> > So the answer is "no". As long as Maemo's goal is not 'providing a 100% > > free platform' as well I[0] will not contribute[1] to it and I expect > > that with more and more freedom respecting projects/products you will > > have a hard time finding people who do. > > This is what I had in mind in my LinuxTag maemo.org presentation: there > are people who will not want to contribute to Maemo just because Nokia > does not completely adhere to the free software principles. > > By that I did not mean to imply that Nokia should put free software > above their bottom line. My point was that Nokia should evaluate the > extra value received from free software zealots (this word is probably > too strong, but I don't have the time right now to pick a better one) > with value lost from opening their proprietary components.
Is zealotry that wide-spread and that much of a stumbling block for some people? I'd prefer it to be open, but if it is possible to work within the constraints that Nokia impose (due to IP/NDA/etc. restrictions), as long as they are helpful in providing ways to use the functionality of the closed components, then I can accept that there are real reasons for the limitations and still be happy to use and develop for the device. > Unfortunately I'm no economist and I cannot evaluate either. Looking > at the increasing popularity of free software in the IT sector it seems > to me that free software benefits outweigh proprietary benefits, but > this is not a choice I can make for Nokia; it's one Nokia has to make > for themselves. Perhaps, but we are quite often talking about interfacing with hardware from a company which makes lots of mobile devices, rather than software only service providers. My feeling/understanding is that closed components such as BME will stay closed as the IP is too valuable to release to competitors; the best we can hope for is some sort of API to communicate with the hardware via a closed component. This is not a problem for me as long as it is available. Likewise the wifi driver will not be open sourced as it belongs to someone else. We won't see the source for this released either, but perhaps we will see a more open source friendly version in a later tablet as long as it is cost-effective (same goes for the charging hw). Closed software-only (as in they don't talk to hardware) components are something we have more chance with; quite a few of the closed components don't seem to contain anything very hi-tech, but are just closed. This might just be because no-one has thought to open them; or to avoid competitors copying the whole interface/os in one go (though it wouldn't be beyond a company to just re-write these parts I'd guess); or perhaps to avoid developers screwing up the Nokia UI spec. and then releasing images which reflect badly on Nokia. Lots of perhapses of course :) Cheers, Simon _______________________________________________ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
