On Sun, 16 May 2010 23:31:52 -0600, Robinson Tryon <[email protected]> wrote: > > That's where the "big reveal" for the first > > version comes from - and especially around art work and look and feel > > we'll see quite a bit of the more protective thinking of the companies > > in the future (as we have seen in Maemo and Moblin in the past). > > Hopefully the amount of "protected," in-secret development will > decrease over time. I mean, nobody's going to *encourage* more closed > work on the core MeeGo stack, right?
As I tried to say - I wouldn't be shocked if we see a few user experienced focused projects that are done behind closed doors and then revealed when ready. That's just the nature of the beast. But I also expect this to be the exception from the rule. > > But once the first relaese with the full UX is out I think this will > > also turn into a much more natural way of working. > > Good. > > > Yes, I bet there will > > continue to be "big reveals" around new iterations of the look and > > feel. > > Now I'm getting a bit confused. How could there be future "big > reveals" if project development is done in an open fashion? I'm talking about the visual assets - the interaction model and related changes. Everything else I expect to be in the open. Am I not explaining this well? I'm trying really hard here :-) > > But the project itself will run as a community project. That's our > > goal and that's what we are measuring our success against. > > Well that and the quality and success of the resulting OS. > > Maybe I'm just not understanding terminology, but I'm still confused > about where Intel and Nokia are taking the MeeGo project. > > My impression has been that Intel and Nokia would be shepherding the > MeeGo project in its initial stages. Once the project was been > established and the "big reveals" of the first iteration of the > look-and-feel were dropped into the project, the MeeGo core project > would be developed as an FOSS project with open development. Let's say there's a new product released, let's say it has a circular display and can hover in front of you and reacts to hand gestures. I expect that Intel and the OEM who will release this "InDisk" product will want to keep the revolutionary UI (that keeps turning clock wise when ever you blink your eyes) behind closed doors until PSO and the OEM's CEO hop accross the stage in their bunny suits and reveal this to the stunned press. The next kernel features, the new boot loader, the updates to the email client, the new Twitter UI - I expect all this to be simply done in the open. > After the initial phase, vendors (including Nokia and Intel) could > take the core MeeGo platform and then apply whatever additional layers > they'd like on top of it. The vendors could switch out the UI, add a > different app store, etc. If the vendors kept their platforms "close > enough" to the core MeeGo OS, they'd be able to use the MeeGo name, if > they so desired. I think what you are doing is a different way of describing what I'm talking about. > Now to pick a hypothetical situation, let's say that Intel were to > work in secret and to develop a new UI for MeeGo. My assumption was > that Intel *could* work in secret, however there would be no guarantee > that the community around the MeeGo project would accept Intel's new > design. Intel would be completely free to put the new UI *on their own > devices*, but not directly into the MeeGo core. Correct. Unless the MeeGo community - through its maintainers and in an open process - thought this was cool and they wanted to go with it (assuming it's under an acceptable license). > Based on what Dirk just said about "big reveals," it sounds like my > assumption may be incorrect. I think we've all accepted the fact that > during initial development Intel and Nokia will develop components > privately and then drop them into MeeGo core without external review. > But to make "big reveals" possible, it seems to me that Nokia and > Intel will have to retain this right, potentially indefinitely. And > I'm not sure how that kind of power can be compatible with a FOSS > project with open development. I think this is just a semantic difference. We of course want to think that all the cool stuff that we develop will eventually end up in MeeGo. But you are correct, that may not happen and be just in Intel's version of MeeGo. > >> MeeGo is a > >> 'curated computing environment' where the file system is the best of > >> breed but the only one and MeeGo will not listen to the debate. > > > > Here I disagree. MeeGo as an open source project will of course listen > > to the debate. On the filesystem simply nothing new came to light and > > the maintainer decided to stay the course. On other topics I expect this > > will be different - as you guys certainly have a ton of expertize that > > will help us create a better OS. If we weren't plannign to listen then > > why bother with an open source OS? > > I think the biggest issue is that people still see the phrase "MeeGo > listening to the community" and read that (perhaps correctly) as > "Nokia+Intel listening to the community". My bad. It's very hard to get your words completely straight. MeeGo is run by maintainers. That's who I mean when I speak of MeeGo as an acting entity. Those maintainers (MeeGo) will listen to the community and listen to Intel and Nokia (who are part of the community). Better? > > I'll tell you honestly that my (and our) goals are much much higher than > > that. The "appearance of meritocratic openness" is not what we are > > aiming for. We are aiming for the best client OS out there. And the only > > way to get there is to harness what companies are good at doing (e.g., a > > consistent well designed look and feel) and what the community is good > > at doing (finding the best solutions to a ton of technical problems, > > dealing with the endless combinations of hardware and the weird bugs > > that are triggered by that, innovating on top of what exists today, > > finding interesting new use cases and basically making the OS better). > > It sounds like you're arguing that the "best client OS out there" will > harness the community to do a lot of hardware compatibility, grunt > work, etc..., and the companies (intel + nokia) will add the shiny UI > on top. Almost. "... will add A shiny UI on top". Which we (Intel) THINK will be the UI that MeeGo (the community, as represented by the maintaienrs) chooses. > I don't have a lot of experience designing UIs, but what if some other > members of the community want to work on the UI? Will they find > themselves excluded if Nokia and Intel are cooking up something new > that hasn't been released to the public yet? They will obviously not be working on whatever may or may not be cooked up behind closed doors - but they are welcome and encouraged to work on what has been released (within the terms of the licenses involved) and/or do their own UI. > > Yes, the maintainers will continue to have some control - that's > > necessary to create a resulting OS that actually works. And I think the > > sooner we have community maintainers the better. Until then, speak up, > > argue with us, help us to live up to these expectations. > > Will do. Good. > >> ...[MeeGo] is a commercial Linux distro, not an open source project. > > > > It's trying to be both. It's trying to be a great platform to > > target. But it will do so by working in the open, with the community. > > Keep MeeGo development open, and you'll have a lot of supporters and > developers "basically making the OS better." That's the plan Ok, I keep trying to make my point clear, keep my words straight and crisp. Just like some others before in other threads, let's note that this is not my native language. Please don't do Kreminology on the specific words or terms or phrases that I use - try to understand the sentiment I'm trying to express. And if in doubt - keep asking. Cheers /D _______________________________________________ MeeGo-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.meego.com/listinfo/meego-dev
