[MWKN] Maemo Weekly News for Monday, 14 Jun 2010

[Andrew Flegg]

http://www.mwkn.net/2010/24/front.html


MAJOR, AND AVOIDABLE, RECENT MISTAKES FROM NOKIA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Randall Arnold, one of our Maemo Community Council representatives,
has post a new blog article outlining his view on many of the missteps
Nokia has made with Maemo recently. "The release of MeeGo 1.0 was
accompanied by some resolution to Maemo, not all of it with positive
consequences.  The long-awaited PR1.2 update was officially released at
around the same time, which was a welcome relief, but excitement over
the improvements it brought were tempered by less-than-genius
developments.There's an unfortunate legacy of dropped balls in the
Maemo closet, usually involving operating system evolutions so rough
that they evoked more feelings of abandonment than joy.  I'm not
going to rehash all of the legacy, but will instead focus on this
year." Dealing with issues such as Harmattan branding, lack of
communication at a corporate level and the privacy-busting
"MyNokia" SMS (amongst others), Randall clearly lays out some
of most eye-watering mistakes which could've been avoided.

   The community discussion on talk.maemo.org is interesting, and is
summarised later in this issue.

    - http://tabulacrypticum.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/maemo-missteps-for-2010/

DESPITE MEEGO, IS NOKIA GETTING MORE CLOSED?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   In addition to Randall's list above, a number of senior (that
is, old ;-)), maemo.org community members are expressing similar
thoughts about openness, Nokia and MeeGo. Amongst others, Stephen
Gadsby, Ryan Abel, Attila Csipa, Faheem Pervez, Andrew Flegg, benny1967
and Reginald Stadlbauer have all expressed some form of disappointment
with how things seem to be going. Mostly, the feeling of general
malaise can be focused around two points: a feeling of having the
collective wisdom of the last 5 years of Maemo be ignored with the
focus on MeeGo and the "big reveal" mentality for something
as fundamental of the basis of the handset UI (bugs which included
screenshots of the UI have now been locked down). Stephen expresses it
as eloquently as ever: "MeeGo is still too much in the shadows, running
silent and deep. Nokia dropped Elephanta as too small a step and rushed
Fremantle out to hold everyone over during the wait for Harmattan, but
these repeated waits for the next big, double-secret thing have worn
the community's goodwill thin in a growing number of spots."
Stephen also points out that the activity of Nokians in the community
has reduced over the last five years, after a peak in around 2008.
Familiar names like ragnar, Igor Stoppa and Eero Tamminen are seen a
lot less frequently these days. People are busy, this is understood -
of course; however if things take (say) a week longer, but you carry
the community with you, isn't that a price worth paying?

   Two of the names above are your editors; but this growing feeling is
being expressed increasingly frequently.

    - http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=711108&postcount=49


IN THIS EDITION...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  * FRONT PAGE: Major, and avoidable, recent mistakes from Nokia,
    Despite MeeGo, is Nokia getting more closed?

  * APPLICATIONS: Extras enabled out-of-the-box on Nokia's next
    device?, Pelota Fifa Widget shows World Cup scores as they happen,
    Hermes updated - now with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Gravatar and
    find-as-you-type matching, Chromium removed from maemo.org repos,
    due to ongoing legal action

  * DEVELOPMENT: MeeGo Community Builder taking shape, Clarifying
    differences between Qt and "MeeGo Touch" framework, Packaging Java
    applications for Maemo

  * COMMUNITY: Discussion around Texrat's list of "Maemo Missteps", Why
    community testing of PR1.2 didn't repeat that done for PR1.1, MeeGo
    evangelism fund

  * DEVICES: MeeGo-Harmattan (probably) has a better name coming to
    reduce confusion, Possible N900 successor leaked?

  * ANNOUNCEMENTS: AutoDisconnect closes "idle" radio connections, Show
    WiFi signal strength in summary bar, AutoComplete Editor allows
    tidying up of suggested words



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