Hi all,

I have noticed that there are a number of small things (and bigger things) that users on this board want to have fixed, but Nokia won't do it.

The specific example which brought this to my attention is https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8343, which might be as little code change as changing the verification to allow some extra characters if it's a skype (or it could be more).

So what I am thinking is that when Nokia say they won't fix something, there is a process to request a quote for adding that functionality. Then if the requester, or a group of interested parties wish to bear the cost of development, they pay for it. Unless there are political reasons for choosing not to fix something, I don't see why this wouldn't be acceptable, especially if some Nokia employee(s) decides to do it as a side project/money earner, with permission of the bosses of course .

Obviously for some things, the cost is going to be ridiculous, but some it seems it should be reasonable...

Thoughts?

yeah nokia company isnt very smart

This is a fairly big change if the transport doesn't support it by default. The number after "p" is not used by the routing code, but has to be sent as tones later on. This makes the behaviour transport-dependant and you have to worry about a lot of stuff when user tries to do the same thing over SIP. If the skype daemon doesn't provide it out of box, I'm pretty sure Nokia won't touch it.

Actually, the issue of 'p' symbol is outside of Skype client or server - it is a feature of VoIP gateway in Skype headquarter.

EDIT: if that gateway works via digital telephone line then you have no lack - there is no delay in requesting a digital connection (like ISDN/SS7).

And I suspect it is a solid case.

simple question: how would nokia justify to take money for fixing issues introduced deliberately, by bad design, or just bugs -- for a device one already paid big money for?

missing ussd was amazing ignorance (w/o it one can neither request account information in a great many networks nor change the pin).
gps not working well without inet connection as well, caused by a totally unjustified idea of the prospective user ("we never thought, anybody using this phone will _not_ have a flatrate for inte connections").
not being able to dial certain numbers as pointed out in the bugreport is simply bad design or caused by a defunct qa department.

surfing the forum alone produces a plethora of issues not present in considerably cheaper smartphones, because their producers apparently take greater pains to ensure usability, stabilty, and bug fixing.

if nokia actually would start taking money for fixing self-induced shortcomings of a very expensive device, the would be dead.

It is not Nokia fault, it is a design of digital public telephone networks.

Symbol pause is needed only if you try call through non-digital lines.

Please stop blowing issue into big by blaming Nokia.

Its not a lack of money per se that usually causes these things to be missed, its more a lack of personnel and/or time.

Companies often find just the right number and mix of people to get jobs done. Yes they could hire more people to implement those extra features but then those people would need to be trained, granted access to the source code, talked to around the water-cooler; and any of those things, together or separate, no matter how mundane, have an impact on the company that could actually cause less to get done despite having more people.

Theres a size-time-money dynamic where each of those variables affects the other two. Just the right mix needs to be reached.

Don't forget that developers are also the side in this game.
I am really looking for way around to keep our device running no matter for me what Adobe or Nokia planing to do. I don't believe in "corp ferry tales".

Read this please.

Actually 'p' is used to choose an extension after allowing some time to get the call picked up by the PBX. What I meant before is that if skype exposed nice callback system, you could treat the first 'p' as wait for an answer and then send the rest as DTMF. But that's a way to madness (especially if you run into a voip connection which handles DTMF in an incompatible way)
Of course that's a really weird idea these days and I wouldn't blame Nokia for saying "we don't care".

Especially if you can just strip 'p' and push the DTMF yourself, so another solution exists.

It is a wrong way. If PBX requires an extension then DTMF tones are needed to transfer an extension number but not a digital message.

It, in turn, requires sound generation to digital phone network. It is practically impossible to generate DTMF tones inside some codecs which can be reliably recognized by PBX - VoIP codec is suited for human voice but not for clear tones.

So, tone generation should be done in gateway between VoIP and phone network - in Skype headquarter. Why they could support it and invest money?