[Meego-community] Fwd: Should there be a "Nokia MeeGo devices" community?

[Graham Cobb]

On Tuesday 23 February 2010 05:41:07 Quim Gil wrote:
> There have been a few conversations about having a community software
> distribution channel in meego.com like http://maemo.org/downloads/ with
> it's unstable/testing/stable schema and its automatic + community QA
> process: http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras
>
> Like other community related topics, we decided to leave the serious
> discussion for the time after the launch to have you all involved.

I see two main reasons to have such an infrastructure in MeeGo:

1) Providing re-usable capabiltiies (open source) which are not proprietary 
but are not part of the MeeGo platform and may be useful to MeeGo app 
developers.  This includes libraries, scripting tools (Python, Perl, if they 
are not part of the MeeGo platform), icons and other resources.  If App A 
needs libfoo and App B also needs libfoo then it would be counter-productive 
and dangerous to have both Apps distribute libfoo as part of their app.  One 
of the main benefits of a community around MeeGo is that the community can 
share these sorts of resources.

2) Small apps.  Depending on how the common app-store publishing works, it may 
or may not be feasible for the small, hobby developer (or power user).  This 
would be a place to put the relatively small apps including, maybe, ones that 
don't meet whatever criteria are set for the commercial app stores.

Without this I see us ending up back in the repository hell we had with Maemo 
1, where everyone has their own repository, with overlap and inconsistency 
(and no quality control and no way to pull components with security issues).

Maybe this needs its own discussion thread?

> I see your point but I think you are cutting some divisions in the wrong
> places:
>
> - If there is a functionality missing in the platform (e.g. can't send
> files over bluetooth directly from file manager) then such app probably
> makes sense across all MeeGo devices. As long as you can install it in
> Device X and it works...

That is fine for things which are part of the platform.  Maybe Bluetooth is 
but some things are not (could be sound, GPS, accelerometer, cameras, FM 
radio, etc, etc).  My issue is that we have seen that it is useful for the 
community to be able to fill in gaps that the vendor has had insufficient 
time or interest to complete.  I think Nokia would admit that it has found 
this useful.

> - Other apps will be indeed specific to certain device or family of
> devices (the ones of a same vendor, most probably). The device
> manufacturer wil need to take care of the distribution of such apps. For
> instance, the current plans for Ovi apps keeps being that they run only
> on Nokia devices. Then Nokia/Ovi needs to take care of those.

So, the question is then back for Nokia (which is why I first posted this 
thread in maemo-community): does Nokia intend there to be a "Nokia MeeGo 
devices" community.  I do not think that Ovi & Forum Nokia (as they work 
today) are suitable for hobbyist developers and power users.  They might be 
able to move from their current focus (purely on commercial developers) to 
encompass some of the larger OSS projects but how do Nokia plan to continue 
to encourage small OSS developers?  Does maemo.org (and all its build and 
distribution infrastructure) need to continue to exist?  Or, should MeeGo 
provide some of that infrastructure and community for MeeGo-based devices 
(funded by the vendors concerned, of course)?

> And at the end it makes sense: most probably the software pushed by a
> specific vendor using extended APIs not part of MeeGo is going to be
> proprietary software.

Actually I am not at all sure about that.  Clearly many user apps are likely 
to be proprietary, for vendor differentiation.  But, as MeeGo does not 
include all the necessary/useful APIs (because anything in MeeGo is mandatory 
on all MeeGo devices), I think vendors may well push OSS which makes use of 
their chosen extensions to MeeGo.  For example, assume for the moment that 
camera support is not in MeeGo.  I could imagine that a vendor who wants to 
include a camera in their phone, but is not positioning it as a major 
differentiating feature, may ship an OSS camera app or image editing app 
(another vendor, who has put a top of the range camera in their phone, might 
create their own proprietary camera app).

I know it is hard but I think we will continue to see (and even see expansion 
of) combinations of free and proprietary software.  It will keep you in a 
job, anyway, Quim :-)

Graham