Re: Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars

2011-09-28 Thread Didier Raboud 
Le vendredi, 9 septembre 2011 09.21:20, Luca Capello a écrit :
> On Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:36:17 +0200, Didier Raboud wrote:
> > The main reference to build up this list has been
> > http://wiki.debian.org/Smartphone, which is still a good reference! Now
> > to the list.
> 
> What about [1]?  There is no reference in your email.
> 
> [1] 

Thanks for that. Unfortunately, nobody mentionned it during the BoF, so it 
just got under the radar.

> Please note that I am not volunteering for anything, given that I have
> completely lost any faith about having a real free smartphone

Too bad. :-/

-- 
OdyX


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lists.debian.org: Please create debian-mob...@lists.debian.org (was: Re: Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars)

2011-09-28 Thread Didier Raboud 
Package: lists.debian.org
Severity: normal

Le jeudi, 8 septembre 2011 16.32:45, Stefano Zacchiroli a écrit :
> I applaud this "merge" effort. Kudos!
> 
> On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 10:36:17AM +0200, Didier Raboud wrote:
> > c) Create a new Alioth project, 'mobile-ux', with associated
> > mailing-lists and a wiki page.
> 
> Given you are going to provide a central discussion forum for Debian
> "mobile" stuff, you might want to be a bit more bold and request the
> "debian-mobile@lists.d.o" mailing list. That might provide some more
> visibility to this laudable initiative.

Agreed.

So here is the formal request for a debian-mob...@lists.debian.org :

Name: debian-mob...@lists.debian.org

Rationale: Packaging efforts around mobile user interfaces are currently
 scattered around in many different alioth projects, mailing lists, etc.
 See http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/09/msg00126.html for a more
 complete rationale.

Short description: Mobile interfaces in Debian

Long description: Discussions around packaging suitable mobile interfaces to 
 Debian. Mobile systems have a user-interface different than the traditional
 'keyboard-mouse' pair, can be battery-powered, have a generally small form
 factor and/or only allow few elements on a given screen.

Category: Developers

Subscription Policy: open

Post Policy: open

Web Archive: yes


Thanks for considering, cheers,

-- 
OdyX


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Re: Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars

2011-09-09 Thread Hector Oron 
Hello,

2011/9/9 Axel Beckert :

> Why then "UX" and not "GUI"?

"UX", User eXperience, was the title used for the BoF at DebConf,
nothing else. :-)

Cheers,
-- 
 Héctor Orón  -.. . -... .. .- -.   -.. . ...- . .-.. --- .--. . .-.


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Re: Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars

2011-09-09 Thread Luca Capello 
Hi there!

On Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:36:17 +0200, Didier Raboud wrote:
> = 0 - Commented overview of the various available stacks =
>
> The initial idea to frame the discussion was to share experiences and 
> opinions 
> about known free software mobile stacks: are they packaged in Debian? What 
> has 
> been the experience so far? If not, why not?
>
> The main reference to build up this list has been 
> http://wiki.debian.org/Smartphone, which is still a good reference! Now to 
> the 
> list.

What about [1]?  There is no reference in your email.

[1] 


> = 1 - Proposal for future actions and meet-together =

As someone who was heavily involved with Openmoko stuff, I still think
that (one of) the major point of failure is the fact that we still lack
d-i support, at least unofficially.

A specific case: to install Debian on SD on the Openmoko GTA02 [2] we
still use an "install.sh" script: what was intended to be a temporary
hack has now grown to a 1925-line script which I would say it is
reinventing the wheel.

[2] while the script worked (still works?) for GTA01 as well, only some
very naive guys (AKA me) wanted to use that (smart)phone for
everyday life...

There first efforts were started already in 2008 from the kernel side
[3].  At DebConf9 Gaudenz (and in someway myself) produced some very
basic patches [4] and last year there was even a GSoC project to adapt
d-i at least to the Openmoko [5], but I have not heard anything about
that lately.

[3] 
[4] 
[5] 


Please note that I am not volunteering for anything, given that I have
completely lost any faith about having a real free smartphone: this not
only for the Openmoko (at DebConf11 I tested again upstream SHR and
Qtmoko without much success), but also for the other (very promising)
stack I have experience with, i.e. the official Maemo on the Nokia N900,
AFAIK will never be free [6] (previous efforts are now marked as "out of
date" [7]).

[6] 
[7] 

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca


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Re: Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars

2011-09-08 Thread Axel Beckert 
Hi,

Hector Oron wrote:
> >> c) Create a new Alioth project, 'mobile-ux', with associated
> >> mailing-lists and a wiki page.
> >
> > Given you are going to provide a central discussion forum for Debian
> > "mobile" stuff, you might want to be a bit more bold and request the
> > "debian-mobile@lists.d.o" mailing list.

Seconded.

> "mobile-ux" was proposed instead "mobile", so it makes it more clear,

Well, I think "UX" is a uncommon and not very well-known abbreviation
I had to google twice since DebConf what it stands for. My first
thought always that it's a strange abbreviation for "Unix".

> that UX is the primary focus, as low level software is already handled
> by other debian or upstream mailing lists, [...]

Why then "UX" and not "GUI"?

Regards, Axel
-- 
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Re: Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars

2011-09-08 Thread Paul Wise 
On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 6:44 PM, Hector Oron wrote:

> Debian seems to have all parts needed for mobile world,
> but a it lacks a mobile GUI

E17 is available in Debian and has a mobile GUI, also in Debian. We do
need more finger friendly apps and UI themes though, specifically more
stuff from SHR.

On the non-X11 side of things, getting QtMoko in would be nice.

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pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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Re: Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars

2011-09-08 Thread Hector Oron 
Hello,

2011/9/8 Stefano Zacchiroli :
> On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 10:36:17AM +0200, Didier Raboud wrote:

>> c) Create a new Alioth project, 'mobile-ux', with associated
>> mailing-lists and a wiki page.

> Given you are going to provide a central discussion forum for Debian
> "mobile" stuff, you might want to be a bit more bold and request the
> "debian-mobile@lists.d.o" mailing list. That might provide some more
> visibility to this laudable initiative.

"mobile-ux" was proposed instead "mobile", so it makes it more clear,
that UX is the primary focus, as low level software is already handled
by other debian or upstream mailing lists, i.e. debian-kernel,
debian-arm, linux-arm-kernel, ... Debian seems to have all parts
needed for mobile world, but a it lacks a mobile GUI, while it has too
many desktop oriented GUI, none of those seem to fit the mobile
market.

With kind regards,
-- 
 Héctor Orón  -.. . -... .. .- -.   -.. . ...- . .-.. --- .--. . .-.


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Mobile UXes - From the DebConf11 BoF to the stars

2011-09-08 Thread Didier Raboud 
Hi all, 

This is the sumary of the discussion held at DebConf11 during the "Mobile 
UXes" BoF, on 2011-07-29, at 18h00 in the meeting room.

(= tl;dr version =)
(Search for "Proposal" down this mail.)
(Please answer to debian-devel@lists.debian.org only. )

The point of this mail is to inform people and communities of the content of 
those discussions and propose a sort-of plan of action. Note that nothing has 
been clearly decided there but the discussion was really nice and promising so 
I sort-of hope the consensus acknowledged upon there can be reflected online.

= Outline =
 0 - Commented overview of the various available stacks
 1 - Proposal for future actions and meet-together

= 0 - Commented overview of the various available stacks =

The initial idea to frame the discussion was to share experiences and opinions 
about known free software mobile stacks: are they packaged in Debian? What has 
been the experience so far? If not, why not?

The main reference to build up this list has been 
http://wiki.debian.org/Smartphone, which is still a good reference! Now to the 
list.

== Android ==

The Canonical effort [0] to port an Android execution environment is currently 
reported as a dead-end. The most free-software-friendly efforts reported are 
IcedRobot [1] and Replicant [2]. They don't seem ready enough for inclusion in 
Debian though but we should keep an eye on them.

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/AndroidExecutionEnvironment
[1] http://icedrobot.org
[2] http://replicant.us/

== MeeGo ==

Back when the MeeGo project was launched, some hoped it could be Debian-based. 
Some persons from the Debian community tried to make that a reality back then 
but didn't succeed. Then the pkg-meego team [3] was formed to get software 
produced by the MeeGo project in Debian. This effort has faced a tough reality 
with regards to project management, interfaces stability, FHS respect, 
trademark policies, etc; and as a result it is currently stalled.

Nowadays, various software pieces produced by or within the MeeGo project are 
probably interesting to get in Debian:

  - Maliit [4] it is the input methods solution used in MeeGo (in particular
it's the project behind the Harmattan virtual keyboard / input method;
also used for the N900/N950 Community Edition)
  - the Tablet User Experience [5] released by Intel earlier this year.
  - Handheld UX in the MeeGo CE form [6]

As a side-note; the software released with the Nokia N9 (of which the "swipe" 
user interface [7] is not known to be available as free software) is available 
as a downloadable qemu image [8].

MeeGo CE [9] is a community effort both to make free MeeGo releases for a few 
smartphones, and to make MeeGo as a project more transparent by being an 
example of a contributing "vendor". Since the project aims for a product level 
quality in the UIs, the packages they've put on top of MeeGo Core and 
integrate back to the Core are interesting for Debian as well. Timo Jyrinki 
wrote a very interesting blogpost on this topic [10].

[3]  http://pkg-meego.alioth.debian.org/
[4]  http://maliit.org
[5]  https://meego.com/downloads/releases/1.2/meego-tablet-developer-preview
[6]  https://build.pub.meego.com/project/packages?project=Project%3ADE%3ATrunk
[7]  http://www.developer.nokia.com/swipe/ux/
[8]  http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/
[9]  http://wiki.meego.com/N900
[10] http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/08/meego-ce-and-freesmartphoneorg.html

== Maemo ==

Maemo [11] is the Debian derivative that powers the Nokia N900 that was one 
branches of the MeeGo merge. Nowadays, both Maemo 6 and Harmattan (software 
basis of the Nokia N9) are reported to be dead-ends. A Debian team [12] was 
formed to work on the inclusion of the Maemo software back in Debian, but it 
decided earlier this year that Maemo is a dead end and removed Maemo related 
software from Debian [13].

It could still make sense to package some of the Maemo GTK themes to make 
running unmodified GTK applications easier on mobile devices. Openmoko also 
produced some.

[11] http://maemo.org
[12] http://wiki.debian.org/pkg-maemo
[13] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.alioth.maemo.maint/1013

== GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative ==

The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative was announced in 2007 for developing 
and promoting the use of the GNOME platform in mobile devices. It is not 
packaged in Debian (although the GNOME team might be able to give more 
insightful information) and doesn't seem to have a home on the Internet. It is 
part of the Hackable1 distribution (see below).

== KDE Plasma Active ==

From their website: "KDE Plasma Active [14] aims at creating a cross-device 
user experience for emerging devices such as tablet computers, media centers, 
smartphones, and more." It is currently not packaged in Debian, but some 
members of the pkg-qt-kde team could certainly be interested [15].

[14] http://community.kde.org