anybody can drop any UI on and go with. That was the whole point. MeeGo will have the QT there, but if a device manufacturer or whatever writes their own interface not in QT theres nothing stopping them from releasing a phone with that.. for example.

MeeGo 1.0 was a rush out the door to have a working foundation to build on, and they slapped Moblins UI with some modifications to it on top. Not all that big of a deal really.

I would venture that currently the hardest part of building a good linux distribution today is the UX. I mean hell, following LFS and the multitude of package management systems available, you can have an entirely custom Linux distribution up and running within a couple of days.. with all stock stuff (like KDE or Gnome with personalized extras) straight from upstream. Maintaining that distro.. that's another discussion altogether.

So, I imagine that - instead of making everyone wait for MeeGo 1.0 to get started on the framework, they built the core - took the UX they had, patched it to work on the new OS, made little changes here and there to say "Look, its new" and released 1.0. Now they have bought themselves more time to have a total re-write of the UI into QT (if that's the direction they are going) and people can still get started on developing or doing whatever they want with the MeeGo base + QT Framework.

Now.. why they didn't just slap on Maemo 5's GTK UX onto MeeGo and release a Handset 1.0 version at the same time; to buy time until the beta QT stuff is out this month for release in 6... that I dunno. Releasing the Netbook with the previous build but telling people they're SOL for Handset until the new stuff is ready seems a little biased to me...

(this is all personal opinion based on what I've seen and may be 100% completely inaccurate or off-base with any decisions actually made regarding Nokia/Intel and MeeGo.)

Not because of it, but for QT. They already owned Trolltech and had a plan... I would argue about fragmentation too... You see - the whole world is fragmented - its all about choice. Or would you prefer declaring C++ a world leader and QT its prophet?

I'm going to imagine here as well. Thanks for the opening.

In another thread I said MeeGo was being built for a whole 'nother world and gave examples of how a handset could "talk" to inanimate objects or main street shops for instance in order to make our lives a bit easier in that future world. I felt some ridicule from these statements because nothing like that is being actively developed at the present time... however.

If I had explained further perhaps my thoughts would have been clearer and others would have had a better understanding of where I am coming from.

The 150 or so route techs on one of my companies projects still use WinMo2002 on B & W Symbol handhelds that must still be taken home, plugged into a cradle, and the days billing data manually transmitted to the home office over a POT, 56k modem.

Why? Certainly not because the simple increase in productivity can't justify equipment upgrades. It can. Hell, just the billing errors alone would justify that.

It isn't because of new equipment costs. A new color screen handheld capable of running the latest WinMo and that has near real time data transmission over GSM is half the purchase price of what the old units initially cost, and that is not even adjusting for inflation.

The biggest expense is the OS and server development licensing fees that must also be incurred when the management software that is used by the company is upgraded to take advantage of any new hardware.

There is an enormous demand out there for an open source OS that can run on handhelds. This commercial demand is from both large companies that already use handhelds in the field and are tired of these costs standing in the way of increased productivity as well as from smaller companies who have yet to deploy handhelds but soon will need to in order to be competitive.

I'm figurin' this is also being factored in to MeeGo's development approach.

***

Now how does an open source handheld OS figure into my imagined, future world?

Simply because I don't think we are all going to wake up some day and find new Spandex outfits in our closets and jet packs on our doorsteps.

These changes will come slowly at first and then whoosh! It will be as if it was always that way. Small businesses will lead the way with changes that will be the most visible to all of us but I doubt that Sal at the Pizza shop or Judy at the local Florist's will have the ability or the inclination to pay the many up front fees that would now be associated with having their shops interact with a customers iPhone or Microsoft device. (Whether or not they pay those fees directly or they are passed on by software developers.)

A Google device holds promise but customers may not like the appearance that Sal or Judy "know" the content of their most recent intimate email conversations simply because of the subject of the ads that Google will also push to their devices when they walk in. Google still needs to establish itself as a provider of quality physical goods as well. Virtual goodness is one thing, reliable hardware though is something else entirely different.

I'm thinkin' many different approaches will be taken in my imagined future world. I also imagine that you, I, Sal, and Judy will not have the opportunity to examine and freely choose from all of them if they are not built on open source.

Of course this may all just be a case of my imagination... runnin' away from me.

The truth is that recourses has been used to make one single device, running one single OS (Maemo 5, N900) that has a life span of less than a year. This is hardly a stable platform for any kind of development for any kind of developer within any stretch of the imagination. Then a new and better OS should be developed, based on Qt, Maemo 6. But that changed, taking a different course with MeeGo, but it shouldn't matter because the UI would be based on Qt, even though the distro is different from Maemo. Now it ends up that MeeGo for netbooks doesn't even use Qt, and probably never will. I mean, why redevelop something from scratch that unquestionably works very well as it is? it is a meaningless thing to do. The whole MeeGo thing seems completely random to me.