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	w00t	2014-08-28 , 18:19
	Posts: 1,055 \| Thanked: 4,107 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ Norway	#241

Originally Posted by Morpog

You can see and feel the openess of Jolla on IRC, and the open source parts of MER, Nemomobile, SailfishOS repos and upstream stuff like Qt. Even TJC has some bits of open feeling. Why nobody sees that? Do you get that anywhere else? And no, yearly codedrops don't count.

There are some things I think Jolla does very well.

Working with upstream projects in collaboration with other stakeholders is generally a pretty good example of that. We've seen a pretty good track record with ofono (+ Ubuntu Touch), Qt (+ Qt Project), and a bunch of other projects.

I also think Jolla do a reasonable (if not great) job at communicating upcoming software progress, considering how frequent releases are: changes are always visible in the repositories, a view into the next update's changes is generally available before it comes (still a relatively new development and not a perfect one), larger technical announcements are sometimes made if there's any hint of problem or interest. And there's changelogs with a fair amount of detail at release time.

But there's also things that I think could be done better.

In particular, I think things like a public platform SDK (similar to what is generally used internally for development at the OS level) could be helpful.

I'd also like to see some work done on making a more cohesive OS development environment (software is available from a spatter of repositories all over the place, often with incredibly blurry lines about what goes where - sometimes to the point of being completely arbitrary) and so on and so forth...

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	w00t	2014-08-28 , 18:21
	Posts: 1,055 \| Thanked: 4,107 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ Norway	#242

Originally Posted by pango

I guess it shouldn't be. Jolla has been shown to try and protect their pristine image in ways that I have a hard time fitting with an idea of modern, agile, social tech company. They are indeed quite closed and controlled in their comms policy, very old world aside from the fluffy stuff. I'd rather see something different from them.

I don't think I know of *any* company that would happily say "sure, here's a prototype of software we might ship in two months. It crashes all the time, don't mind that. I promise the real software doesn't do that."

That's a way to end up going out of business really fast, as well as being really open at the same time.

Originally Posted by pango

No no, I do think it warrants care. I just think it was shooting a fly with artillery in the context of a guy loaning his Jolla to a blogger.

Why does it matter who this person is? If they're about to write a review, which thanks to the "modern, agile, social tech" internet, can appear all over the world if it goes viral, then they need to go through just the same precautions as anyone else: they must be running stable software, and they must go through the tutorial. I don't see why that's such a major drama for you.

Originally Posted by pango

There appears to be a pretty controlling culture within Jolla.

I think if that's your opinion, then instead of trying to make any more points, I'll just say that it's time to say that we'll have to agree to disagree. And I think the fact that you're getting actual replies from past and present employees on this thread should speak volumes about that.

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pango	2014-08-28 , 18:26
Posts: 114 \| Thanked: 37 times \| Joined on Aug 2014	#243

Originally Posted by RFS-81

Fine, but offering that one thought for 24 pages? I'm sure it's more than enough for Jolla to pick it up, if they're interested.

It's called discussion. Sometimes it takes a lot of give and take to get anywhere - and that goes both ways of course, for me to be understood, but also for me to understand others and to learn from them as well.

I think the exchange with Jolla's (?) Philippe was useful and a single or two messages wouldn't have sufficed. Maybe they got something out of it, maybe they didn't. I think I've gained some ideas from this thread, beginning with jalyst's great formulations in his post that made me, a lurker think about this as well (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...1&postcount=29).

Personally I'm not a big fan of fk_lx's rampage for example, but I'd hardly call participation in a forum thread for a few days excessive either. I think in this thread fk_lx has made some good points too.

	Dave999	2014-08-28 , 18:29
	Posts: 7,075 \| Thanked: 9,073 times \| Joined on Oct 2009 @ Moon! It's not the East or the West side... it's the Dark Side	#244

Woot is going on here?

Get it..!?!

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pango	2014-08-28 , 18:33
Posts: 114 \| Thanked: 37 times \| Joined on Aug 2014	#245

Originally Posted by w00t

I don't think I know of *any* company that would happily say "sure, here's a prototype of software we might ship in two months. It crashes all the time, don't mind that. I promise the real software doesn't do that."

That's a way to end up going out of business really fast, as well as being really open at the same time.

Why is Jolla always compared to the mythical "any company". I thought they were the unlike company.

Anyway, let's not make too much of this. It is just one more of those examples where Jolla ends up looking a little weird and I think they could loosen it up a little.

But this is not a big deal, just a detail that came up. Details speak of culture.

Originally Posted by w00t

Why does it matter who this person is? If they're about to write a review, which thanks to the "modern, agile, social tech" internet, can appear all over the world if it goes viral, then they need to go through just the same precautions as anyone else: they must be running stable software, and they must go through the tutorial. I don't see why that's such a major drama for you.

Reach matters, but also hygiene matters. Treating a device loan to a blogger as a rigid press exercise may not be the best PR either. It makes you look stuffy.

Originally Posted by w00t

I think if that's your opinion, then instead of trying to make any more points, I'll just say that it's time to say that we'll have to agree to disagree. And I think the fact that you're getting actual replies from past and present employees on this thread should speak volumes about that.

Oh, I think Philippe's exchange was quite useful, hopefully for both of us. Maybe he can yell some more inside Jolla and make a change from within to those nontransparent ways of theirs. Believe it or not, I'd actually be happy if that were to happen.

pango	2014-08-28 , 18:35
Posts: 114 \| Thanked: 37 times \| Joined on Aug 2014	#246

Originally Posted by w00t

There are some things I think Jolla does very well.

Working with upstream projects in collaboration with other stakeholders is generally a pretty good example of that. We've seen a pretty good track record with ofono (+ Ubuntu Touch), Qt (+ Qt Project), and a bunch of other projects.

I also think Jolla do a reasonable (if not great) job at communicating upcoming software progress, considering how frequent releases are: changes are always visible in the repositories, a view into the next update's changes is generally available before it comes (still a relatively new development and not a perfect one), larger technical announcements are sometimes made if there's any hint of problem or interest. And there's changelogs with a fair amount of detail at release time.

But there's also things that I think could be done better.

In particular, I think things like a public platform SDK (similar to what is generally used internally for development at the OS level) could be helpful.

I'd also like to see some work done on making a more cohesive OS development environment (software is available from a spatter of repositories all over the place, often with incredibly blurry lines about what goes where - sometimes to the point of being completely arbitrary) and so on and so forth...

Aside from some surprising moves in not opening up software (and certain questionable email blocking activities), I agree Jolla's FOSS participation is good. Mostly my concerns about their closed nature as communicators is related to Jolla's consumer device business and corporate strategy/culture.

Their software engineers are probably communicating just fine. Except when they are not.

pango	2014-08-28 , 19:26
Posts: 114 \| Thanked: 37 times \| Joined on Aug 2014	#247

Apparently they do read:

Steskeeps @ Twitter:

https://twitter.com/stskeeps

Not that we get any contribution beyond a fluffy tweet?

I beg to differ (with that quote from this thread), by the way. Transparency and brutal honesty from Marc might have healed many a grievance that silence or vaguessness let grow.

But then, Stskeeps likes to talk about Jesus:

http://www.merproject.org/logs/%23jo...05-28T21:16:37

JulmaHerra	2014-08-28 , 19:38
Posts: 285 \| Thanked: 1,900 times \| Joined on Feb 2010	#248

Originally Posted by pango

Again, this is a case where Jolla themselves said they know the root cause. Nobody was asking them to comment on each and every phone that might be sent in, simply to provide an explanation as to what kind of root cause that was - so that people know what they are sending their phones in for.

If my SIM-card slot is not working, I surely know why I'm sending it to be repaired, don't I?

I think there is perfectly good balance out there to be struck between transparent, open and respectful community relations and comms on one hand, and business interests on the other.

Problem is that you define that balance in one way, others define it the other way. End result is that it's impossible to strike a balance that suits everybody. Now the line has been drawn somewhere and it doesn't suit you, even if it's about information which wouldn't help the community in any way (because everything relating to fixing it are out of community's hands, being hardware and not software issue). I simply don't see any sense on concentrating so much effort extracting information that you cannot use in any sensible way. I would understand this criticism if it was about some software bits or architectural things which prevent people of making new apps or getting things to work.

As for community relations and communications failures, how is the current strategy working for Jolla? Any disgruntled people out there? I know there are people on this thread who believe Jolla couldn't have done any better and it is an impossible mission to do any better, but I do think they could have done better. Some of the vitriol could have been avoided. Less secrecy would be one key. Now the silence leaves voids that will be filled by other voices.

There are always disgruntled people. It's a fact of life, you simply cannot please them all and if you try to do it, you end up pleasing nobody. Can they do better? Probably. However, putting effort on deeply explaining some SIM-card problem just because "it's nice to know" is not about improving things but adding noise.

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	benny1967	2014-08-28 , 19:59
	Posts: 3,790 \| Thanked: 5,718 times \| Joined on Mar 2006 @ Vienna, Austria	#249

Originally Posted by pango

Is this true? I did not know about this. Philippe?

That sounds very strange and indeed ...

Oh dear.

Oh Jesus!
Now is this true?
Really?

That sounds very strange indeed. That they want to make sure test devices have the latest stable production firmware and not some internal, half-baked one that'll never make it beyond testing. How strange. Sure, who knows what sailors hacked on their own devices? Maybe they even installed Google services that must not be part of any Jolla distribution? But hey, how incredible bureaucratic of Jolla to make sure testers and reviewers get the same experience as paying customers. Hard to believ indeed.