This is also how would I like to take part - most probably by adding some substantial improvements to modRana, as I have done before in some of the previous competitions (for example offline routing support has been added as part of the most recent competition back in 2012).

If only new apps would be accepted I'm much less likely to take part in the competition due to ongoing projects.

Making it more likely that people take part in the competition
I have an idea that might help get more (especially not long-term Maemo) developers interested in the competition - what about getting the various developer tooling and library upgrades to a usable state ? Or at least properly document the most important of them in a single place.

For example there are various updated components:

• GCC 4.6 in some form
• GCC 4.8.1 in some form
• GCC 5, but only for Diablo/Maemo 4 (?)
• Python 2.7
  
• Python 3.x
• Qt 5.x

But I'm afraid that most of this is still not really production ready, or at least not without all users each manually performing various steps on their N900s before they can run an application making use of the new tools and libraries.

This effectively means that developers willing to join the competition would have to work with really outdated GCC (IIRC Autobuilder has GCC 4.2!!), Python 2.5, an old Q4 version with QtQuick 1.1, etc. They also can't make use of new GCC features, can't use modern Python, can't use Qt 5, can't use PyOtherSide, etc... At least as they actually want people to be able to run their apps. Not to mention the spotty availability of the SDK, fragile autobuilder, finding a distro that can run Python 2.5 these days, etc.

This issues might not be a problem for long term Maemo 5 application developers, as they are already setup & know the existing Maemo 5 technologies and their limitations.

But if we want newcomers with developers experience from other (more up to date) platforms, people porting stuff from outer platforms or even just cross platform application developers to take part in the competition, then I think something really needs to be done about the outdated tooling and library situation. Or else all those people will most likely just throw in the towel.

I would say everything which helps maemo to be up to date, bug free, extend features and application should be rewarded through the coding competition.
We need only to make specific categories.
And if there is some donations for prices we could also weight the categories. For example when we also add a categorie for writing wiki pages it is less work, so less weight. But we could involve more people from the community who are no developers.

I think in general one problem we have is the amount of developers and the good developers who have the knowledge to work on everything are to busy or have others priorities. And in the past the developers are not growing they are getting less

So here is the motivation for all developers. We need you to keep maemo alive. And would be nice to see maemo on other hardware. I think that in the future more people will get disappointed about the mass products which are limiting, make life more painful and spying your social life and consuming behavior.
When this happens we need to be ready to have a more up to date maemo and more hardware to attract people who are looking for an alternative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs

I will participate the cc. However due to my knowledge and available time I can't push maemo to a new level such as I would like to do.

A suggestion for an entry.
It seems it may be possible to allow downgrading n9 (N950?) firmware, by inserting old certs, extracted from mtd partition. At least @feuerplatz seems to have succeeded in doing so.

It would be cool to have an application developed, which could extract all older certs from mtd, store them, and the write (from user choice) a desired older cert to cal area in mtd partition. Thus allowing those who accedentially flashed Chinese SW to 'downgrade' and reflash other region firmware.

see this post from feuerplatz
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...0&postcount=33

I could try, but believe we have more skilled devs here on the N9 than myself.

As a side-note. I will personally try to dig up a good reward (besides those devices already promised) to anyone who successfully completes such a task. Idea for price Jolla phone or perhaps another N900 ? let me know.

Best
NielDK (Niel Nielsen)

as martink suggested, i would like to see gcc upgrade. At least a 4.8.x release, built to support stock and thumb with support for as many languages as possible, especially fortran so i can finally try to finish jasper port.

i *might* have a look at this myself, depending on time and complexity.

Ahoy!

We (Council) have been talking in previous meetings about making this Coding Competition happen. Biggest issue at the moment is quite low participation and feedback from you, Community.

So, if you are considering to participate in Coding Competition somehow, e.g. developing, fixing, porting, updating, supporting/helping others, have something to donate, have something on your wishlist, want to learn to code and make your first app or anyhow what is related to CC, please vote the poll and/or reply to this thread about your thoughts.

We need your feedback to know if we should do this and how we should do this.(I think we all want it to happen )

So huge BUMP to this thread, hopefully some discussion will take place.

PS. This still applies...

Originally Posted by CommunityCouncil

We are relying on your donations.

Thanks for bumping the thread.

As I said at the Council meeting, I vote for reducing the number of categories. Preferably to just one.

Oh, and I am happy to contribute €20 towards the prizes. Maybe more if you can wait a couple of months. I am a bit tight on cash right now.

Thanks pichlo. I will join you and also contribute towards prizes!

I am eagerly waiting for this competition to happen. Will try to contribute, either financially or by coding.

Hmmm... depending on *when* it is going to happen, I'll try to work on my MeeTeleGram app for this competition. Or, I might be able to participate in updated tooling too.