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benny1967's Avatar
benny1967 is offline benny1967
2008-07-08 , 21:33
Posts: 3,790 | Thanked: 5,718 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ Vienna, Austria
#1
derstandard.at is the online service of "Der Standard", a pretty mainstream, non-technical daily newspaper in Austria (they focus on politics and economy).

Today they feature an article about an interview they had with Quim Gil at GUADEC. Some things I hadn't read before:
  • The maemo-team had no idea that Nokia was about to buy Trolltech and heard about it in the media. At first they were stunned, but now they see some potential.
  • QT will probably not be in an official maemo release before 2010.
  • It is not certain that GTK will remain part of maemo. QT might as well completely replace it.
  • It is not certain that the next major release after Diablo ("Freemantle") will run on current N8x0 hardware.
  • more and more parts of maemo will be open in the future. Nokia as a company needs to learn how to interact with the community.

The article also goes on making assumptions about the features of Freemantle, based on what projects Nokia sponsors at the moment. The author assumes the major change will be the UI.

I thought I'd post it here, not only because I think it's interesting (especially the parts about Freemantle not running on N8x0 and QT completely replacing GTK), but also because I'm not entirely sure if Quim Gil knows what his German voice said in Istanbul.
 

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GeneralAntilles is offline GeneralAntilles
2008-07-08 , 22:14
Posts: 5,478 | Thanked: 5,222 times | Joined on Jan 2006 @ St. Petersburg, FL
#2
I don't read German, but sounds like a lot of speculation and conjecture based on what I know about the platform. Devices are supported for a minimum of two release cycles (i.e., Maemo 4 and Maemo 5). If Fremantle is released and doesn't support the N810, then the N810 will have only had one release cycle (even if you take Diablo as its second release, the N810W will still have only had one).

Fremantle is definitely shipping before 2010, and Fremantle will be bundling Qt, so that claim seems unlikely, andeverything that I've heard so far about Qt has been as something shipped alongside GTK, but not replacing it (this was definitely the tone at LinuxTag), so I'm not sure I buy that, either.
 
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benny1967 is offline benny1967
2008-07-09 , 07:34
Posts: 3,790 | Thanked: 5,718 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ Vienna, Austria
#3
That's what I found so interesting. The article says that Quim Gil made all these statements, except for the one thing about Freemantle focussing on a brand new UI.

It is not clear if the current hardware generation will enjoy Freemantle at all, Quim Gil doesn't not want to make this promise. [...] The Nokia manager does emphasize, though, that one will not get by on the current hardware forever.
and so on...

As I stated above: I'm not really sure if Quim Gil would recognize these statements as his own when reading a translation, but if so, it is news.
 
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Karel Jansens is offline Karel Jansens
2008-07-09 , 07:39
Posts: 3,220 | Thanked: 326 times | Joined on Oct 2005 @ "Almost there!" (Monte Christo, Count of)
#4
Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
As I stated above: I'm not really sure if Quim Gil would recognize these statements as his own when reading a translation, but if so, it is news.
Hardly. A vocalisation of what some of us have since long suspected (or rather: known against all hope), yes. But news? No...
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TA-t3 is offline TA-t3
2008-07-09 , 09:51
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#5
Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
  • It is not certain that GTK will remain part of maemo. QT might as well completely replace it.
  • It is not certain that the next major release after Diablo ("Freemantle") will run on current N8x0 hardware.
Those two points I don't like. I don't mind Qt availability, but I really want GTK to continue. GTK is a C-level library while Qt is a C++ library. I'm not going to write a single application in C++, ever. Keeping GTK available ensures a much larger developer base (C, Python, vala for those of us who want to use object-oriented C/GTK apps. without writing C++, etc.)

The second point I don't like either, but I don't see how that can really happen, except by e.g. going to an incompatible ARM CPU and only provide binary, proprietary, necessary parts of the UI or some even more essential part of the system (kernel is _not_ a problem). Besides, it breaks completely with what Nokia people said after the 770->N800 transition fiasco.
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lcuk is offline lcuk
2008-07-09 , 10:15
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#6
Originally Posted by TA-t3 View Post
The second point I don't like either, but I don't see how that can really happen, except by e.g. going to an incompatible ARM CPU and only provide binary, proprietary, necessary parts of the UI or some even more essential part of the system (kernel is _not_ a problem). Besides, it breaks completely with what Nokia people said after the 770->N800 transition fiasco.
TA,

All nokia needs to do to break compatability is to use features which do not run reasonably well on current hardware (maybe simply more complex algorithms, or simply a 3d interface)

Sure, you might get software running on current spec hardware but when you get framerates of 2-3fps (software rendering) its not going to be useful or rewarding: if we think current stuff is sluggish imagine how bad it would be..
 
chlettn is offline chlettn
2008-07-09 , 10:39
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#7
Actually, I didn't get the impression that he said that GTK might be replaced by Qt. Actually, Gil said that they "never invested more money in GTK+ than now"...

In general, a lot of things remain very vague in the article, as Gil pointed out he can't tell overly much about things that aren't set in stone yet, because otherwise it might be wrongly understood as a commitment...

Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing more about Freemantle at the Maemo Summit.
 
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Bundyo is offline Bundyo
2008-07-09 , 11:05
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#8
Originally Posted by TA-t3 View Post
Those two points I don't like. I don't mind Qt availability, but I really want GTK to continue. GTK is a C-level library while Qt is a C++ library. I'm not going to write a single application in C++, ever. Keeping GTK available ensures a much larger developer base (C, Python, vala for those of us who want to use object-oriented C/GTK apps. without writing C++, etc.)
If Nokia pushes Vala forward, then we'll have much better OO language than C++, much faster than Python and much easier than C to speed-up the development and adoption. I hope this is the way to go

EDIT: On a 3D note - Clutter has Vala bindings already - http://live.gnome.org/Vala/ExternalBindings
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Last edited by Bundyo; 2008-07-09 at 11:07.
 
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yerga is offline yerga
2008-07-09 , 11:09
Posts: 696 | Thanked: 1,012 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ Asturies, Spain
#9
I have seen in the wiki that quim is going to upload the presentation to him blog.

http://wiki.maemo.org/index.php?titl...270&oldid=4269

Soon will be finished the speculations.
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TA-t3 is offline TA-t3
2008-07-09 , 11:25
Posts: 3,841 | Thanked: 1,079 times | Joined on Nov 2006
#10
Originally Posted by lcuk View Post
All nokia needs to do to break compatability is to use features which do not run reasonably well on current hardware (maybe simply more complex algorithms, or simply a 3d interface
I can only see 3D (e.g. OpenGL) as a possible candidate for that. It would only mean that 3D wouldn't run, or run well, on an N8x0, which wouldn't be any worse than it is today. It's hardly a make-or-break feature (or none of us would own an N8x0 ).
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