Mobile Tablets!

New to Harmattan C-OBS and apps.formeego.org

2011-11-26T22:18:00.000-05:00

*Disclaimer: I am not a developer, hacker, or programmer*

Part of the agreement made when I received the Nokia N950 developer device from Quim Gil was to get an application ready for Harmattan in the open source App Store, apps.formeego.org. Although I had the guts of MaeFlight ready a few months ago in QtQuick/QML, I held off on packaging it until there were some applications in the Community App Store. Not being a developer, I hoped to learn how others faired overcoming the wrinkles in the processes before I ran into them.

My application, MaeFlight, is a simple utility that fetches the status of your airline flight, given the airline code and flight number. It is a nicer looking version, with simpler guts, of the Maemo 5 version I had coded close to 2 years ago. I decided to use QtQuick and QtCreator, these being (in theory) the most straightforward paths for Harmattan development.

QtCreator and QtQuick are a good combination of tools for Harmattan development. I could code within QtCreator, and deploy to my N950 to test with a few clicks of the mouse. There were a few hiccups with QtCreator that I learned to work around. One annoying one was when it could no longer find the N950 via WLAN. Resetting that connection solved that issue.

After I had the most basic application ready to distribute via apps.formeego.org, I started a painfully long attempt at getting MaeFlight's sources built by the MeeGo Community Online Build Service. The first step in this is to get the source into a format suitable for the COBS. The MeeGo wiki and Jaffa's wonderful mud2 utility proved very useful here. The mud2 utility creates the 3 files you require for uploading to the COBS. However, after carefully following the instructions in the wiki, my package would continually fail the build process. I found out via trial and error that the Changelog and Desktop files had to contain version numbers in them that agreed with the version number that mud2 assigns to the source packages. Once I changed that, the build process worked, and the COBS built a .deb for my application, complete with its own repository!

I logically assumed that since the build process worked, my next step was to upload the package to the testing repository of apps.formeego.org. This is a straightforward process, and well documented in the MeeGo wiki.

However, once MaeFlight was in the apps.formeego.org testing repository, it would install to my N950 from the Apps Client, but would not deploy the desktop file and launcher icon. I reached out for help on forum.meego.com, and found a suggestion from user rlinfati that seemed to work. It involved additions to the top of the QtCreator 'pro' file. This seemed to be the answer, as MaeFlight was then able to be built by COBS and be deployed to the device correctly from apps.formeego.org client application on the N950. Success!

I have observed some peculiar things with the MeeGo COBS and the apps.formeego.org client:

COBS fails builds sometimes, but then when restarted, the build works fine. Perhaps there is a good reason for this, but it doesn't inspire much confidence in a novice like myself.
The apps.formeego.org client application on the N950 has a mind of its own sometimes. For instance, MaeFlight has shown up multiple times at the same version, and has failed to install at all, in spite of the .deb installing correctly from my personal MeeGo COBS repository. I am not sure why this is the case, but it also makes me feel unsettled. The current v1.0.1 of MaeFlight built properly on COBS, installs fine from the .deb in my repository, but does not install from the client application on the N950 !

At the end of the day, I now have a process which can work, if the stars align themselves properly. But, I think it should be easier. That will hopefully come in due time.

As for MaeFlight, it has proven to be an interesting experience for me in learning the ropes of open source development using QtQuick, QtCreator, and COBS.

N9 and MeeGo Harmattan: Loss of Widgets

2011-06-21T22:19:00.000-04:00

Having thought about the Harmattan UI a bit more, I realized that since there are no 'desktop screens' as the N900 has, there are also no widgets! The demonstration at #nokiacnxn showed the three aspects of the UI: Events, Applications, and Open Applications. It appears that certain application events can populate the Events View. For instance, the AccuWeather application puts the current weather conditions in the Events View.

One of the most useful N900 widgets I use is the contact card, providing one-touch access to frequent contacts from the desktop. It will be interesting to see if users will miss the N900-style widgets, and if Events View and/or the Swipe UI can make up the difference.

N9 Excitement in #nokiacnxn

2011-06-21T15:31:00.001-04:00

It was like a group of friends watching Superbowl, or World Cup, or Olympic Gold Hockey. Last night, a bunch of Maemo veterans gathered on #nokiacnxn on freenode to watch Nokia Connection 2011 go down. When the N9 was announced, irc erupted with joy, URL's to Nokia's 'swipe' pages were revealed and shared, and the banter went on into the night. It was exciting, and also somewhat disappointing once the realization sunk in that MeeGo-Harmattan could be a game changing OS for end users.

It remains to be seen how 'disruptive' this device will be. I hope it is, and so do others. Let us pass this message back to Nokia executives: We Want Nokia to Keep Meego. That is all.

Confusions of a Maemo Enthusiast (Post 2/11)

2011-02-12T22:22:00.001-05:00

I have been with Maemo since 2007, when I purchased the fabulous N800 Internet Tablet. It stayed with me through Chinook, Diablo and even through the 'Elephanta year'. The N810 started shipping in late 2007 with Chinook. If you recall, a rumoured OS named Elephanta and an associated device were dropped after the N810 came out, eating up about a year in the process. Rationale for this was not officially conveyed, but could be assumed to be due to a shift in strategy for Maemo, focussing on mobile phones rather than Internet Tablets. Fine with me at the time - let us regroup and Maemo will come back stronger and more resiliant at the start of the 'new' smartphone era.

Nearly 2 years later, Maemo 5 and the N900 entered my gadget bag, I finally had the mobile computer I always wanted. An evolution of the tablet I loved, now with 3G data, cellular phone, hardware keyboard and an OS that rocked. Things were looking good as Maemo was entering Prime Time.

That was late 2009, and the promise of Maemo 6 / MeeGo Harmattan has not yet materialized, in spite of official roadmaps presented at Maemo Summit in Amsterdam. In addition, no other devices running Maemo 5 ever surfaced from Nokia, not even the RX-71 mentioned in the source code. Maemo had momentum at that time, and a second product offering would have done the platform wonders. It would have established Maemo as a real OS, attracted more users and developers. And most of all, prevented the product from going stale.

February seems like a gear shifting time for Maemo/MeeGo. Last year, we were dropped with the news of the Intel partnership which created MeeGo. Understandably, this caused some shifting around of plans, and delays. But MeeGo Harmattan was supposed to be an instance of MeeGo, and not true MeeGo, an evolution of Maemo 5. From my point of view, an evolutionary jump like that was well within Nokia's capability to execute and deliver by Nokia World. Seems like that OS and device have also been dropped, ala Elephanta.

This February 11, a day that will live in infamy, we learned that MeeGo would be relegated to a research project, and not the OS of choice for Nokia's high end devices. A sad day, for sure. Yes, one MeeGo device will be released this year by Nokia, and will hopefully blow us away as the previous Maemo devices did. And again, we are waiting.

But, what happened? Where did the corporate vision for Open Source disappear? Why has Maemo/MeeGo floundered within Nokia's walls? Why has the one-two punch of successive product launches not happened in this segment, like competitors have been able to pull off? Why the sudden alienation of users and developers with one fell swoop? Is this a game winning decision or suicide?

Where do Maemo enthusiasts go from here? I still like the N900, so one obvious spot to contribute is the Community SSU. That should realistically give longer life to this platform. What about the MeeGo project? Will Nokia be contributing as much 'post 2/11' as they have? Will the Handset UX development slow down now that Nokia's focus has shifted? And lastly, is it time to shift gears ourselves, and move to competing platforms such as the Big 2, or Mr. Jaaksi's Handheld Project?

Wanted: Task-Based Profiles

2010-12-05T22:35:00.001-05:00

On the recent trip to Dublin for the MeeGo Conference, I noticed that I had to spend time to reorganize the desktops and other settings of the N900 to be friendly for carrier roaming. In my carrier's home zone, I have unlimited data, but while roaming, the data costs rack up quickly.

My roaming setup is:

1. Turn off all widgets that update themselves (OMWeather, Twitter, Facebook, RSS)
2. Set Mail for Exchange to Manual Updates
3. Turn off all IM and VoIP accounts
4. Use the 'mobile' HTML sites for GMail, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

There is no easy way to switch between my normal setup to this roaming setup and back again. So, after returning from my trip, I had to spend more time to put the desktop back to its normal state.

I recently stumbled upon 'Desktop Activity Manager' which allows you to setup different desktop profiles. This works fine for the desktop, but still requires manually setting MfE and IM/VoIP to off. I currently use 3 desktop profiles for 'normal', 'roaming' and 'car'. The car profile has only one desktop view with a few icons that are needed.

In a perfect world, while in my car, I would also like all IM to be turned off to reduce distraction, keep VoIP on so that I can receive calls, have the Phone and Maps applications started, and set the master volume to maximum. I wish I had an easy and reversible way to do this !!

Customizable profiles for the N900 would be a very useful feature for me. Not only in setting the look of the phone, but also it's functionality. Visual clues could be given to remind you what profile you are in: custom backgrounds, color schemes, or status bar icons. Switching between profiles could be accomplished via status bar icon.

No two users are alike, so any system would have to be flexible enough to allow deep customization.

Perhaps a talented Maemo developer will bring this to light someday!

Thoughts on MeeGo Conference 2010

2010-11-24T09:29:00.003-05:00

Since the Meego Conference in Dublin, many members of the community have already presented their thoughts on the venue, presentations, social events, etc. Those summaries echo what I felt while there. It was a fantastic experience, larger and better than the Maemo Summit last year.

As a conference wrap-up, I'll share a few highlights and takeaways that I had:

Seeing Carsten Munk on stage during Doug Fisher's keynote was, I believe, critical for MeeGo - it highlighted the openess that the project is trying to achieve.

IVI --> In-Vehicle Infotainment seems like a challenging aspect for MeeGo, due to the integration of other devices/sensors into the mix. As some of you know, I have a 'passing interest' in aviation, and immediately saw the potential for MeeGo as a base for IFE Systems (In-Flight Entertainment). Other than the usual entertainment use-cases, I see new angles: being able to bring your own content from your phone/portable media player to the seat-back displays; sharing that content with other seat-backs; Instant Messaging with other passengers.

Media Panel --> Monday at 5:15 pm was the media-only panel session chaired by Jim Zemlin of Linux Foundation. It was personally rewarding to be considered a member of the MeeGo Media, and I was elated to have finally met esteemed bloggers Mark Guim (The Nokia Blog), Vaibhav Sharma (The Handheld Blog), and Rafe Blanford (All About MeeGo). In terms of the panel session, it was a reiteration of the themes introduced in the morning keynotes.

Handset --> Not much to get excited about yet, since the Handset UX is not usable from an end-user perspective. Many handset veterans (read: maemo.org folk) expressed that it is hard to get excited when you do not see the hardware/software in your hands. I agree - the N900's that were distributed at the Maemo Summit gave everyone an instant stake in Maemo - it is unfortunate that MeeGo based hardware from Nokia was not ready for Dublin.

IdeaPad Giveaway --> Thanks to Intel for the generous gift of the Lenovo IdeaPad. The MeeGo Netbook UX is not the ideal setup for this device due to its rotatable touchscreen. I would like to see something that handles both Netbook and Tablet UX on this device, which at this point in time, does not exist. If I were to chose one, I would go for the Tablet UX flavour for the Lenovo. But the Tablet UX seems to have disappeared from the MeeGo project! I expect we will see a usable solution for the IdeaPad soon, as there are people actively looking at improving the IdeaPad experience on forum.meego.com.

In closing, I extend my sincere thanks to the Linux Foundation, Nokia, Intel and other sponsors of the event. It was a fabulous time, and I look forward to MeeGo's maturity where I can use it as an everyday OS in my mobile life.

Maemo Community Council Election (Q3-2010): Candidates Q&A

2010-09-15T21:54:00.014-04:00

As part of the lead-up to the Q3-2010 Maemo Community Council election, I am holding a Q&A with the 10 candidates. There is a wide range of candidates again this time, making the vote difficult, at least for me. I am hoping that the Q&A will help the community decide which candidates are best to represent our community.

The format of the Q&A is 5 questions, selected by me. A few of the questions intentionally attempt to elicit discussion surrounding our future - one in which Nokia's involvement could conceivably diminish. I am not sure if that will happen, but I thought I would push those boundaries to see what the candidates thought. As you will see after reading the Q&A, there are mixed feelings on this topic.

Without further delay, here is what our candidates have to say, presented in the order in which I received the reponses:

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ANDREA GRANDI (andy80)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

I'm standing for the Council, because I would like to do more to help the Community. I've contributed to Maemo since 2007-2008 in many ways (helping the organization of events, coding applications ecc...) and I hope to have the required experience to be able to "listen" then Community and give it the best support possible.

Yes, I think the first thing a Council member should do is to listen. Having good idea is very nice, but usually many good ideas come from the whole Community, not only from a single person.

I don't think I've anything better than other candidates (I don't know them all, but I don't think this anyway). I'm just offering my help. Whoever will be elected I hope it will work hard for the Community.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

I think that Maemo is not dead, yet. Lot of people own a N900 (mobile carriers still sell them and also Nokia is selling them in their Nokia Shop) and also N800 and N810 tablets. I think we need to support these people and not leaving them alone and abandoned, so... yes, I think we still need a Maemo Council to support them.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

We should really improve the QA testing of applications. We have a lot of application that stay in extras-testing for months and nobody test them. We need to improve this part and I've some idea about this. Most experienced and active developers should try to help Maemo developers, in particular those who want to move from C/Gtk to C++/Qt, so their application would be usable in a better way in MeeGo too.

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

I've started following MeeGo forum and meego-community mailing list as soon as they became available. I think it's very important to follow MeeGo development and how it evolves, to understand better the future of Maemo too. I think there is nothing bad following both communities. I will divide my time developing applications for MeeGo and helping the Maemo Community.

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

I think that without the direct support from Nokia, even if Maemo is (is it?) 100% opensource, the community alone will have big difficoulties trying to fix all OS bugs. The Council should play a strong role in this field, trying to give voice to thousand of people who want to see their devices updated and old/known bug fixed, even if MeeGo will be the main project to develop and support.

Consider me available for any other question you have :)

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COSIMO KROLL (zehjotkah)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

I would like to be part of the maemo community in the best way I can.

I'm already doing many things like providing support at the forums and doing maemo video reviews. But in the meantime I've learned some more regarding management and also obtained a lot of experience. For example I did all the treasure-management at the maemo summer coding competition. Also I've founded a very successful event, the mobile freidae berlin (http://mobilefreidae.org).

I think the one thing that is separating me from others is that in some way I always got the right words in my emails to "important" persons.
For example it took me only one mail to get ZodTTD to provide Smoku with the sources of the Playstation Emulator, PSX4All, whereas it was impossible for Smoku to get a reaction from him.

Also the prizes from Nokia for the winners of the maemo summer coding competition, the six flights and accommodation at the MeeGo conference 2010 in Dublin. I just had to write a single email to Quim Gil to achieve that success.

Others are thinking the same regarding me. Randall Arnold (Texrat) one time said to me that Quim Gil is replying my emails very quickly but his mails not.
So there must be a difference in communication

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

I think there is no big difference. The council will be a council for both operating system communities. Therefore it has to be active on both sites (maemo.org and meego.com). Some members will be more active on the one and others will be more active on the other site. Of course the council will be important for the "old" maemo community in one year, too. MeeGo does not make the Nokia 770, N800, N810 and N900 community members and their needs disappear.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

We have to think and decide together about the relationship between maemo.org and meego.com.
We have to assign new positions at the maemo community to keep it healthy.
We have to organize another coding competition because it was such a great success last time.

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

Yes, I'm already active on the meego.com forums.
Also I've started my own site about MeeGo (http://meetmeego.org).
Also the event mentioned earlier (mobile freidae) is about MeeGo, too.
We've not only tried the handset UX, we've also demonstrated it and the Netbook UX during the event. The MeeGo version for tablets will follow with the WeTab at the next mobile fridae.
I've no clue how I will split my time but you can be sure that I will not forget my N900 or the maemo.org community. I'm even still using my N810. For example I tried some weeks ago to get Sygic Mobile Maps working on it (with no luck, though, but I was active for the N810 users).
The N900 is a great and useful device. Nothing will change that.

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

I don't know if a "Fremantle Community SSU" will be needed since we've still PR 1.3 to come and there is still no talk about Nokias discontinuation of the N900s software development.
With Qt there will be also a lot of possibilities; for example the new Ovi Maps (installed on the N8) is made in Qt. So maybe we'll get that one day on our N900s? Also Nokia is working on a MeeGo version for the N900 so we're still far from the need of a community SSU.
But new applications and therefore developers are always needed.
Because of that we need another coding competition during the next six month.

Thanks for reading.
Be sure to check out my council declaration, too: http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_Council/Council_election_Q3_2010/Candidate_declarations#Cosimo_Kroll

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KATHY SMITH (revdkathy)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

I'm standing because rather a lot of people whose opinions I respect suggested I should. They seemed collectively to feel that my rather eclectic skillset would bring something different to the council. I'm not a developer, either for platform or applications. I don't have business or management skills. I don't have a lot of experience in Open Source communities. In fact, in many ways I'm still a complete novice.

What I think I do have to offer is a strong background in community building, with skills in communication and networking, and the perspective of the end user. (Hopefully not the ranting, negative sort!) And a hearty dose of common sense.

In a council of five people, it's open to debate whether you can use someone with those skills, or whether you want more experienced technical or managerial people in all five posts. I put myself forward not because I think the community 'needs' my skills on the council, but because I think there are a number of people who'd like to have the choice. If the community would like me to serve, I'll give it my best shot. If not, I shall continue to seek out other ways to use my abilities for the community.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

With Meego around the corner, I think it is all the more important that the Maemo community continues to do what it does well, and to demonstrate that the Maemo way of being community has value. The Meego community is a very different beastie, with a very different way of doing things. Without wanting to say that 'our way is better', I think it will be important to make it clear that Maemo has a lot to offer in what it has learned about 'doing community'. For this, Maemo will need a strong council and strong networks.

As for a year from now, sadly I have misplaced my crystal ball. We have seen that a year is a very long time in the technology world: a year ago we were still awaiting the release of the n900 (Oh that thread!), and Meego had never been heard of. I believe there is value in the Maemo way of doing things in principle, and I don't think that principle will change whether we take the best of Maemo into Meego or create something permanent for those who remain with Maemo (or preferably both). There are a lot of Maemo devices still out there and they will continue to need a community for a long time.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

I answered this question last, as I think in many ways it draws up the answers in the other questions.

I think the next Council will be faced with the question of what Maemo will look like as Nokia's support and involvement steadily reduces.

I hope the next council will continue to press for the fremantle code to be opened as fully as possible so that the community can continue to support it. I know the last Council worked very hard on this, without success for legal reasons. In the end, it may well not be possible. Doesn't mean we can't still go on trying.

I hope the next council will work with Meego towards there being as much cross-platform compatibility as possible between Meego and Fremantle, so that the tremendous work done creating apps to run on Maemo won't have to be started from scratch all over again with Meego (using Qt and other platforms).

Most of all, I would like to see the Maemo council and the community it represents demonstrate to the Meego community the value of a mixed community of platform developers, application developers, professionals and hobbyists, graphics and sound experts and committed, involved end-users. I believe there is much that is valuable in the Maemo way of being community, and while there are things which we may not want to repeat, there are others that have great value but currently seem to have no counterpart in the Meego community.

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

Yes, I am a member at Forum Meego, and part of their community. I have just taken over the role of co-ordinator of their greeter programme from Texrat, and been appointed moderator of their 'Community Matters' forum. So it's fair to say that Meego will be taking up some of my free time, though to be honest the community there is much smaller than Maemo, and at the moment much quieter.

On the other hand, were I to be elected to the Maemo council, clearly that would be top priority for my available time.
I don't see the two as contradictory, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the 'either/or' approach. In fact, I think it will be important to view Maemo and Meego as 'both/and'.

I believe it will be important to bridge the two environments as fully as possible.

For example, I would want to lend my voice to those arguing to ensure that apps developed for Maemo will run on Meego – and vice versa. Partly because more apps will be good for the end user, but also because had I spent my free time developing something on Maemo 5 I'd be pretty hacked off if the next iteration (Meego) was so different it took a massive effort to port from one to the other. I don't pretend to understand all the technicalities, but I think that will be really important.

And I don't think we will be able to have that sort of influence on Meego by standing on the outside shouting from the Maemo hill.

(And unless someone gives me one, the chances of me having a Meego device by November are slim!)

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

In part, that follows on from what I have said in previous questions (As far as I understand the question!)

Meego is already available in some sense for the n900, though presumably it never will be for earlier devices. Nor will it be pushed as an OTA update for every n900 user – and in fact for most end-users, sticking with Maemo will be the right option. There will be a need for a community around Maemo for a number of years, and one of the tasks of the council in this session (and perhaps the next) will be to ask what that needs to look like, how it is to be resourced and who will want to belong to it. Having support for fremantle will clearly be essential.

I think I'd want to ask questions about why Mer and Diablo were less than spectacularly successful despite enormous effort: how much was down to closed drivers? What lessons can we learn from those experiences? In the end, this is something I am out of my depth on: I am too new a community member to have been involved in either project, and not technical enough to follow them fully. That doesn't mean I can't grasp at least the broad principles (and sometimes a fresh eye can ask new questions). I would see my role being to determine the will of the community and endeavour as far as possible to make it happen. If that's about making a Community SSU into something to sustain the community for a long while, then that's what I would work for and support. We have seen the resistance to date by Nokia (for legal reasons) to fully open the fremantle code.

You hint at the end of Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform, but as yet we have heard nothing to suggest that is imminent. There is a further firmware release planned, but beyond that we honestly don't know. I would want to join with those arguing for as much of the closed Maemo5 code as possible to be opened so that the community CAN continue to support and improve it. And fighting to convince Nokia to continue to offer some sort of support to all the iterations of Maemo (not just fremantle) as long as possible.

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STEPHEN GADSBY (sjgadsby)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

I have benefited greatly from being a part of the Maemo community, and I'd like to give back.

We have a strong pool of candidates for this election. We have people with technical skills, managerial skills, leadership skills, organizational skills, communication skills, and beyond. I cannot and will not claim to be the best in any area. In the community, I've done my best to help out where, when, and how I can. That's all I can promise for myself if elected to the council.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

The move from Maemo to MeeGo has caused anxiety within our community. Community members have questions about technical aspects of MeeGo, and community members have questions about the essence of the MeeGo community. In some cases, there are already answers to the questions, but the information hasn't yet reached everyone interested in it. In other cases, the questions remain unanswered, and there's a need for seeking out information. There's certainly a role for the Maemo Community Council in helping there.

At the same time, it is the _Maemo_ Community Council, and there are and will be community members who aren't interested in MeeGo. It is essential that these community members and their needs aren't allowed to be drowned out by the noise the MeeGo transition is causing. The council has a duty there.

I won't predict whether a Maemo Community Council will be needed in a year. I expect there to be a smaller, but focused and enthusiastic, Maemo community then, but whether they need a formal body to assist with coordination and communication remains to be seen.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

- assure that developers and others who wish to transition to MeeGo
can do so with the minimum of hassle
- assure that developers and others who do not wish to transition to
MeeGo continue to find maemo.org provides them with the services upon
which they have come to rely
- assure that independent developers can simultaneously target all of
Maemo 5, plain MeeGo, and vendor-customized MeeGo through maemo.org
Extras and a MeeGo equivalent with a minimum of effort
- resolve questions and barriers regarding the addition of items to
vendor-specific application stores by independent, small group, and
small company developers
- enhance and expand community support of Maemo for existing devices

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

I follow and participate in both maemo.org and MeeGo mailing lists and forums. I provide Bug Jars, weekly summaries of activity with Bugzilla, for both maemo.org and MeeGo. I still use my N800 and N810 in addition to my N900, and I see no reason why I would abandon them for a MeeGo handset, should I purchase one. Indeed, I still want a 770
and a N810 WiMAX Edition, even more so than a MeeGo-Harmattan device, in fact.

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

I certainly hope so! I'm encouraged by the work community members are already doing to enhance and extend Maemo 5, without waiting to see what PR1.3 might someday bring. I hope community updates to Maemo 5, as well as Diablo, continue to grow, and I'll do what I can to assist those efforts. My secret dream is that somehow these community Maemo release efforts could expand to benefit the 770 as well.

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FELIPE CROCHIK (fcrochik)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

The Maemo Community and the development of software for the n900 have been my window to the open source world and an opportunity for me to explore and learn hands on. I am very curious to find out how the open source world will evolve and shape itself around the "mass consumer market". For me, the "maemo wave" offers a very unique perspective and the community around it is a promising factor. I hope to see and help it continue to strive and not slowly die with Fremantle.

What separates me from the others running? Frankly, I have never had the opportunity to attend an open source conference, I barely know how to use IRC and I have spent my entire professional life developing closed source applications. If anything, I can offer a different perspective that, hopefully, in contrast with the other experiences will cultivate ingenious solutions for the challenges ahead.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

The Maemo Community is not about the devices, it is about the people gathered around the devices. The devices will eventually become obsolete and be replaced. I believe if we don't find a "future" for the Maemo Community it will rapidly be dismantled. I have this recurring idea that the Maemo Community should be, maybe with a different name, the home for the Nokia Meego devices thus justifying many more council elections.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

I believe the most important priority to be addressed is to determine whether the Maemo Community will find an opportunity to evolve onto the new landscape or will it just slowly die. I am not convinced, as many others, that the only possible path for the Maemo Community is to merge into Meego. I believe there will be room for a community mainly dedicated to (meego + handset UX + Nokia). The new council will be challenged to find a reason for Maemo to exist more than just "post-end-of-life" support for the n900. When everything is moving, if you are not going up you must be going down (and quickly)!

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

I have tried to keep up as much as possible with the Meego mailing lists but haven't started to develop anything for Meego yet. All my development for Maemo is with Qt so I can make the applications run in multiple devices. I strongly believe the future of the Maemo Community is to embrace the new Nokia (Meego) device and invest in keeping Qt up to date for the n900 so we can leverage all the development efforts around Meego. I would like to have seen some investment in trying to bring the Qt back to the n8x0 devices. I don't think the Maemo can afford to compete with Meego for resources; it will either work in conjunction with or will disappear.

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

Realistically I don't think "fixing bugs" is nearly as important as the ability to get new applications. For better or worse we get used to the "few things" that don't work and find ways around them. Not that I don't think these initiatives are important but I would concentrate on making the n900 an "easy target" for applications developed for Meego.

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ROBIN BURCHELL (w00t)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

I'm standing for council because I think it is important that the wider community has a voice, hence the importance of the council. In terms of that wider community, I think that I can represent the concerns of application developers well, due to my experience working both on the technologies of the platform, such as Qt, and with actually developing applications.

(Of course, I wouldn't exclude other parts of the community, this is just one that I feel I know best and can therefore best represent)

I don't feel personally that I stand out from any of the other candidates, or indeed, those that aren't running. We all have a track record, but at the end of the day, anyone *can* and *should* get involved, so here I am. Histories don't matter all that much, what matters is what you bring to the table, I think.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

Yes.

MeeGo is changing a lot of things in very big ways, but we cannot forget that we have an existing community around Maemo devices, and that community cannot be left out in the cold. It has to be taken care of, and nurtured in whatever direction the community as a whole wants to go.

*IF* there is a council required in a year? Well, that pretty much requires on the continuation of the direction we're in now. So far, signs point towards gradual migration towards MeeGo, in which case, we may not be a seperate community forever.

My personal view is that this is a good thing, with a caveat: we shouldn't forget pieces of Maemo that can provide value in MeeGo, such as hildon - this would give us the applications we love on top of an operating system with an open, committed future.)

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

I touched on this in my previous answer, but it certainly deserves elaboration.

I think the most important things are, in no particular order:
- Figuring out what pieces of Maemo we should look at taking to MeeGo, and
organise that porting (community efforts? upstream (if there is one) ? Nokia?)
- Continue to educate the maemo.org developer community about Qt and other
platform-level changes
- Engage new developers to come and try the platform out
- Figuring out where end-users and power-users fit in a MeeGo context
(if there isn't a place for them, then maemo.org might still prove useful)
- Figuring out a more productive channel for end-user feedback

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

Yes, I have been taking an active role in MeeGo, because it's important. I think it's the future of the devices we have *now* (if we work towards it), not just the devices we buy in November (or whenever the future decides to give them to us).

If properly engaged, I think it has the capability to deliver more power into our hands than any iteration of Maemo thus far, but that does rather depend on us getting involved and raising the issues that we find important.

In terms of my personal activities on MeeGo, I have (amongst other things)
- Been involved with mailing lists
- Tried out various parts of the software stack (both middleware libraries like
libmeegotouch and applications like the IVI UX)
- Sent patches for various parts of the software stack
- Tried to encourage openness as a primary development methodology (see for
example http://bugs.meego.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4900)
- Offered support to application developers (and others) via forums/IRC/other

I personally don't see time spent on MeeGo as time not spent on maemo.org, but I do not feel I have neglected maemo.org either - as much of the work I do is keeping the migration of the existing community and devices in mind. For example, some time ago, I worked on improving the performance of libmeegotouch software rendering mode, which could be useful for things like the n8x0 hardware adaptation. (See: http://blog.rburchell.com/2010/04/every-time-you-scale-pixmap-god-kills.html)

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

Quite simply, no.

Fremantle is, for better or worse, effectively a dead platform. A lot of the source isn't available (and realistically, won't be available).

I think the best future for Fremantle is the one I have outlined above: migration of irreplaceable or useful parts of the Maemo stack to MeeGo, as then, we have a fully open OS (hardware blobs excepted), meaning:

- We can easily upgrade to the latest and greatest MeeGo with minimal effort
from Nokia (mostly community driven in the future I hope..)
- We can fix bugs at any place in the software stack (no more waiting for
components to be opened).

This is especially important, as you can almost certainly bet that some people *will* be distracted by newer devices, meaning that maintaining a full stack of software *just* for one device is even less plausible, given there are less people to do it.

With the above, we'd have the same software working across many devices (it already works on e.g. Aava and N900), meaning more 'interested' developers working on all parts of the stack.

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ATTILA CSIPA (achipa/atilla77)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

I have been involved with the Maemo Community for several years now in various functions - user, developer, tester, Community Council member and thus believe to have a good understanding of how (especially
technically) the community works and clear plans what needs to be done in order to maximize efficiency and synergy for all Maemo users. I think the Community is lucky that this time around we have the most
candidates ever applied, and that their backgrounds and skillsets are very diverse. It is also a good thing that there is new blood there - my particular skills could help bridge old and new, with a special emphasis on leveraging MeeGo resources to improve the situation in Maemo land. We might not get all the MeeGo goodies or commercial support, but there is plenty infrastructure and application-wise that we CAN use, but only if we put in an effort to do so.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

I think that the role of the Council is pivotal with MeeGo around the corner. Without focusing on what happens in MeeGo land, maemo.org will get pushed more and more to the sidelines - especially if new, shiny MeeGo devices appear - and the only way to try to battle that is to have a good link between MeeGo/Nokia and the maemo.org community - a role traditionally filled by the Council. There is no guarantee of success and it won't be easy to secure a solid future (or at least link to MeeGo) for maemo.org (and thus Maemo based device owners), but if nothing else, we can at least try, as inaction means slow but sure decay. I really don't know whether the Council will be just as needed in a year, it will depend on both the status of MeeGo at that point and state of maemo.org.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

Most of the burning questions have been resolved one way or the other, in my mind, there is one single priority - interaction with MeeGo. I intentionally won't say transition, as it has been made clear that MeeGo does not wish to transform/assimilate the Maemo Community, but the relations with MeeGo are critical. Things from the MeeGo project, like the Open Build System, applications based on the Qt ecosystem are more than useful for Maemo, too, and if at some point the MeeGo port to the N900 becomes useful for everyday use, that's where users will go anyway.

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

I firmly believe that, though not apparent, the future of the Maemo Community will be influenced by what happens in MeeGo land. Maemo and Maemo device owners can expect benefit only from projects like MeeGo if they fight for it - if their voices are not heard there, they WILL be overlooked even if there is no technical obstacle for cooperation and synergy. In that sense, I believe the new Council should spend at least as much time on meego.com as it does on maemo.org - lest they turn into the Waldor and Statler of MeeGo (the two grumpy old men from Muppet Show).

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

Sadly, I must say I don't see a too bright future for a Fremantle Community SSU. The Maemo Community had difficulties gathering a critical mass for keeping OS level things going, and the closed components of Maemo make that even more of an issue. With most of the platform developers leaving the community or having already transitioned to MeeGo (stskeeps, lbt, and many more), I doubt that Community SSUs or Hacker Editions, while valiant efforts and potentially useful for the short term, can provide a long term solution. At this point it's hard to tell just what the right solution will be, as it depends on many factors regarding Harmattan, MeeGo, new devices, etc, but at the moment cooperation with MeeGo and leveraging the MeeGo hardware adaptation project for the N900 seems to be one of the strongest contenders for providing a
second life for Maemo device owners and the community around maemo.org.

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TIM SAMOFF (timsamoff)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

The Maemo Community Council is a unique, but important entity. Nowhere else in the open source universe do a small group of community members get to liaise between the greater community of users and developers and the people who are producing the software and/or devices that are driving the community.

In this regard, the Maemo Community Council possesses great responsibility: they must diligently keep their ear to the grindstone and honestly (and sometimes adamantly) communicate the desires, dreams, and problems of the community back to the parent company -- in our case, Nokia (soon to include Intel).

At this point during the evolution of Maemo to MeeGo, there is no more crucial a time to be involved in this capacity. Community members and Nokia employees alike wish to have an efficient channel of communication in which vital topics are communicated (both to and from Nokia), thoroughly considered, and acted upon.

Personally, I have an interesting connection with Maemo. I began as afrustrated user, quickly transitioned into a power user, and then began helping various developers with design-oriented tasks. I am not a
developer and I don't know how to program applications... I don't even know how to add something to the application repositories. But, since my beginnings in open source software (almost twenty years ago), I have
always been interested in user interface and user experience issues. That is how I first found Maemo and that is how I continued to get involved.

Since becoming a member of maemo.org, I penned a cohesive user interface design document for Maemo (up to Chinook), created several pieces of art for various applications, served in both the inaugural and second term Maemo Community Council, helped to plan both the first and second Maemo Summits, and designed the brand iconography for the second Maemo Summit (among other things).

It is because of my connection with the community, my dedication to making both the community and Maemo an overall better experience for end users of all types, and my willingness to lend a hand when needed that makes my nomination for the next Maemo Community Council a valid one.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

I think that the Maemo Community council is important now and in the future, no matter what happens to the development landscape. The Maemo community is one of the largest hands-on communities in the open source universe. There are opinions about Maemo from all sides of the spectrum. If Nokia plans on continuing its involvement with the community (in any capacity) the Council will retain its efficacy as a communication conduit. If MeeGo happens to take over everything that Maemo has conceived during the past several years, then having some dedicated people who understand both the history of Maemo as well as the scope of MeeGo will continue to benefit Nokia and Intel.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

The Maemo community has grown despondent towards the future of Maemo and the onset of MeeGo. Maybe people have grown bored with the current state of maemo.org and don't look forward to retooling all of their work for a new operating system with new user interface standards. This is understandable, but not so far gone that attitudes like this can't be turned around.

Maemo, as an open source ecosystem, needs an open source style of communication. Now, more than ever, a close-knit group of people like the Maemo Community Council can organize and channel the energy that our community has always possessed. Community projects, learning opportunities, and a roadmap that outlines exit and transition plans are all necessary in keeping the truly dedicated community members on a
positive path towards supporting both the current and any potential infrastructures.

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

The short answer is "yes." But, the advent of MeeGo happened to occur at a time of my life when I wasn't quite able to concentrate on anything (even Maemo). Because of this, my involvement with MeeGo has been thin to say the least. But, I'm not one who sees much of a difference between the overlying goals of Maemo and MeeGo. In fact, my opinion is that there will be a convergence of some sort that happens not to far in the distant future. Maemo needs a Council. That is clear. The Council that is elected should remain dedicated to the things that happen within maemo.org. But, I would not trust any Maemo Community Council member that didn't keep a heads up about everything that was occurring at meego.com either. Both of these worlds remain separate at the moment, but I don't think that they will for long.

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

I have another short answer for this one as well: "No." The reason for this is not because the efforts aren't important or valid. On the contrary. But, one must look at the underlying philosophy of everything
we at Maemo are built upon. As a community whose soul is in open source software, we must inherently expect that most of the efforts that are spearheaded by the community are by and for open source developers.
Because of this, anything that relies on an ed user's ability to be able to find and understand how to fit into these efforts will fail. The idealistic side of me wishes that this isn't so. After all, as someone who is not a developer, I have been able to integrate and participate in several open source initiative over the years. But, I have to be honest in realizing that I (and anyone like me) am an exception. Unless a group of developers are able to organize themselves into an organization that can develop a world class, intuitive method for casual users to plug their device into a computer, click "GO," and sit back and watch a progress bar complete everything for them, then these efforts will remain applicable only to the types of people who like getting their hands dirty.

Still, this is a case for the importance of the Maemo Community Council. If enough research could be done to systematically prove that a certain number of users are still purchasing N-Series devices solely to use the
Maemo operating system, Nokia might be swayed into agreement that ongoing support is necessary. The Council would be the entity that could achieve this.

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ANDREW FLEGG (jaffa)

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

I decided to run again when Andrea was the only candidate, but by the time I'd finally got around to it, we'd got a much more complete field! So much so, I did re-consider running: all of the candidates this time are excellent, and casting my own vote will be hard.

I'm running, though, as I think I've got a good skill set which means I can offer a lot to the community, and the council particularly.

In my "day job" (not Maemo or MeeGo related), I'm a developer, architect and manager: I understand how development happens at big companies and the pressures of shipping a large complex piece of technology. This allows me to act as a bridge between Nokia's commercial pressures and the (sometimes) more idealistic view of the community. I also have to travel to clients and prospects and talk through issues with them, with the council primarily being a facilitation and communication role, these skills are invaluable.

Forum Nokia is Nokia's official developer channel, and as a Champion I can also act as a bridge between our hobbyist and open source developer community and those more corporate channels, which have their faults but also give us things we can learn from - and they from us.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

The current Council are in talks with Nokia about the community, represented by the Council, taking on full responsibility for maemo.org. This has some legal issues which need to get answered, but is progressing well. As the site would need some form of owner/controller/contact, this would entwine the future of the Council with the future of maemo.org. Therefore, despite committing to a referendum on the future of the Council before the end of the year, this would be impossible if the Council was coordinating community support of the site, and setting priorities for the paid team directly.

As to the future of maemo.org, it will always have *some* place for owners of 770 and N8x0 devices. Despite the MeeGo adaptation layer for N810, I suspect Maemo is still the right answer for most users there, which is why it's good to see the Maemo 4 Community SSU.

However, the numbers of N900s in the community far outstrip the numbers of previous devices (combined), and the future here is still unclear. There are three possibilities:

* Maemo 5, with ongoing support from the Community SSU
* MeeGo Handset UX
* Harmattan (previously known as Maemo 6)
"Hacker Edition", aka MeeGo-Harmattan HE.

I suspect one of these will emerge as the best option for most community members (possibly switching over time as MeeGo matures), but whicg that will be is unclear, as is where the discussion and community for each of those will evolve.

This is the biggest challenge facing the incoming Council: to actively monitor the ever-changing situation and, in addition to our normal facilitation tasks, use communications like the Council blog (and perhaps even stronger methods) to make sure users and community members are informed about the options and help them make their own choices.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

There are three: engaging in the MeeGo community, getting involved with post-Nokia Fremantle support and pushing for more Qt-based development and integration which can give us cross-platform applications.

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

I'm active on the MeeGo mailing lists and fora, have tested MeeGo Handset on my N900 and have started dabbling in Qt development.

I've been at Nokia World this week and, despite the lack of MeeGo (or, rather, MeeGo-Harmattan) devices being announced, all of the developer talks were focused on Qt or Web Runtime, and talked about them in use for Symbian, Maemo and MeeGo. Many demos were given from N900s.

As a developer, and so a community member, this is exciting: I'll be able to develop applications in a proper IDE and deploy, test and distribute across all three platforms.

I'm not one to abandon gadgets, we still have two N810s in our household, receiving active use, and I can imagine that continuing with the N900.

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

Certainly I expect the Fremantle Community SSU to be more successful than Mer (as it will be backwards compatible and can only *add* to the functionality of a device) and even the Diablo Community SSU (as it's started now, before Maemo 5's even end-of-life). There are also more N900s than earlier devices, meaning the demand for these things will be higher. Hopefully, the community at large will step up.

I suspect we'll a.so see Nokia engineers, who may have wished to develop certain features for ages, do so now that the management of many components can be done openly. I plan to offer MohammadAG as much support as possible in both the logistical and promotional efforts around his work.

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RUDIGER SCHILLER (chemist)

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, I did not receive Rudiger's responses to the Q&A that I had sent. As I wanted to get this Q&A published by the time of the start of voting, I humbly apologize to Rudiger, and commit to publishing his responses in this Q&A if and when they arrive.
Rudger's candidate declaration is here: http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_Council/Council_election_Q3_2010/Candidate_declarations#R.C3.BCdiger_Schiller

EDIT - Rudiger kindly forwarded me his responses after I published the article, but within the election period. His responses are below:

1. Why are you standing for election for the Maemo Community Council? What do you think separates you from others that are running?

On the one hand I stand for it to encourage others (former or active councelors)
On the other I seperate from all others as I like to reflect and mirror opinions
and take a stand for the opposition.

2. With MeeGo around the corner, do you think that there is a role for a Council in today's Maemo landscape? Do you think there is a role for a Council a year from now, when MeeGo is in full swing?

Maemo will last longer than the support by Nokia, the process of handover
as full community supported distribution is a key element on this matter.

3. What priorities would you say are required for the Maemo Community during the next 6 months?

OSS'ing the Nokia Stack to make the Community SSU happen.
Support for Maemo Developers to have an easy hand to code for MeeGo, Harmattan and Maemo Devices at the same time.

4. Have you started transitioning to MeeGo? For instance, talking on forum.meego.com or mailing lists, getting apps ready for MeeGo, or trying out the handset UX on the N900? If so, how do you plan on splitting your time between MeeGo and Maemo activities? Can we at maemo.org count on you to be our voice even if you have a shiny new MeeGo device come November?!

Yes but more in a way of 'looking' what happens over there as I will keep my
soul with maemo for at least another year or so. For time splitting; I offered
help to the Marketing Team wich isn't anything I have to think of heavy time
management. MeeGo is currently going the wrong path for me and I think it wont
change fast.

So NO I wont have a MeeGo device any time soon.

5. Community efforts at providing "post-end-of-life" support are greatly appreciated. Take Mer, or the Diablo Community SSU as examples. In spite of the best intentions, and great efforts expended, they have not delivered the end-user impact that has been speculated or promised. Do you think a "Fremantle Community SSU" is going to keep the Maemo Community (realistically) 'chugging' along with their N900's past Nokia's involvement in the Maemo platform?

My own device's future depends on it and yes I believe the community has
the power (dev- talk-) to do it. There are still N800- and N810-only community
members active and some are coding for M5 and asked N900 owners for
testing their new releases.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Maemo Minute #5: Real Face-to-Facetime

2010-08-18T22:58:00.001-04:00

I saw a Bell Canada iPhone 4 commercial on TV today. It was focused on the FaceTime application. At the end of the commercial, in small print, was the limitation that it works on Wi-Fi only.

Well, Maemo 5 and the N900 allow SIP video calling, GoogleTalk with Video, and Skype Video over Wi-Fi and 3G. I have had several Google Talk with Video calls over Windmobile's 3G network. And, just for the record, Maemo had this feature before Apple, and without the silly limitation.

Advantage: Maemo.

What is old is new again (Tablet Companions)

2010-06-15T23:36:00.001-04:00

Nokia let the tablet segment slip out of their portfolio. After 3 generations of Internet Tablets, the form factor that started Maemo is now a distant memory.

Maemo is alive and kicking, for now, in the superb N900 mobile computer. However, that 4-5" wifi/BT enabled tablet that got so many of us interested in Maemo has seen no recent attention from Finland.

This article on Blackberry's rumoured tablet companion actually got me upset. Nokia had a good chance at being the segment leader if they had kept that product line fresh. Instead, they chose to focus on bringing Maemo to a cellular phone device.

Don't get me wrong, I love the N900. As a convergence device, it is fabulous...mobile computer combined with cellular phone. A great media player, best-in-class VoIP and IM integration, killer hardware, etc.

But it seems that other smartphone manufacturers are starting to branch out to 'accessorize' their flagships. Although the iPad is not technically a companion to an iPhone, you'll likely see those two together in fanboys' European purses. Now Blackberry is rumoured to have a companion tablet in the works, which tethers to your Blackberry smartphone.

Come on! We had this 5 years ago in Maemo. Nokia just decided to abandon that offering, leaving the field open for competition to swoop in.

I like my N800 tablet, but it is sadly in permanent storage in my daypack. Not because it is not functional, but because OS2008 does feel noticeably clunky compared to Fremantle.

MeeGo appears to be one avenue in which we can get the tablet back. But with NOKIA on the label? I am not hopeful. Prove me wrong, Nokia. In the meantime, we may have to watch tablets emerge from here and there, while Nokia finds more reasons to reinvent themselves year after year.

Two years of Maemo Blogging!

2010-06-04T20:36:00.004-04:00

I was thinking that the 2nd 'anniversary' of my blog, Mobile Tablets! had to be around the corner. It turns out that it is today, June 4th!

My first post was a short intro on what I had envisioned for my Nokia Tablet related blog - mostly talking about my usage in the daily grind. The Wimax trials were my first feature (in 6 parts), but my first break was the interview of qwerty12, which allowed me to test my interview skills. Since then, I've had the privilege of interviewing several Maemo heavyweights (Andre, Ryan, Randall and Peter), published features related to Mer, and even some pre-election coverage for the recent maemo.org Community Council elections. The interview sparking the most contentious comments was the one of GeneralAntilles, and the post with the most tweets and thumbs on maemo.org was related to the N8X0 drivers announcement at the Summit. And recently, I have begun a series of "Maemo Minutes" - which are small tidbits related to Maemo, anecdotes and/or tips.

The blog was my main karma source, allowing me to attend Maemo Summit 2009 in Amsterdam (thanks Jaffa, for encouraging me to apply for sponsorship). At that time, I was one of a few Maemo bloggers around. In this N900 era, there are dozens of blogs related to Maemo. It is difficult to separate yourselves from them. I do not and cannot compete with professional bloggers - that is something that just does not interest me. I have tried to create content of interest to me and the community (I hope!) instead of 'retweeting' it. It becomes difficult, but that is where I like to delve....in areas untouched by others.

I have not spent any effort blogging about my Maemo 5 application, MaeFlight (now in extras-devel). But I think I will start to. I do not develop software in my day job, so I am mainly tinkering, hoping to round out my Maemo contributions, and learn more about this platform I love from 'the other side'.

I would like your feedback - what do you think I should focus on for new content now.... Maemo, MeeGo, community stuff, news, no-change, etc. My buddy, Texrat, gave me a few interview ideas recently. I want Mobile Tablets! to be relevant to the community, so I humbly ask for your input. Many thanks!

I'll close with a quote from a Facebook exchange I had with a friend of 19 years, who did not know that I was 'EIPI' until last month:

"Woah, I cannot believe you are EIPI!!! You are famous (well at least in a pool of 30,000 people). Very cool."

Not sure I agree with the 'famous' part, but that made me laugh, nonetheless.

Maemo Meetup in Toronto

2010-05-06T14:13:00.001-04:00

Last night, I attended the Mobile Geeks of Toronto (MGoTO) meetup. The featured guest was Samir Agarwal, head of Nokia's Maemo Operations in Mountain View, CA.

There were about 15 attendees, ranging from talk.maemo.org members, mobile enthusiasts, wireless carriers, and of course Howard Chui, of HowardForums fame.

I was in "EIPI-mode", and asked Samir some very pointed questions relating to Maemo/Meego. Some takeaways:

1. Nokia is commiting to the North American market with Meego
2. Meego devices from Nokia will be both mainstream and high-end in the hardware department.
3. Meego is not replacing Symbian
4. Samir would not answer if Nokia's Meego would have the 2-way pannable desktop, saying it may be damaging to his job if he answered! I am fairly certain that it will though based upon what we know of Harmattan.
5. Skype video coming to N900 .... It was demonstrated between Samir's N900 and his Booklet 3G.

Samir was asking for our feedback. I had my NA peeps in mind when I strongly said that Nokia must be committed to MeeGo's success in North America. Two things, IMO have been strikes against the N900 here in North America: 1) still being a geek device, and 2) choice of AWS HSPA bands which severely limit its adoption in 850/1900 land over here. If Nokia puts in the 5 band chip from the N8 in the first MeeGo device, it will go a long way to securing North American adoption, IMO.

Maemo Minute #4: NuevaSync - Set it and Forget it

2010-04-09T18:59:00.001-04:00

The N900's MfE client can sync with a number of MfE servers, but is not Google-friendly, since Google's implementation of Mail for Exchange (MfE) is not standard. I for one would like to use Google Calendar and Google Contacts as my main PIM database. I had my N900 calendar syncing for a while with Google, and then I found it to be unreliable, so I turned it off. Another annoyance I found was that MfE would download my Google contacts, but would not sync them afterwards (I reported Bug 5835 for this).

There have been several threads on Talk about this, including the long winded one started by Vitaly Repin. The short of it all: MfE on the N900 does not officially support Google. A business decision by Nokia, and unfortunate for many of us Maemo enthusiasts who happen to use Google's services for basic PIM.

Enter NuevaSync.

The service offered by NuevaSync is free (for basic usage), and provides a nice bridge between the N900's MfE client and Google. I am a NuevaSync user for about 2 days now. I have not used it to sync e-mail, but Calendar and Contacts sync like a charm. The free account allows you to sync calendar entries up to 2 weeks in the past. If you are like myself, and have years of calendar entries that you want to sync once to the N900 (to retain your calendar history), you will have to 'try' a premium account for 5 days to get past the 2 week sync restriction that NuevaSync has in place on the basic account. The premium account has other niceties, but for me, the basic account is just enough.

It's another service to add to your already large list of accounts you manage. But if you use Google like I do for almost everything, then NuevaSync is a must for your N900. As I posted on Texrat's blog, I hope that major 3rd party services (such as Google) work out of the box with the first MeeGo product from Nokia. I want to be able to open the Harmattan device's box, fire it up, and connect to my entire online life in a few minutes - 100% reliably, and using the default clients. Hopefully, my dream will be a reality shortly!

Note: I am in no way affiliated with Nuevasync.

Maemo Community Council: Candidates Getting Grilled

2010-03-21T22:50:00.000-04:00

The Maemo Community Council election is drawing near, and the nomination process is closed. As you have probably heard by now, the candidate list is quite strong, comprising former and current Council members, community veterans, and relative newcomers with strong community contributions. With the hype surrounding Maemo, the N900, MeeGo, and our uncertain future, this is the hottest political arena that our community has ever seen.

It is therefore with great honour that Mobile Tablets! is presenting this unofficial Q&A with the candidates as part of the lead up to the election.

Background to this Q&A:

All candidates were contacted personally to see if they would take part in a Q&A. All agreed, however, due to some confusion in the instructions (for which I apologize deeply to them), it was unclear to some where and how to respond to the questions that I posed. Most of that was resolved, however, I did not get Andrew F Black's (andrewfblack) responses at the time of this writing. As I wanted to get this post out before elections started, I humbly apologize to Andrew F Black that the post had to be published without his responses. I will commit to ammending this post with his responses if and when they arrive.

And now without further delay, let the grilling begin!

---------------------

1. What is motivating you to run for Maemo Community Council?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): This time it's to help maintain continuity from one council to the next, as well as to help facilitate transfer of successful maemo.org assets and projects to MeeGo while acting to calm the concerned maemo.org membership.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): To help out where I can.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): I believe that for this election, there should be 1-2 (fairly) new community members elected. The worst thing that can happen to the Council is if only 'old' members are elected (the ones that already have been in the Council or close to it). Or the other way round.
I think that I can bring this new energy and approach into the Council, something which is and will be extremely important in those times.
I consider Maemo/MeeGo to be an important player on the market, because of philosophy ('root access'), user experience (more desktop-like) and developer perspective (Linux development for mobile phones). Being interested (also professionally) in all those three aspects, I would like to see the platform flourish. Community is an important part of Maemo and future MeeGo, and Council is an important part of this Community. Having the best possible Council is then important for me personally. If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): A lot of things. This is an exciting time for mobile Linux and, I believe, the beginning of something that people will look back on in 10 years as the time when mobile computing changed forever. I see it as an incredible opportunity to be involved with this and help shape the direction things take towards the future.

Plus, I just like helping to make good things happen. ;)

Javier Pedro (javispedro): By the time I was nominated, I felt that a certain trait was missing from the set of nominees that previous councils (or at least, previous council elections candidates) had. Clearly, this is no longer the case -- this trait is now covered both by me and candidates nominated after me. Still, my views are of course not entirely shadowed by any single other candidate and as such the original motivation still stands.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): I've been a member of the Maemo community since I first read about the 770 in May 2005, and rediscovered it a couple of months before launch. With many others, I started hanging out at internettablettalk.com and subscribed to the maemo-* mailing lists. I found that I could add value in letting the forum folk know what was going on on the mailing lists and so grew into a very active member of the Maemo community.

With the launch of each successive device, I'd like to think my contributions have increased. But in early 2008, Nokia were increasingly asking the community questions of the form "should we hold a summit?", "should we open source X?" and no-one in the community felt empowered to answer. I proposed the creation of a community council to speak on the community's behalf - and the idea's proved successful.

After two terms on the council, I felt it was time to step down and give another set of candidates a go. These last six months have given my a fresh perspective and I hope to combine that with my experience and leadership qualities as we face the single largest change in Maemo's history: MeeGo.

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): The Community Council is in front of a crossroads, and I feel that the future of the Council as an institution will largely depend on what it does (and how successfully). Change is inevitable, and I believe I can help this period be transitioned, solving current problems with a mindful eye on the future. I think that it is very important that the Council has 'doers' in it's ranks, people who can and will commit time and effort to achieve goals, and are better at solving problems better than lamenting about them.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): I already manage a smaller community (the Linux user group of my city) and I think I could reuse some of the skills I learned and apply them in Maemo Community. I also have a couple of ideas to get more developers involved and to make the whole Community stronger.

Steven Yeager (YoDude): I always believed that the Community Council we elect should have some representation from the average customer/user base. I also believe that the forums are, and will continue to be the communication means of choice for many engaged users.

At the time of my declaration a current council member who I had voted for in the past recently had posted…

“It always frustrated me that the decision makers often chose to marginalize the forum users because they were too many, too unruly, too... unmanageable. By doing the important business on the mailing lists and IRC instead of the forums, it kept the noise down, but at the expense of losing a huge pool of resources."

… I share his views on this issue. Unfortunately, for personal reasons this councilman had decided not to run for reelection.

I was his decision not to run that motivated to me run this term. At the time I believe only 2 other candidates had declared and I feared that these views might not be represented by the future council. Since then the slate has filled out nicely. I hope that through the publicly viewed discourse that you have provided here on your blog and any subsequent posts on the forums, the issues that are important to me and I believe many others, will also become part of the platform of all candidates.

If that becomes the case, these views will be represented by the council no matter who is elected.

2. Effective Council representation requires a commitment of significant time and energy on your part. How are you planning to fulfill your Council duties, while maintaining all your other personal, professional and/or academic responsibilities.

Randall Arnold (Texrat): Same way I did last term: commit to this being a part of my life. It wasn't easy last term but this work is important enough to me to make the time.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): Good management. Currently I'm making videos about the N900 and I'm very active in the community. The activity in the community will fusion with the activity as a concil member. If then is not enough time, I can still decide to not make a video on this day.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): I am a busy person, both working and studying. I however feel that there is still place in my 24 hours day for involvement in Council works.
On personal (and practical) note, I do have very flexible schedule in both my academic activities and work, both regarding hours of the day (and night) and days of the year. Neither real-time conferences nor trips should be a problem (as they have never been). Due to my work, I live in two time zones anyway (Europe and US). Living alone, I don't have to worry about working at night or weekends. I guess everyone who has been a student knows how this works :)

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): Same way I always do. ;) Invest the free time where I have it. Sometimes there's more of it and sometimes there's less, but I try to be as productive as I can as often as I can.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): Well, like every other community member :). This will still be a in-free-time-only activity, and I think that the sprint system promotes the search of proper available free time slots.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): As I've been on the council twice before, including once as chair, I'm aware of the demands on the time that it entails. I wouldn't have stood if I was confident I could make the time to give the role the dedication it deserves.
However, I also have thoughts on how to reduce the burden, in particular with the monthly sprint meetings. Currently, these are run by the council chair, but I believe that it would be more efficient, more transparent and more effective if the Council and Nokia both provided input into the meeting and then it was run, and chaired, by the maemo.org team lead: Niels Breet.

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): A formal Council representation would only give additional legitimacy to my current efforts and agenda, which I'm already representing and investing considerable effort into. I don't want a Council hat for the vitrine, but to put it to good use - if I can't, I will return it for other folks to be able to pick up, I think that is the only fair thing to do. That said, I would have never accepted to be a Council candidate if I doubted I will be able to commit time and effort to it.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): I'll simply play less to Playstation and online games, dedicating more of my spare time to something really useful :)

Steven Yeager (YoDude): I work in the physical world and away from a connected desktop computer for most of my day.That is what attracted me to Nokia’s Internet Tablet concept in the first place. Like anyone else, I don’t undertake a task to be less than successful. In the pursuit of this success many of us have seen our work week increase to 60, 70, or even 80 hours. Fortunately because of my professional success and the position that I hold, I have been able to secure commitments from my employer and co-workers so that I can limit my employed work week to 40 hours for at least the next 6 to 8 months.

Of course prior commitments, vacations, and other family events like the birth of a child will always occur, but that is one of the reasons why there are more than one council member I would think.

3. The current Council has been criticized for lack of formal communication on their activities. What formal methods and frequency of communication do you believe are appropriate? Should all Council members share this responsibility or only a select few?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): There were lapses in every medium. The main formal methods, email and the forum, work well when used. The challenge is making sure every council member engages, at the very least to say "I can't be bothered right now". Frequency can be on an as-needed basis as well as regular meetings, once every two weeks working for the latter I think. All members should participate.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): I think only one or two council members should have the responsibility to inform the community. That does not mean, that the others are not allowed to inform as well. But these two members have to inform the community in form of a weekly/monthly report.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): I agree with the statement that there is not enough formal communication about Council activities. Whether this should be done by chosen persons or by all members, depends on the structure of elected Council, both regarding personal issues (this formal channel should not be monopolized by one fraction) and chosen responsibilities division (if any, in a natural way persons responsible for certain aspects should be the ones communicating them).
There are two main methods of communication that could be useful in this situation. Formal reports from the works of Council published in set intervals and (less formal) Council blog, an aggregator for all the members. I should definitely see the second option being done, the first one (for example in a form of two/three weeks wiki pages reports) depends on the actual works of the Council and if the results are suitable for such reports.
In short: make the community aware that there is a Council, that it works on something and may even sometimes ask for help.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): When I served my first two terms on the council we made a lot of use of the blog on maemo.org. I think having at least one member pushing a sort of "state of the community" post at least once a month would be helpful. But, much like the paid maemo.org staff, frequent communication and open working methods are a necessity from all council members.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): When I was still considering whether to accept or decline my nomination, one of the first things I did was to try to search which kind of activities previous councils did. I found the awful parts (the council blog still talking about the emulators, which means it's nearly as outdated as my own blog which is very, very outdated) and the better parts (like the public logs of the sprints). While all community members should still take care of communication and, more importantly, leaving logs of their own actions, more formal methods of communication will be useful but not necessarily on a timed basis. For example, Jaffa's MWKN covers much more than what the council blog covered (and he's not a council member!), and is currently a much more useful resource, up to the point that the council blog's usefulness seems diminished.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): I think all council members should be communicating with, and participating in, the community. That doesn't mean that everyone has to participate in every medium - however, some must.

One thing I think would help is that when key issues are facing the community, a single member is identified as the coordinator. These half a dozen issues could be presented as a table on the council
homepage and could, currently, say "VDVsx: extras testing & QA"; "gcobb: optification"; "Texrat: community outreach". This wouldn't preclude anyone else (either within, or outside, the council) participating but it makes clear who's responsible for pushing it forward.

Indeed, the coordinator need not even be on the council. Valerio Valerio (VDVsx) asked the first council's blessing to start the ball rolling on maemo.org's first Google Summer of Code and this kind of high-level task ownership is something I'd like to see encouraged.

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): I would like to see a Council weekly, much in the vein of the Maemo Weekly News. Ideally this would be a rotational duty (so everyone needs to write a single short report of 'what happened to/in the Council' less than once a month). While not a 'fun' idea and the word 'report' makes a lot of people uneasy, I agree that more communication from the Council is welcome, even if it's a 'nothing happened', just to keep people in the loop. Nokia has a very tight disclosure policy - but we don't have to (nor can afford to). Sprints are supposed to help this, but it is hard to see what's really going on in a continuous matter unless one is keeping a close eye on things - which is largely unnecessary as that is one of the tasks of the Council.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): Improving the communication between the Council and the Community is a must. My idea is that the Council should only schedule and coordinate the activities. These should be completed by Community members, awarding them with karma points. Of course there will be activities that cannot be shared but this is another story.

Steven Yeager (YoDude): All elected representatives of a community share the responsibility of communicating their activities with the community who elected them. However, formal communication from the council either with the community or with Nokia should be agreed upon by the council in total, in advance. The council should speak for the community as one “voice”.

A formal communication with the community should be required on a monthly basis in my opinion.

In keeping with the councils stated goals to…

“At some point, the maemo-community mailing list will be integrated with the Community subforum at Talk. Until then, the Council will use the Community subforum and link to important items in maemo-community, identified by using the [Council] tag”

…found on the Wiki page located at >> http://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Community_Council

I believe the council should use the forums for these communications as much as possible.

I hope to expand on this further in my answers to the following questions.

4. The Maemo community has grown large, especially since the introduction of the N900. With that, the issues the Community is facing has grown in stride. Presently, there has been no formal division within the Council, other than identification of a Chairperson. Should members of the Council have roles or portfolios? If yes, what portfolios are large enough to warrant a Council member to devote a majority of their time to them?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): Absolutely. Each member should champion a cause or causes and perform as a community facilitator for activities involved. Project manager may be a better term. I can answer the portfolio question best with examples: application testing as Valerio has championed, community outreach as I have, etc. Size of the project should not be as much a focus as impact on the community.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): Yes, I think the community members should have specific roles. For example as I've said one or two should be responsable for the community communication. Again one or two should be the contact for Nokia, and later, as we will have meego the contact for Intel, too.
And the last one is thecontact for the linux foundation. So we have splitted tasks for every council member.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): If any roles in the Council should be introduced, those should be more about being coordinators for certain tasks than being one and only responsible for various things. I think that this is a good idea, allowing people to focus on certain responsibilities and making it clear for the community who is the right person to contact.
Regarding the scope of the tasks, this will be something life will tell. I think that those can be both large blocks (like sprints coordination, extras testing process, meego cooperation) and small, well defined tasks within this scope.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): To a certain extent, people seem to fall into the role that most suits them, but I don't think this process should be formalized beyond, perhaps, having council members pick up certain pet projects they're particularly interested in and act as a go-to person for them.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): At this point I don't think that any portfolia is large enough to warrant a permanent Council member to it. As with any previous councils, there will be a natural tendency for each candidate to concentrate on the "roles" they prefer, which may actually be the reason the community chosed them.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): I don't believe specific roles to be necessary, apart from the single point man. Obviously, different members will have different interests, but the main point of the council is to empower people (who are already participating and contributing widely to the community) to speak on the community's behalf. Therefore, the main thing a council member has to do is "carry on doing what they're doing".

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): Not every Council member has the same skills, and I think that delegating tasks to particular persons can be a good thing if there is an agreement and general trust on the side of the Council. Since the election platforms are not role-specific, this would happen on formation of a Council, depending on it's actual members. In effect, these things could (and in a way, already are) done as particular tasks in the Sprint process. I would not even shy away from the Council delegating certain tasks to community members or creating task groups (within legal and technical limits, of course) - it should not take a Council membership to be able to push a certain agenda. Again, the Sprint process already provides a way for this, but it is largely unused/underutilized.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): I don't think there should be any particular division. The Council should simply work together to the tasks and, of course, if someone is more skilled in any particular task he could choose to lead it.

Steven Yeager (YoDude): Reoccurring tasks such as communication with Nokia, developer relations, member relations, forum administration, council elections, or whatever additional responsibilities that the council may have could be managed by committee with reports required sometime before each formal communication.

I realize that given the size of the council these committees will likely have only two members, however it is the committee concept that should be used to provide coverage overlap, manage responsibilities, and help identify the right people for the right jobs.

5. Current terms are 6 months. Is this sufficient time for having impact, or is it too short or too long?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): I think it was okay up to now but believe 12 months will make more sense with MeeGo.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): I think that the time is just right, because the community, devices and personal situations are changing very fast. If the period would be shorter, the council would have no chance to achieve important projects. If the period would be longer, maybe someone would not be happy with the council.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): I believe that in current situation it may prove to be too short of a period. It is however a matter of how many members of the Council are re-elected, so the continuity is preserved. I think that cadence of 9 months would be better.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): 6 months feels a lot longer from the other side, trust me. ;) Council members are free to run again as often as they like. Assuming a candidate remains popular, they have as much time as they need to push whatever agenda they'd like to push, but the 6 month period leaves the option open for members who don't want to continue their obligation (for whatever reason) to step down, while offering a much lower barrier to entry for potential candidates. 6 months is a much more reasonable obligation period for most people than a full year.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): In computing, a decade is an eternity. In this very dynamic handheld devices world, 6 months is half an eternity (Nokia releases a new (not-necessarily-Maemo) device every few months!). I think that 6 months is enough.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): Before the MeeGo announcement, I was considering running on a platform based around three principal changes:

* maemo.org paid contributors to become more empowered and accountable. * Council terms to be made 12 months. * Council members able to resign.

I've reconsidered that position in light of the changes which will affect the community in ways of we're not yet sure. However, all three were interrelated: my empowering the maemo.org members but having a well-defined and concrete mechanism for feeding in requirements (on the same footing as Nokia) would put the council in a position to be involved in performance reviews. By having a 12-month term, there would be enough continuity and knowledge within the council to make this feasible. Also, a 12-month term would mean a single council would be responsible for the yearly summit, and be in a position to be involved in Nokia World.

However, in the current council, we've seen that high-profile community members with the best of intentions can - for various reasons - not have the time necessary to devote to the role. Therefore, council members should have the ability to resign; especially when having to commit to the role for 12 months. This should also encourage more candidates in the election, as there'd be a clear mechanism to decide, after the fact, that it wasn't for them.

Perhaps, with the MeeGo transition, this lengthened term would be a good idea. I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on the topic.

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): It's certainly not too short. 12 months could be an alternative, but given how fast the community is changing, I think 6 months is a better choice. We already have a problem of bringing new blood to the council (or even the activities surrounding it) lengthening the term would only make this worse.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): I think is a bit short, I would prefer 12 months, but even 6 months are ok. We just have to hurry up to be sure to do all we want to do.

Steven Yeager (YoDude): Although changes to the council charter I believe is currently beyond the scope of what a new candidate can expect to accomplish, this is another item that could be examined and reported upon by a council committee.

Using the committee approach to better manage council activities itself may require longer terms. Or perhaps term overlaps should be examined to help provide continuity and to keep the election process in the forefront of our communities collective conscience. This in turn could promote more community involvement with the election process which in turn will benefit all.

6. The Council is privy to certain knowledge that a normal community member is not. For you to function in your role, this is understandable. However, the situation may arise where a subset of the Council may be made privy to some knowledge, as happened recently with the MeeGo announcement. Do you agree with Nokia's decision, or do you think the entire Council should have been given the same information at the same time, and under the same restrictions?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): Even given the explanation, I disagree with the decision. Not simply because only one member was privy, but because the one who was could do nothing with the knowledge. That made it pointless. Either inform the entire council or none. If information security is so big a concern, make it none... but be prepared for a challenge afterward.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): I'm fine with that IF it does have good reasons. I think Nokia had good reasons to not let everyone know the meego release.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): Nokia should not create such splits within Council. Not because the members are entitled to any information, but because this is harmful for the Council and community: if there is a reason why some members should be excluded from certain information, it means that the system Nokia-Council-Community doesn't work and needs to be fixed.
I however do not know the particular case with MeeGo announcement and, as I appreciate that there may be extraordinary situations in Nokia-Council contacts (the above is my opinion about those contacts in general), I cannot just write 'it was wrong', as I do not know. However, the less it happens the better.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): I don't particularly agree with Nokia's decision with the MeeGo announcement, but I can understand it. Unfortunately hedging like that just ties the hands of whoever actually gets told. At least when the whole council is involved they have an opportunity to plan for whatever big announcement is coming down the pipe, but a single person doesn't have many more options available than sitting and waiting.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): Note that one of the usual Council FAQ answers is "No NDAs were signed". Since the council represents the community, I don't believe that the council having more information than the community to be "right thing". Clearly, for organizational purposes, this may be required; ideally only for short periods of time.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): In general, the council operates best when it knows the same information the rest of the community do. I'd certainly be wary of having wide-ranging and long-running NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) which could hamstring the ability of a council member to do their job effectively.
However, if an NDA is for a specific event, I think it can be considered individually. For example, when the N900 was about to be launched, Nokia emailed the council saying they'd like the community to be involved in the launch; however they couldn't tell us when it would be. We decided between ourselves that Alan Bruce, Tim Samoff and I would sign a time-limited, specific NDA; whilst Kees Jongenburger and Ryan Abel wouldn't.
I think this provided a good balance; I'm not sure I'd ever agree with the whole council signing an NDA at the same time.

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): The biggest problem is that this currently seems to be decided on a case-by- case basis. I certainly would like to avoid situations where only parts of the Council know about something, as it creates points of conflict, and also defeats the point of the Council - one of the fundamental tasks of the Council is to act as a bridge between the community and the other stakeholders, hardly possible if the Council is separated into knows and know nots. Having an appointed liaison to particular companies or issues is a different matter - it's always good to know who is the point of contact and ultimate source for something, but limiting him/her in what can (not) be disclosed is pointless.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): It would be nice if at least all the Council members had the same level of knowledge, of course after signing a NDA, but this is not a decision the Council can take. If Nokia and Intel think that more people could share these knowledges then it wil be fine for me.

Steven Yeager (YoDude): Nokia is a business. The decisions that it makes are the essence of its success and survival in a very competitive market. I have no problem with how it chooses to communicate events to the council that may affect that business.

An individual councilman doesn’t have control over that and here again; the committee approach may also help. A “steering “committee by nature would be a subset of the council.

7. It seems that this term of the Maemo Community Council will be a busy one with MeeGo unfolding, possibly a new device rolling out of Finland, and of course, organization of the annual Summit. What priorities do you think the Council should keep during this term?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): Main priority is ensure the health of the current community while migrating to MeeGo. That won't be easy. We have already seen the anxiety MeeGo has introduced. We need to 1) push Nokia to answer hard questions about the future of the N900 vis-a-vis MeeGo and 2) listen with empathy to maemo.org member concerns and see what we can do to address them.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): Unify the community. Help to form a big community with talented people.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): As the MeeGo will be approaching to day one, it will be Councils priority to ensure panic-free environment. Many members of Maemo community will get afraid that their n900 is going to fell apart (metaphorically speaking [mostly]). If this happens, it will have a very negative impact on the Maemo community as well as the newly forming MeeGo one. It must be clearly stated that we are experiencing evolution (raaapid one), no one is going to be left behind, MeeGo monsters will not take over talk.maemo.org and so on. This will be a difficult task for the Council, but with (hopefully) unified views of the members it can be achieved.

This Summit will be a crucial one (exact weight will depend on Nokia and Intel timing). Good organization and giving people reason to participate will be the most important task. If at this point (active) members will get apathetic, not seeing reason to participate in a summit of a soon-to-be-dead (in their thinking) platform, the community will fail.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): Depending on Nokia's decision regarding MeeGo-on-N900, of course, but, primarily: making sure the existing maemo.org infrastructure is in top-shape to carry support for the Maemo platform for as long as is necessary, helping to smooth the MeeGo transition as much as possible, and bringing as many of the good parts of Maemo and maemo.org to MeeGo as we can.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): The priority is IMO representation of the existing community. Note that at least every other term has been "interesting", with either the N+1 iteration of the ITOS unrolling, a new device, or summit happening -- and the priority has been the usual one. During this term

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): There are still various tasks around maemo.org; particularly around quality assurance and Extras that need to be completed. However, I think the main task of the council will be trying to ensure consistency and continuity as Maemo evolves from Maemo 5 on the N900 to Harmattan on a MeeGo-branded device to actual code-drops of MeeGo.

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): The answer is in the question :) The upcoming Council is largely a preparatory one, with the actual transition happening probably in the following Council's term, but it is very important that the upcoming Council has a firm stance on the relations of the present Maemo and future MeeGo communities (with the obvious 'using a MeeGo device' dividing them).
Harmattan's Maemo roots will make things really a challenge for communities - it's not the N900 and Fremantle that are really torn between two worlds, but the Harmattan device - so close to MeeGo, but still Maemo. Integrating these people into the community is very important (we certainly don't want the will- MeeGo-run-on-my-Harmattan-device and Harmattan-is-obsolete-even-before-it-was-released thread fights all over again).

The Summit is an important event in community life and since there won't be a Maemo Summit, but a MeeGo summit, it is an excellent opportunity to bring and transition Maemo and Moblin people to Meego. This Summit will arguably will be the harder to organize as the number of stakeholders increased significantly, but a good Council approach can help that, too.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): I think that our priorities should be involving more developers and organize the best Summit ever.

Steven Yeager (YoDude): Our Maemo community has been a process of evolution. From manufacturing, to operating software development, to independent application development, and finally the end user experience.

As manufacturing and operating software activities begin to wane more resources should be committed to maintaining and promoting independent development and enhancing the actual user experience.

How our community handles the user experience will have the most effect on the evolution of the developing MeeGo community, IMHO.

8. There are many strong candidates running in this election. Some have had open disagreements with each other in the past. How do you propose to overcome such interpersonal differences while carrying out your Council duties?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): Separate the personal from the professional. I have recommitted myself to this recently, and hope other candidates do as well. We won't have time for pettiness.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): I've never had PERSONAL disagreements with any of the others, so no problem. But IF there would be one, communication is the key. Every human is different, with different opinions. We have to agree on one decision before communicate, to form a strong community council.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): Personal differences will happen always (now, that's something new), especially among individuals that are supposed to be leaders. I don't really believe in any sort of system solution in this case, it should be all based on individual talks. As Buddha said, Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace. In short: I don't know nor dare to propose any system that would guarantee solving such differences. We will deal with them when they arise :)

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): We'll just have to work together to be civil and ensure productive collaboration. Whatever challenges disagreements may bring with them (polarization and entrenchment are major issues), they force you to continually evaluate your own position and prevent you from becoming complacent in your views.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): The 5 members will be the most voted for ones, thus "the most loud voice" (as in, number of persons) is a nice approach.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): Two of the biggest strengths of the Maemo community are the passion, and diversity, of its members, This leads to positives like a commitment of both time and energy in making the platform better; but
even the occasional disagreement can have a positive force in the end.

The thing we should always bear in mind is that these disagreements come from a fundamental desire to make the platform better for everyone and that that, amongst with many other things, holds us together more than anything divides us. The wide range of people making up the Maemo community means that outcomes of a discussion can be better than any one person could develop on their own.

On a practical basis, approaching communications from an "I'm OK, you're OK" position - what Randall would call "listening without prejudice" - can help smooth over perceived slights and jibes when most of the community is largely communicating electronically. Physical meet ups whenever possible also help enormously - it's harder to bear a grudge when you've shared a beer.

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): Disagreements are not necessary problems - Council members are chosen to represent the community, and if there is a disagreement in the community, that easily translates to disagreement in the Council. What *is* dangerous, is, however, if the disagreement, instead of being solved or even being compromised on, turns into conflict. It's the conflict that is really detrimental. While there are a lot of very strong candidates, I am really sorry to see that there very few candidates whose primary area of expertise is 'people skills'. In times of conflict, it's often very difficult to overcome this from one's own efforts and help from other Council members could be very helpful.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): Personally I didn't have any disagreement with current Council members. Anyway I think that we all should work for the Community, forgiving any past disagreement.

Steven Yeager (YoDude):

Simple, open flame war's culminating in a winner take all mud wrestling tournament…

Just kidding!

In reality differences and disagreements will always occur. We have overcome our disagreements in the past and directed our attention productively toward goals for the common good of our community. I don’t see anything preventing us from doing so in the future.

9. Previous Councils have put together proposals for new resources or improving existing community resources. An example of this is the creation of the role of Distmaster. What resources would you propose requiring improvement, and why? What new resources would you champion if elected?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): Given that MeeGo already has a robust structure, starting with the Technical Steering Group, I am assuming we can expect a more professional approach with MeeGo. This is not a slam on maemo.org; we had extremely resourceful people doing the best they could with what they had.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): More moderators because the community is growing very fast and will be growing even faster. Then we should have a contact from Nokia/Intel just for developers.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): Regarding resources, the most important issue at the moment is lack of good documentation. We need to resolve this issue with Nokia (so they deliver it) and create a well organized layout, probably similar to the one known from Java or Qt documentation. Current wiki pages acting as documentation are to inconsistent, information is hard to access etc. This should also be a priority for MeeGo community, from the day one.

Another issue is a structure of some parts of maemo.org, where to many pages are presented to the user without clear logic (an example can be overview of the packages and trying to access voting site for a package). At some point it is easier to go back and ask google about given site than to navigate on maemo.org

If elected I would like to see improvements in the packages promotion and handling on the maemo.org. Nokia's inability to implement framework for paid applications for n900 in Ovi Store is now apparent, the least that can be don eon the community side is to have a unified system of donations. Providing real security framework is probably outside our possibilities, so we should not go for a 'real' paid applications; instead system of donations closely linked to the application overview and good promotion of the best ones should be implemented. Large part of community would actually show their support with donations, we should promote this and make it as easy as possible.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): To be honest, I don't believe there's a lot of long-term benefit investing resources heavily into maemo.org unless they translate well to MeeGo (and hopefully even less of one if Nokia decides to do the right thing). For my part, my pet projects have always been the wiki and bugzilla, improvements to the software and processes of both offer concrete and easily-translatable benefits for MeeGo.

Specifically, I'd really like to improve the approachability of bugzilla with improved and simplified bug views for new users and more-helpful bug-submission forms.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): One topic that I'm personally interested in is localization. We have a i18n team, a interesting i18n platform, and even then, when a user goes to maemo.org, all he gets is an English page with an English description of a entirely-in-English application. Being a person that gets often emailed from other Spanish speaking only members, you can understand this is something which I really think needs improvement.

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): The direction of MeeGo will have a large impact here; especially since Intel has community focused resources like web resource and experts in RPM packaging. Hopefully our existing maemo.org paid contributors will be able to continue to contribute (and put dinner on their tables) with involvement in Maemo and, increasingly, MeeGo.

In the short term, as I outlined above, I think the the maemo.org should become more responsible - and, as a consequence, accountable - through them clearly setting their own priorities after taking input from three sources:

* Their customer, Nokia * Their customer, the community (through the council) * Themselves, and their expert domain knowledge

Atilla Csipa (attila77/achipa): The single biggest improvement on current resources is better feedback. There is a lot of effort put in the community resources, but people often get nervous and disenchanted with the procedure more because the lack of *easily* followable statuses (I believe the Sprint logs and a semi-hidden Qaiku simply don't cut it at these scales). As for new resources, I have lobbied a while back for a QAmaster position (not necessarily paid, more important here is the authority). Testing is often perceived as a chore, and IMO a even a single can person could make a difference channeling the QA efforts. The testing squad was a first step, and the introduction of soon-to-be moderators a further large step in the right direction, kudos to Valerio et al for pushing the testing agenda. Improving feedback is vital, but if the only result is that the developer gets 100 bug/enhancement requests, he'll be swamped. That's why I believe a QA person/team could validate (moderate, if you wish) the tester conclusions - we have the problem of testers downvoting the app because of factors that had nothing to with the app and interpreting what's a blocker and what not. Also, in my vision, the QA team/person should actively HELP the developer (especially new ones) resolve blockers (not everybody has mad coding skillz like qwerty12). Not write code instead of the developer, of course, but with pointers to documentation, code, examples, linking him with other developers, etc. This way we could also avoid the situation of the developer being handed a huge A, B, C, D list of issues and a 'deal with it' note, hoping that he will not loose motivation while he hunts around how to resolve those (maybe well known) issues. Another aspect is an active watch on the testing repo, or even whole process. There is a number of initiatives of improving feeback in general (like the current efforts of the Extras-Assistant team, Randall Arnold's proposed feedback framework, and my own humble AppWatch application). I would like to see these efforts receive more attention, possibly integrate on official maemo.org level.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): as I already said, we should improve developers tools. For example we should provide someting similar to "Google Code" bcause the actual Garage is not enough for a developer (all main projects migrated to Gitorius, each project host its webpage externally ecc....).

Steven Yeager (YoDude): With an eye on maintaining and promoting independent development and enhancing the actual user experience, I believe more effort should now be placed on the forums.

The forum culture is much different than the mailing list culture. The enthusiasm that grows from within a forum can be almost immediate and is very contagious.

An example of this for me is that although I use and am very happy with a community developed mapper program on my N810 while in my car, I just made an impulse purchase of a new Navigation program for my N900. This was not so much because I needed it, or because I planned to use it in the near future. It was because I wanted to explore the application and participate in the enthusiastic threads that popped up recently on the forum.

Quite a few developers have also found that in their personal development sprints, many active and willing real world users are available to them for testing any time of day by simply opening a thread on the forum. Feedback with useful information is almost immediate, and more can be done in the time that they have for these personal projects.

The forum needs to be developed more and I believe there are plenty of members who will volunteer to do this if given the opportunity. In order to provide that opportunity I believe these volunteers will need to be managed outside the perceived influence of our council members.

I believe some things are done best when done autocratically. I believe our forums administration is one of these things. The forums need to react swiftly to changes but be stable in nature.

That is why if elected I will push for a Council appointed forum administrator who will have autocratic control over the forum and its moderation.

The term should probably be no less than a year or no more than 3 years without reappointment. The details of which can be determined by Council vote I hope. He or she would also be subject to recall of course.

10. MeeGo is our future. The future is unfortunately unclear at the moment. The Maemo Community requires strong leadership at this time. Can you provide a summary of your leadership style? What do you think the Council's challenges will be with respect to MeeGo in the coming 6 months, and how are you planning on addressing them?

Randall Arnold (Texrat): I tend to be a cheerleader or coach at the beginning of an undertaking and a "lead from the shadows" sort once the ball gets rolling. I prefer to motivate rather than micromanage, and to clear paths rather than give orders. I also think any project should have fun elements.

The second is such a big question it's difficult to answer concretely. But in summary the main challenges I see are tackling "FUD", keeping maemo.org members engaged and incorporating lessons learned into what we do with MeeGo. I see these already happening so I am encouraged by the leadership so far. Quim Gil has been a relentless presence here, tirelessly posting and emailing and making sure the conversations stay on track and produce respectable results. Tero Kojo has also done this on email lists. I will take cues and follow their lead as best I can.

Cosimo Kroll (zehjotkah): My leadership style is cooperative. I first read/hear, then think about and last talk about it.
Nobody can tell what the future brings, but I can imagine (only one example), that we will see a lot more average user in our forums, who don't understand the Linux style of life. We have to integrate them, and encourage them to participate. Only a active community is a good community.

Arek Stopczynski (hopbeat): As I have already written several times, I see myself as a man of dialogue. It is this Council's responsibility to make this community available for as many users as possible and in order to achieve this, it is necessary to understand various groups present in it. The Council is elected to represent community, not to rule it. It however doesn't meant that it can be pushed around, in those interesting times the leadership must be strong. But it must reflect the aggregated needs of the community, not an effect of fights between those groups or even Council members.
In short: be able to see the groups in community; listen to them; get from this what is good for community/community wants and implement this forcefully. There is time to talk and time to act.

Ryan Abel (GeneralAntilles): Full of spit and vinegar, hopefully with a bit of insight thrown in? ;) I'm a person who likes to get down to the detail work and help make things happen. I'm not the type of person to sugar-coat anything and rarely shy away from a good discussion (sometimes a negative point). I love this community and I love this platform and my goal as a leader is always to help make it the best it can be.

The most unclear issue, and the one that will have the biggest effect on the transition in the coming months, is MeeGo-on-N900. It's a question that will need answering before we can be certain of our path to the future. Until it's answered, though, I believe we have to assume the worst and keep working to make maemo.org as strong as it can be.

Javier Pedro (javispedro): Defining MeeGo. For example; do we want to ensure that every single maemo.org feature is replaced with a full working alternative in meego.com? Will meego.com cover all of the older devices services and
community? The current answers seem to be 'yes', but still seems early to be sure. Will the new meego community not be a directly superset of the maemo.org community, and thus it may actually be sensible to keep a
maemo.org "community subset" around? The ultimate method is to set a course and try to reach a destination; if it was not possible, try another course :).

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa): I'm not sure I'd say the council needs to "lead" the community; the council are representatives of the Maemo community, elected to speak on the community's behalf. The strongest way I'd put it is to give a strong, guiding hand. The council rarely, if ever, make decisions within themselves: in all circumstances which come to mind, the community have come to consensus, with the council facilitating and arbitrating.

The council's challenges with MeeGo will be ensuring that Nokia don't sideline Maemo, existing devices and existing resources as MeeGo ramps up. This will be less of a risk if MeeGo on N900 and N8x0 is a realistic day-to-day prospect. However, if it's not, the council will need to find a way for the Maemo community to continue and thrive as its corporate backer starts looking elsewhere.

Of course, the promise of cross-platform development and deployment from Qt will help with Maemo 5, Harmattan, MeeGo and even Symbian, Qt applications running on existing devices; giving longevity and strength to the community at an applications level, even if we can't achieve it at an OS level.

It's an exciting time for Maemo, and I look forward to being part of it; whether elected to the council or not!

Thanks for taking the time to put these questions together. If you, or any of your readers have any more questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Cheers,

Andrew
(aka Jaffa)

Attila Csipa (attila77/achipa): The future will certainly be challenging, many of the choices being made as further aspects of MeeGo get revealed. The crucial thing is to be able to see and determine courses of action that could transfer the experience and all the good things we have at maemo.org onto MeeGo, at the same time preserving all the resources needed for devices and people not being able to (or simply interested in) going MeeGo for now. A forum and mailing lists can always be made anew, but maemo.org is far more than that (sometimes even we take maemo.org for granted), and people not familiar with the Maemo community can overlook or dismiss that way too easily. We (as in Council) need to be open AND firm if we wish to function, and that is also my stance on leadership style.

Andrea Grandi (andy80): this is not an easy question. We cannot guess the future and there is no mathematical rule to address all problems. A person should be trained to resolve unknown problems not aready known one.

Steven Yeager (YoDude): I believe the strongest leaders lead by example. I agree that this term will have an effect on how the MeeGo community develops and eventually evolves. However, I am not running for the Meego community council. The example our council can make is how we will maintain and promote independent development and enhance the actual user experience for members of our community.

I want to thank you and your readers for this opportunity to express my views and I now look forward to answering any additional questions that our membership may have regarding my views as a candidate for election to the Maemo Community Council.

---------------------

'Post'-Mortem by EIPI:

Andrew Flegg (Jaffa), a two-time Council member, and a current Council Candidate contacted me via the -community mailing list to see if I was interested in grilling the candidates to give some exposure to this election. I immediately agreed, but being on vacation at the time, I did not have the continuous attention that this endeavour required. What I thought was a fairly straight-forward task, ended up being a bit of an organizational nuisance! For that I apologize to the candidates.

I think this type of 'debate' has its place in the Maemo elections process, whether official or unofficial. However, I know that if I had to do it again, it would be organized and administered differently. Continuous improvement!

Finally, the candidates are very strong this time around (why does that sound like an Emperor line?), and I wish each of them the best of luck!

Nokia Spotlight - Interview with Peter Schneider - Part 2

2010-03-10T21:42:00.000-05:00

July 2009 saw a glorious moment for Maemo unfold - one that was met with great enthusiasm by the community - the creation of the 'Maemo Devices' organization within Nokia. Melding both software and hardware under one corporate umbrella was a very welcome sign for the future of the Maemo platform, and its importance within the Nokia corporation. Maemo 5 and the Nokia N900 were the first fruits of the Maemo Devices organization, as the Linux OS was brought into mainstream spotlight.

Fast forward to February 2010, only a few months after the N900 sales start. A pivotal moment occured in the Maemo world, with the announcement that Nokia's Maemo operating system would merge with Intel's Moblin to form MeeGo, a project supported by the Linux Foundation. With Maemo 5 just out the door, and Maemo 6 around the corner, the maemo.org community has been active speculating what this means for the future of the devices and OS that they hold so dear to them.

Peter Schneider, head of Maemo marketing at Nokia, joins the discussion in this concluding part of the Mobile Tablets! interview with him.

1. MeeGo is a merging of Maemo and Moblin. Can you give us an overview of of how the MeeGo project is administered, such as roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders?

PS: The MeeGo open source project will bring the best of Maemo and Moblin into one unified operating system that is developed entirely in the open. The project organization includes the Linux Foundation and all contributors to the project which may include anybody from individuals representing themselves to large corporations such as Intel and Nokia. The project is hosted by Linux Foundation which owns the meego.com website and the MeeGo brand. The decisions which open source components are part of the MeeGo software are made by the Technical Steering Group staffed by Intel and Nokia. You’ll find more info on the Technical Steering Group on http://meego.com/about/governance.

2. Maemo 6 (Harmattan) was announced at Summit 2009 as the successor to Maemo 5 (Fremantle). Is the Harmattan concept still on track as announced at Summit 2009. Specifically, the things that were known in Amsterdam related to the timeframe for the first SDK release (approximately 2010-Q1), the canvas-like 2-way pannable desktop, and support for DRM.

PS: Harmattan work is on track. However, you will not see us using the term “Maemo 6” anymore but we will continue the work on Harmattan under the MeeGo brand as evolution to MeeGo. We continue to build flagship experiences with the Harmattan release that include an iconic homescreen design, support for DRM, and multi-touch gestures on capacitive WVGA displays.

3. Harmattan has been called a first instance of MeeGo. Is it a transitional release, or would you say that it is based upon a pure MeeGo core?

PS: Harmattan will be the base for Nokia’s MeeGo-based devices in 2010. From an app developer’s point of view, it will be fully compatible with other MeeGo-based devices. There might be differences under the hood concerning some middleware components and, therefore, it has been referred to as transitional release, but that’s only relevant for those few that participate in the low level platform development. Qt Creator with the necessary cross-compilation toolkits will make these differences invisible to the bulk of application developers.

4. How is MeeGo going to be handled internally within Nokia now? Is Maemo Devices just renaming itself, or can we expect some changes on that front?

PS: Ari Jaaksi continues to head all development for Maemo 5-based and MeeGo-based devices in Nokia. No change. My salary is still paid by Maemo-based devices while the future lies in MeeGo-based devices.

5. Ari Jaaksi mentioned at Summit 2009 that it's possible in the future that Maemo would open up its internal bug tracker. With the shift to MeeGo, and the fact that it is backed by the Linux Foundation, can we expect a unified and open bugtracker for Harmattan?

PS: Development for MeeGo will happen in the open, even more than Maemo. Therefore, I’m rather confident that there will be an open MeeGo bugtracker. Nokia’s apps development will continue to be partially in open source projects such as Mozilla Firefox and partially only in-house when we see room for differentiation in the market. Under which umbrella we will collect feedback to those in-house built apps is not decided. Nevertheless, we want the feedback and will find a way to channel it back to our developers

6. Can you give us an example of how a 3rd party hardware manufacturer would go about using MeeGo on their devices? Is there some level of involvement that they have to demonstrate to the stakeholders? Or, can they simply take the MeeGo framework and build on top of that for their particular application?

PS: Not sure what a “3^rd-party hardware manufacturer” in context of MeeGo is because everybody is a “first class participant” in MeeGo, but imagine that any device manufacturer can take the MeeGo software from the upstream project, make the necessary hardware adaptation to let it run on their hardware, and channel the enhancements back to the MeeGo project to stay in synch with the upstream project. While we will see a variety of different mobile computing devices from mobile computers to netbooks, Nokia will continue to use MeeGo for pocketable mobile computers in our portfolio.

7. Obviously Nokia is cognizant of competitor products, even before any announcement of MeeGo. Do you think you've opened the doors to more hardware competition by removing the advantage of the base operating system? Or are there enough avenues for device manufacturers to set themselves apart in terms of UX, services and packaging so that this is not really a factor?

PS: We’ve been rather verbal already in the Open Source in Mobile event in October 2009 that we want to focus on user experiences not on the operating system development in-house where we expect significant synergy benefits by working together with the leader in computing i.e. Intel. With our first MeeGo-based device in the second half of 2010, we intend to create an iconic flagship experience. That’s the focus now.

'Post-Mortem' by EIPI:

The MeeGo concept fits Nokia's current products lines such as high-end cellular phones and the Booklet quite nicely. The 'original' tablet market has been left untapped by Nokia since the N810 stopped production. I know for a fact that many in the community would be excited over the prospect of a 5" MeeGo powered tablet coming from Nokia.

The MeeGo concept is mind blowing if you allow yourself to think it through a bit. One could have a MeeGo powered phone in their pocket, a MeeGo based navigation unit in their car dashboard, a MeeGo MID or tablet in the backpack for when more screen real estate is required. In fact, this is what I recall the Mer project envisioning say about year ago. Seems like we are getting much closer to a Linux environment surrounding us. And it appears that Nokia will have a large influencing role in that.

Nokia Spotlight: Interview with Peter Schneider - Part 1

2010-03-07T19:50:00.001-05:00

Mobile Tablets! is pleased to present this interview with Peter Schneider, head of the global marketing team for Maemo Devices at Nokia. For those who have not seen Peter in person - suffice it to say that he is a passionate and charismatic individual, and is a true champion of the Maemo platform. Some have likened him to a rock star. As head of marketing for Maemo Devices, he is also very busy. Therefore, his participation in this interview is greatly appreciated.
This is Part 1 of a 2-part interview, and focuses on Peter's background, and the development of Maemo 5 and the N900.

1. Peter. can you give us an overview of your educational background?

PS: Sure. I do have a BSc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt/Germany and a MBA in General Management from the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland.

2. How long have you been with Nokia, and how long with Maemo, in particular?

PS: I'm working now almost for 10 years at Nokia. After several product management and software marketing jobs at Nokia, I started to head the Maemo marketing team in November 2007.

3. Can you tell us what your role is within Maemo Devices is? We know that you are the head of Marketing, but what does that exactly entail?

PS: The Maemo marketing team is responsible for reaching out to platform developers, to application developers, to operators, to service and apps partners such as Skype, lead users, and industry analysts in regards to Maemo. We built the core messages and work together with other Nokia teams such as Forum Nokia to reach a global audience. You might know people from my team such as Quim Gil, our voice to the open source community in maemo.org and Jussi Mäkinen, the man that got famous in the "N900 user experience" video on YouTube and who is responsible for maemo.nokia.com. Personally, I try to orchestrate the messaging to all audiences and help out where it is needed.

4. Would you be able to share with us an overview of the Maemo Devices organization? It would be valuable for the community to have an idea of the total manpower, number of countries you are dispersed across, and the split between hardware and software sides.

PS: Maemo Devices has been since July last summer responsible for all R&D work including hardware and software to build Maemo-based devices (or MeeGo-based devices in the future). Maemo Devices is part of Nokia's Devices R&D organization with some 12.000 employees globally. Maemo Devices has a global development setup with work in open source projects all over the globe including our own engineers in the US, India, and Europe. Ari Jaaksi heads Maemo Devices and is a pioneer in taking open source to mainstream consumer electronics.

5. Maemo 5 is an exciting development within Nokia. How long was the development from start to finish?

PS: It's hard to determine a single starting day of the Nokia N900 development because open source project work is continuous and precedes the work on actual products with just a vision in mind. When did we publish the pre-alpha SDK of Maemo 5? Was it in the first ever Maemo Summit in September 2008? Maybe, that got the work on the Nokia N900 really going in the community. And in regards to finishing the work on the Nokia N900, I can't put down a day either because we are not done yet either but still work on further improvements and enhancements.

6. The Nokia N900 is a truly remarkable device. Now that I have one, I just do not know how I have managed for so long without a device of this type.
One of the capstone achievements in my opinion is the melding of Nokia's tablet line with cellular data connectivity. At the first Maemo Summit, Nokia announced data connectivity by HSPA. Many thought that we would be seeing a data connected tablet as a direct descendant of the 770/N8X0 devices. Instead, in mid-2009, we learned that RX-51was indeed a phone. How hard was it to contain something like that internally? Were you surprised at all by the response from the community?

PS: Yes, to keep the work on the voice telephony under wraps was a challenge that I can say we managed surprisingly well. We knew that a lot of Linux kernel developers, especially those working on the OMAP3430 software stack, would see ahead of the product announcement that we are integrating a cellular modem to the software stack. The way to disguise the work was to communicate that we are building cellular data connectivity for Maemo 5. Which was naturally true but wasn't the whole scope of the work. Working in open source projects without giving away business-related information is always are careful balance that my team tries to find.

7. Many of us community members at maemo.org are what I would call "back-seat drivers". Meaning that we have strong opinions on what Nokia 'should have done' with the N900. Obviously, product definition is an iterative process, and must be justified from a business perspective. At what point in that definition cycle are inputs from pure end users solicited?

PS: Nokia develops products always based on extensive consumer research. And technology enthusiasts discussing on talk.maemo.org and conversations.nokia.com are one input channel for consumer feedback once a product is available to average consumers. Lead user workshops and extensive usability and design research with consumers from around the globe before the product announcement are just basics of any consumer electronics product development. In regards to the Nokia N900, we did decide to go the extra mile to hand out 300 pre-production models in the beginning of October to get feedback from the community and use that feedback in building the first commercial software release and then PR1.1.

8. The N900 is a real killer in the hardware department! Hats off to the Maemo Devices team for packing so much into a pocketable device. It is understandable that Nokia may have intended to look to 3rd party applications to fully take advantage of some of the hardware (e.g. FM Radio, IR port). However, one hardware feature stands out as clearly lacking Nokia support at this time - the forward facing camera. Can you give us a glimpse into the plans for that camera, and when we can expect official OS support for it?

PS: At this point of time, I don't have anything to share on an application making use of forward-facing camera. I wouldn't like to speculate on things we have not announced yet.

9. Portrait mode. With PR 1.0, only the phone application, and the photo viewer officially supported it. With PR1.1, the browser has the ability to switch to portrait mode, but seems to be a work in progress. Do you see ubiquitous portrait mode in the future of the N900 for all official applications, or is this something that will be treated on a case-by case basis? For some of us that evolved from tablets, portrait mode in all applications may feel unnatural, whereas the opposite is true for those Maemo-newcomers who have gravitated here from other phone platforms.

PS: Nokia N900 was designed with focus on use as mobile computer with the telephony as a feature. Hence, the wide support of landscape orientation. Based on consumer feedback, we are adding portrait support in the browser of the Nokia N900, but only our MeeGo 1 software (formerly known as Maemo 6) will have full support of portrait and landscape orientations of all applications.

10. The sales start to the N900 was slightly delayed. Can you give us an idea of what issues this delayed centred upon?

PS: Yes, we wanted to take feedback from the pre-production models into account and fine-tune the user experience.

11. Maemo is striving to be as open as possible, both in terms of the software, and communication back to the community. Maemo Devices should be commended for that. Ironically, locked N900's appear to be coming out of some wireless carriers. Obviously this is a business decision on both ends. Reports have come in about warranty issues with respect to 'unofficial' firmware updates. What is your take on this - does this not fly in the face of all this openness you are creating around this device?

PS: Maemo-based devices are comparable to Linux-based computers based on Ubuntu or KDE. Product warranty covers, unsurprisingly, only the official software packages provided by Nokia. There is always the possibility to fully flash the device back to the official software but if the device software has been modified by the user then naturally this is not in the scope of warranty. Innovation on all levels of the user experience are important to us. We see a lot of consumer benefit through plug-ins to the operating system such as the flashlight app integrating to the Status Area or Hermes integrating to the contacts application of the Nokia N900.

12. OVI. The N900 shipped with limited support for OVI. That is increasing, with the release of updated OVI Maps with PR1.1. Still, not all the OVI services are supported at this time (e.g. contacts, calendar). For your existing Nokia user-base coming from Symbian phones, this may be a show stopper, as they will lose functionality by switching to Maemo 5. Can you comment on why OVI support is so limited at sales start, and when we can expect Maemo 5 to be fully 'OVI capable'?

PS: Nokia N900 supports a range of Ovi services including Ovi Store, Contacts on Ovi, Ovi Share, Nokia Messaging, and Ovi Maps. Comes with Music and other services that require platform-wide support of DRM will be supported in our MeeGo-based devices which we intend to provide with Microsoft PlayReady-based DRM technology. Naturally, we'll be working to increase support for all Ovi services as we go forward with MeeGo.

13. North Americans are at a slight disadvantage due to the fact that the N900 uses the 1700/2100 MHz UMTS bands for data connectivity. In the USA, T-Mobile is the only carrier that can utilize the N900 as it was intended. In Canada, Wind Mobile (an AWS start-up) just launched in December of 2009, and is expected to add the N900 to its phone lineup. Other Nokia phones have more than one variant, to deal with regional differences. Is this something that is under consideration for the the N900? From a customer viewpoint, it would offer more flexibility, and from Nokia's viewpoint, it would open the device to a larger user and carrier base.

PS: The North America market is very important for Nokia and we are continuously considering how we can extend our market reach in North America. I hope you understand that I cannot speculate on products or product variants which are not announced.

14. The maemo.org community is getting larger day by day. How frequently do you visit the forums?

PS: I visit talk.maemo.org and conversations.nokia.com several times a week, sometimes several times a day. Depends a bit on how much time I find and whether we just make some new announcements that need more discussion.

15. Do you file and monitor the bug situation over at the maemo.org Bugzilla?

PS: To be honest; I tried but I didn't get very far on the maemo.org bugzilla. However, I did file a good dozen bugs in our internal bugzilla before the Nokia N900 hit the shelves as I used the device extensively in many different networks while helping our sales teams across the world.

16. The previous Maemo Summits were great venues for information exchange. Is there a Summit in your budget again this year? If you could chose a location for it, where would that be?

PS: The direct face-to-face time with the community remains an important part of reaching out to the community. I'm rather confident that we will have at least one get-together this year for the community. It's going to be a MeeGo community get-together and everybody is invited. I'd rather let the community decide the location than putting my own two cents into the discussion. Both locations picked by the community in 2008 and 2009 were superb. You can also meet us in the next months in the Linux Collaboration Summit and the Nokia Developer Summit.

17. What is your favourite Maemo application?

PS: That's a tough one. The Nokia apps I use the most are for sure the browser, conversations, and email as I use it for business inside out. My favourite community apps are the 3G/2G/Dual Mode Selection and the Flashlight plug-in. The first use is just very useful, the second one is something great to use in all kinds of demos to highlight the power of open software.

18. Anything you would like to say to the Maemo Community?

Yes, keep the feedback coming. As part of a product management team within Maemo Devices R&D instead being part of a sales and marketing organization, taking feedback back to product management makes my living. Keep it coming.

----------------------------------------

'Post'-Mortem by EIPI:

Maemo 5 and the N900 are, in my eyes, an exciting product offering in the highly competitive world of mobile computing. To get a glimpse into the development of these game changing products is a real privilege. For that, I am grateful to Peter for taking the time to participate.

I first contacted Peter for an interview at the end of January. Although he immediately agreed to participate, a few upcoming events required his immediate attention, delaying the interview until now.

In that time period, the "Maemo+Moblin=MeeGo" news broke at Mobile World Congress. Some of the initial interview questions I had sent him were related to Maemo 6, and wouldn't fit well in the current MeeGo reality. Peter graciously agreed to a 2-part interview, with the second part dealing exclusively with the Maemo to MeeGo shift. I will be posting news of that upcoming interview on talk.maemo.org as it becomes ready. Stay tuned...

N900 Video Featuring maemo.org Community Members

2010-01-26T12:50:00.002-05:00

In case you have not seen it, there is a new Nokia N900 video, starring some of the maemo.org community members.

http://www.n900-mobile.co.uk/

To see the video, go to the above link and click on 'Developers' on the right side.

Can you identify everyone in the video?

Maemo Minute #3: There's a '.deb' for that...

2010-01-15T23:23:00.001-05:00

The Nokia N900 has everything going for it. Killer hardware that makes mouths drop, a great OS enabling you to be as connected as possible while out and about, all in a package that fits in your pocket.

This week, we can also add another feather in the cap, so to speak - the opening of the N900 OVI store. This has brought the N900 into the spotlight as a platform for commercial developers. The maemo.org community is sure to benefit from this as the platform finally has the 'public' cachet it deserves. We've been fortunate to have a large community developer-base, and this is a welcome addition to that existing talent. Expect fun games, eye popping whiz-bang gizmos, and who knows what else. I've already entertained myself with a few games like Airport and Discs. Meanwhile, it is fun to show off gizmos such as Anglemeter and Level. I received the comment last night that "no phone should have a protractor in it!", after showing off the Anglemeter application to a friend.

Maemo's future is looking great! Hopefully, in short time, the OVI store will be chock full of apps for our Maemo-powered handhelds. Whatever it is we desire, I certainly hope there will be an app - no, a .deb for that.

Maemo Minute #2: N900 & Bluetooth DUN

2010-01-01T12:16:00.001-05:00

Philip Langdale's bluetooth dial-up networking daemon (BT-DUN) for the Nokia N900 is a real godsend. Now I can tether my N800 and my laptop to my N900.

OK... What does that mean for an average N900 user?

I setup a BT-DUN connection to the N900 on my Win XP Pro laptop for those times at the airport when I need more screen real estate than the N900 affords. For a single user, this is a great way to share an internet connection.

I'm planning on setting up my N800 as an in-car computer with OS2008 maps, Canola and Carman as the 3 anticipated usage scenarios.

Why not the N900 for in-car use? Simple. Screen Size! At arms length, the N800's screen makes manipulating buttons much more friendly.

In addition, on long trips, I can pass of my well used N800 to my passenger to surf while the shiny N900 sits in its cradle or jacket pocket (no selfishness there).

Interestingly, while a device is connected via BT-DUN, the N900 is able to maintain its own internet connection. Either the same connection as the tethered device, or a different one (wi-fi, for example). The screenshots below show that the N900 is connected to wi-fi while the N800 is tethered to it using the cellular data connection.

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Figure 1: N900 IP while N800 is tethered (N900 on wi-fi and N800 on cellular data)

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Figure 2: N800 IP while N800 is tethered (N900 on wi-fi and N800 on cellular data)

Merry N8X0 Drivers to All !

2009-12-27T09:44:00.001-05:00

Carsten Munk, our maemo.org distmaster sent me an IM this morning. It looks like he and his Mer team have received the fabled OMAP2 graphics drivers from Texas Instruments. They have had some success in meshing the drivers into the OS, and things are going forward on that front.

I'm sure it is not a straightforward task, so let's give the Mer team some space while they work this all out. Things will get interesting for the legacy N8X0 devices!

Happy Holidays to all !

(Post created on my N900 using the wonderful MaStory blogging application)

N900 + Windmobile.ca - So close, yet So far...

2009-12-04T07:56:00.001-05:00

On a hunch, I decided to scan available GSM operators from my N900 this morning in Toronto. Wouldn't you know it, 'CAN 490' was displayed showing a nice little '3G' symbol beside it !

But alas, when attempting to connect, I was denied.

Some Googling of CAN 490 revealed that it is indeed Windmobile (Globalalive Wireless).

Come on Canada - we need choice now! Let Windmobile throw the switch.

A Maemo Minute

2009-11-24T11:24:00.001-05:00

A friend was over on Sunday. His iPhone rang, and he took a call. After the call, I showed him the loaner N900 that I have. After playing with the media player, multi-tasking, desktop, and liking the 'call type' selector, he commented: "This is sick! It's like a Mobile Computer".

To which I replied "Precisely".

Maemo Summit News: N8X0 OMAP2 Graphics Drivers

2009-10-13T20:12:00.001-04:00

Although the primary focus of the Summit was Maemo 5 and the N900, there was some very welcome and long-awaited news for legacy OMAP2 devices. Texas Instruments announced at the Summit on Friday that they would be releasing the graphics drivers for the processors powering the N800, N810 and N810WE in the next 2 weeks. This is great news for the community, as it means that it will be possible to jazz up the UI for Mer and Maemo 4. Classic tablet owners may have some fun in store for them in the near future.

Maemo Summit 2009-Thank You!

2009-10-12T22:01:00.001-04:00

I would like to publicly thank the Maemo Community Council and the Maemo Devices team for all their hard work in organizing the Summit at Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. The event was a great success.

Not only were all the arrangements well done (hotel, airfare, food, summit venue, photo/video recording, after hours party), but so were all the presentations by Nokia, Distinguished Guests, and Community Members. Of course, the most tangible thing from the weekend in Amsterdam was the loan of the beautiful N900 from Maemo Devices. Everyone was Ecstatic when Ari announced that all 300 non-Nokia participants would receive a pre-production N900 for 6 months for evaluation. I am still pinching myself ... did that really happen?!

Listening to all the talks on Friday and the Community talks on Saturday and Sunday left me with the feeling that Nokia is building some serious excitement around Maemo 5, and in particular, the N900. With the N900 in stores soon, Nokia can start to shift some attention to Maemo 6 (Harmattan). Indeed, that appears to be the case, as evidenced by the number of Maemo 6 talks that were there. I've said this before, but the future of the Maemo line looks promising - Thank You.

Maemo Summit 2009 - Amsterdam!

2009-10-08T16:14:00.001-04:00

I am fortunate enough to be able to attend Maemo Summit 2009 as a sponsored attendee. I am an ordinary community member, like a lot of you out there. As such, I am hoping to share as much as I can with you all via Twitter and my blog.

To see my tweets: http://twitter.com/maemo_minute

For all tweets from Maemo Summit, follow the #maesum hashtag, or look at http://twitter.com/search?q=%23maesum

It is an exciting time for Maemo, and I am excited to be a part of it.

Brainstorm at Work: Personal Dataplan Monitor

2009-10-04T21:56:00.001-04:00

One of the most amazing, yet largely untapped avenues in maemo.org is Brainstorm. That is the place to dream up ideas, propose solutions, and shape the future of Maemo applications. Recently, Community Member zerojay, dreamed up a dataplan monitor widget for Maemo 5. Soon after, a Brainstorm idea was filed, and work began. With fiferboy (of Personal Menu and Personal Launcher fame) doing coding, and joshua.maverick helping with graphic design, it was a truly Canadian solution. The result is an awesome dataplan monitor widget for Maemo 5 - see for yourself:

It is fitting that a dataplan widget for Maemo 5 is brought to our community by a bunch of Canadians - have you looked at the price of our data plans recently! Congrats guys! I am looking forward to using this when I get a Maemo 5 device. When will that be? Hopefully soon.

RX-51 Revealed!!

2009-08-08T13:07:00.001-04:00

Thanks to chilko, from talk.maemo.org for linking to pictures of the elusive RX-51 aka Rover. Looks like it is marketed still as a N Series device. Waiting for an announcement and release dates now! Stay tuned...

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=309831&postcount=290

RX-51 on FCC!!

2009-08-07T18:18:00.001-04:00

FYI, Engadget reporting the RX-51 passes FCC for T-Mobile USA

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/07/nokia-device-passes-fcc-for-t-mobile-usa-looks-an-awful-lot-lik/

How soon can I get one?!

Community Spotlight: Randall Arnold (Texrat)

2009-08-02T15:00:00.001-04:00

The former internettablettalk.com (now talk.maemo.org) has had its share of discussions 'gone wild' with respect to new product launches, no product launches, rumours on next products, d-pad location/absence and the like. And usually at the centre of those discussions was our very own Texrat. Randall Arnold (Texrat) is a proud user and promoter of the Maemo based Internet Tablets. Formerly employed by Nokia, where he was involved with the successful launch of the N800 at CES 2007, Texrat brings a unique combination of persuasive discussion, technical insight and plain old humour to the discussions in the forums. Let's get to know the rat a bit better, shall we?!

1. So, Texrat, what is your background in terms of your education, and work experience?

Most people don't know I was a plumber for 10 years, from household repair to large-scale commercial construction, starting at age 15. Obtained my journeyman license at 21 and scored the highest on the testing of anyone the company employed. During that time I went to community college to become a drafter-slash-robotics technician. I got the opportunity to join Texas Instruments as a cooperative education student in 1987 and it changed my life. I spent 7 fascinating years in their former defense division, and then after they sold it to Raytheon I bounced around the product development world until I happily landed at Nokia in 2005.

2. I know that you were employed by Nokia, and were involved with the launch of the N800. What exactly were you responsible for? Were you involved with the N810 as well?

I started as a Quality Feedback Analyst at the Fort Worth Alliance factory in September 2005, responsible for SQL Server database design and upkeep, statistics report development, production process improvement and local application development. When it became obvious the US plant had no future, many prominent people left pre-emptively and our staff shrank. That got me more involved with process improvement for a while, which was a lot of fun. I helped solve a pilfering problem for Wal-mart, for instance.

After the closure was formally announced, my manager (Donna Neary, the best boss a guy could ever hope to have) rebranded me as a Quality Engineer. I inherited the 770 and became enthralled. I recognized immediately that this was a potential game-changer and threw myself into gaining a deeper understanding of the product than I was required to. And when I was given the N800 to babysit, I was in seventh heaven!

My job with the N800 was to catch defects at the front door and inside the operations, and keep them from leaving the building. I wish I could tell you the successes of our hardworking auditors but I am required to keep the gory details under my lid. Suffice to say we were highly successful in minimizing field failures. Amazingly so. When you hear of quality defects, I can assure you they made up a tiny, tiny percentage of the whole. Plus, the factory closed not long after and production relocated so we can't take credit or blame for the products produced after January 2007. ;)

I had no direct involvement with the N810, but was rewarded with one for what a senior manager described as the most successful product launch in Nokia's history. I take great pride in that. Too bad it was forgotten by November 2008...

3. Working within the giant Nokia corporation on Internet Tablets must have been exciting. Are there any 'all-nighter' type stories, or other interesting anecdotes that you can share with us with respect to the work you were involved with on the tablets?

I was salary so no overtime pay, but I worked double shifts some days to get 200 N800s out on time and to CES with zero defects-- with zero complaints. I was that enthused about the device. Plus I was hoping someone would notice and give me a chance to stay with the company somehwere after the plant closure. Someone did. ;)

The production process auditors and product inspectors had never seen anything like the tablets. I had to develop a test plan from hell to make sure everything was covered, and training was intensive. I give kudos to some very sharp people under my direction. One was even rewarded with an N800 by me for really stepping up. I could not have pulled off my part without them.

Oh! and I got to cook ten N800s in a high-temperature oven to gage the reaction of heat on the LCD reflector. There was concern the Texas sun could warp it. Five of the LCDs had some obvious warp. I was allowed to keep all ten and made several co-workers very happy... even with the slight warping. The rest of the story is that LCD reflector thickness was subsequently doubled.

4. OK - I am going to ask, and please tell me to bugger off if you cannot answer this (due to any lingering NDA, moral or ethical obligation, etc). Do you know what was the Easter Egg on the N800, and N810?

Video out was supposed to be one, I was told, but that's all I know. And I can't even validate that. As we are all aware now, video out was impractical. If there were others I don't know of them.

5. Devices running Maemo 5 haven't been released yet. There is a lot of pent up emotion over at talk.maemo.org related to the fact that nothing new hardware-wise has dropped in our hands since the N810 almost 2 years ago. Do you consider this time period normal for this industry? Can you share any of your own thoughts on the subject?

You are touching on my biggest beef with the project! I am not going to blame the Maemo folks though-- not their fault. The product development and release schedule comes from higher up and is part of Devices. But no, I don't consider the gaps normal at all. You won't see them, usually, in Nokia's other lines. There's more I could say on this but won't. Sore subject.

I'm on record on my blog and other forums as supporting an N800 refresh. I asked about this as an employee and never received an answer. Obviously I was not owed one at the time.

6. Fremantle - what are your expectations for this iteration of the OS? I know Nokia is attempting to make the devices more mainstream with each iteration. Do you think Fremantle will have enough whiz-bang to lure people over to the Maemo display cases at their local electronics stores?

I have mixed feelings on Fremantle. I love the features it will bring but hate that it's transitional. I do think it has the eye-candy appeal for mainstream consumers that wasn't quite there with out-of-the-box Diablo. But sustainability is the key here, and I'm still not completely convinced it's going to be there. Trying to be hopeful though.

7. Some information surfaced a few months ago, revealing that the Maemo 5 lead device (RX-51), codenamed Rover, would be a phone and not an Internet Tablet as we know it. If true, I think it makes good product strategy since you can grab more users with a full-featured phone, rather than a phoneless-tablet. There is certainly a market for Internet Tablets as we know them, otherwise most of us would not be lingering around t.m.o. What is your opinion - do you think we will see a tablet, or an evolved tablet-like device from Nokia running Maemo 5?

Again, this goes back to the release gap issue. Some readers may recall I advocated a multiproduct platform, similar to the E series and regular N series (I think making the tablet an N series device was a huge error). In my opinion you best serve the customer with at least the easy choices. Consider that you can get full-featured Nokia phones as standard flip style, slide, "candy bar" and some unique variants like the venerable E70. This is what your various market segments expect. I think something similar is necessary for tablets. You may have noticed that the tablet community is sharply divided over "slate" format versus keyboarded. Supplying both simultaneously is a no-brainer. By the same token, sure, offer a cell-enabled variant BUT keep one or two with the legacy functionality as well. So in short: gaps bad. Overlap and platforming good.

8. Unfortunately you had some time off from regular employment. That is a tough situation to be in. But I hear that you are working again now - congrats. It seems that you've taken up blogging in that time. How is your blog doing - in terms of visitor stats, Planet Maemo karma?

Not well, usually. ;) I see that some articles I felt were Maemo-relevant were thumbed down by a few folks. I even teased them about it in one post. But I don't take that to heart. The comments section of the blog is my feedback focus. Right now the read-to-comment ratio is horrible but I am processing what feedback I have received and plowing that back into subject matter. That appears to be working: I just hit 612 readers in one day after the "Why I love my Nokia internet tablet" article (small for the big guys but huge for me) which was a significant improvement in eyeballs. Now to translate that into tongues. Karma is fine but not inspirational.

The hardest part with Tabula Crypticum has been shifting from the approach and coverage I could use in my former Nokia internal blog to something for public consumption. I've always leaned toward transparency (Quim Gil is groaning right now, with good reason) and I have to watch that now. There's so much I want to share but can't. But I do have a huge backlog of Nokia articles that can be repurposed and if I can recover them from backup without too much work I may do so. I also want to thank Quim for pushing me to even do a public blog. I just wish he would stop in some time and visit. ;)

9. You've also taken up music recording! And it actually sounds nice. Can we expect a tablet-ballad at some point? Or is that just too nerdy?

Heh... I have been writing lyrics for over 40 years but just got serious enough during my "time off" to get my first album going. Thanks for the compliment, too. I enjoy making music more than almost anything. I'm even trying to learn music theory and quit hacking.

I have managed to steer mostly clear of novelty songs but who knows-- maybe I can sneak in a geeky tablet reference without it sounding trite. Or maybe I'll just write something just for the tablet community. In fact I'll team up with Tim Samoff. ;)

10. Anything you want to say to the internet tablet community? Here is a chance to set the record straight, ask for a presidential pardon, make an inspiring speach... anything.

I just want to say I love you guys. Sincerely. The tablet community fussed all over what I considered my baby and really made it shine. I have never associated with such a passionate, dedicated, talented group before and I sure hope I am fortunate enough to meet some of you in person in Amsterdam. I applied for sponsorship and I'm crossing my fingers...

'Post'-Mortem by EIPI:

Thanks Texrat, for taking the time to participate in this Community Spotlight.

There are few on talk.maemo.org that attract large virtual audiences when they jot down a few thoughts in a discussion thread. Texrat is at the top of the list of people that do just that. Anyone who has seen his discussions, or spoken to him about Internet Tablets quickly sees the passion that he has towards these products. So much so, that he has spoken openly numerous times about how he sees this line of products evolving. The fact that he is still promoting these products after his employment at Nokia is a benefit to us all. Keep watch for his Maemo related blog posts on the Planet - they are highly informative... just watch out for the odd one dealing with blog statistics! ;)

~EIPI

Mer for Nokia Internet Tablets: The Undiscovered Country

2009-05-05T20:28:00.001-04:00

Many of us were excited when Nokia officially unveiled a few features for the newest Maemo 5 operating system at the Maemo Summit in Berlin in September 2008. The feature list for Maemo 5 included support for TI OMAP 3 processors, Cellular Data Connectivity, High Definition Camera and Hardware Graphics Acceleration. The future looked bright for Nokia's Internet Tablet line. Then reality set in for some of us: Nokia would not be officially providing Maemo 5 and future OS releases to the N8X0 and 770 lines of Internet Tablets. Significant hardware differences was one factor leading to this decision, and Nokia's future business strategy was likely another. Rage ensued in the tablet community! This so-called sham was compared to the 770-to-N800 transition, where Nokia support for 770 users initially stopped at OS2006 (later, 'Hacker Editions' of OS 2007 and 2008 appeared, and were made available on Nokia's own firmware upgrade site).

Enter Mer. The Mer project aims at bringing Maemo more in-line with mainstream Linux distributions (in this case, Ubuntu), bringing as many of the Maemo 5 features back to pre- Maemo 5 devices, and expanding the device-base of Maemo to include things like the OMAP 3 based Beagleboard, Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket LOOX Pocket PCs, Neo Freerunner (of OpenMoko fame) and soon, the Zaurus. In addition, Mer will be as open as possible, both in terms of openness with its community, and with respect to its software source.

The project's two leaders, Carsten Munk (Stskeeps) and John Bloom (JohnX), agreed to the following Q&A session which I hope will be of interest to you all.

1. Having used Mer since version 0.7, I can see that is has come a long way. Obviously Mer development is time consuming. How much time do you devote to Mer in a day?

Carsten: I devote most of my idle time outside of work, classes and masters thesis work to Mer - being a facilitator for the activities there's some times where I concentrate on the work and sometimes where it's enough to just be nearby my tablet once in a while to discuss matters.

John: In my case it's a lot more varied. Some days I sit down and work on Mer stuff for most of the day. And sometimes I go a couple weeks without touching Mer stuff at all. Recently I completed a trans-continental move, so now hopefully I'll be able to devote a lot more time to Mer.

2. The Mer Team is about 30 people. How do you coordinate activities amongst yourselves? How do you set priorities for what issue you will tackle?

Carsten: We have taken a hint from maemo.org, to use SCRUM (or a variant of it), where people chip in with what activities they want to take on (from a backlog, see http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Sprints/0.13 ) or the mentors in each area can delegate to people in the team if they ask for something to do.

There's also the issue of keeping people in the team informed. Originally we used Jaiku (microblogging) where it was the idea that when achievements were made you microblogged about it. The Mer team members are spread over several time zones so it's difficult to keep track.

This has now evolved into the mer-chatter mailing list, which is basically microblogging through e-mail - send many, short messages, most information in subject and maybe elaborating a little in the body of the e-mail.

We also post to the mailing list through an IRC bot - and people can receive the messages through a digest too, or look up in the archive (https://garage.maemo.org/pipermail/mer-chatter/)

John: From the point of view of someone who wants to get involved in the Mer project, they can take a look at the Sprints page (that Carsten mentioned above), and see what needs to be done. If they find something they're interested in working on, it's easy for them to jump right in, asking questions as they go.

3. Can you detail the support that you are getting from Nokia? In addition to the open source bits that you are including in Mer, what closed bits have you received, or are expected to receive from them? Have any new components from the Maemo 5 SDK's made their way into Mer yet?

Carsten: Current status can be described as following:

* Nokia has sponsored travel+accomodation for five community members dealing with Mer (cladius, me, johnx, lbt, rm_you) to get together as part of the Mozilla Maemo Danish weekend - alone the monetary value of that is a huge and much appreciated support :)

* Nokia has put out several code drops (pre-alpha, pre-alpha2, alpha, beta1, soon to be beta2) of the open source code and we have included these code drops in Mer as they have come in (beta1 still in progress)

* Nokia has essentially said that they don't see a problem in distributing Nokia software to Nokia tablet users - which is an impressive statement by them (see http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-community/2009-January/002946.html)

* Nokia is sponsoring maemo.org and the employees running it, which we use as our infrastructure technically as well as organizational - who are very helpful to the project.

(there's probably more but this is what I can remember at 10am :)

4. Can you provide us with a definitive word on the status of the graphics acceleration drivers for the OMAP 2? Is it true that Nokia is assisting in getting those closed bits to the Mer team?

Carsten: Well, it's actually an item out of my hands - do note that Nokia is assisting in getting those bits to the Maemo community, not exclusively to Mer. Quim said on IRC he will go to talk to TI during May. What we have done from Mer point of view is suggest ways to deal with this, see http://internettablettalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=283003&postcount=8

5. My own opinion is that Mer in its current state (version 0.12) it is not ready for prime-time yet. What issues do you feel need to be resolved before it is ready? What show-stoppers, if any, need to be overcome?

Carsten: Show-stoppers are pretty simple: we need some people with GTK knowledge to work with us for a while to get some things rolling - as we have some tiny bugs in Hildon Desktop that are annoying. Rest is powerlaunch scripting (behaviour) and control panels. There's a longer discussion in the http://internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28586 (Mer 0.12 release thread) including a discussion of the showstoppers.

6. When I interviewed Andre Klapper back in late 2008, he indicated that the Mer team was welcome to use Maemo's bugzilla to enter and track bugs. Are you currently doing this?

Carsten: Yes, we're under "Extras" in the maemo.org bugzilla and Andre and co has been excellent in helping us out with getting things working. We even get delegated some WONTFIX'es ;)

7. Mer comes pre-installed with a few applications. Are the Mer repositories building up, or is more focus on Mer itself for the moment.

John: Right now the focus is on Mer itself. We want a solid base that won't change too much before we start putting a lot of applications on top. We're also looking at how to integrate with maemo.org Extras in terms of making it possible for developers to write one source package that compiles for Maemo and Mer. Hopefully this situation will improve with time. We want to be using our favorite apps on Mer just as much as
everyone else.

8. Speaking of repositories. From what I gather, Mer is based upon Ubuntu Jaunty. Can the Ubuntu repositories be used as-is for things like resource-efficient command-line applications? I imagine that anything with a GUI would have to be Hildonized first?

John: We have the Ubuntu repositories enabled by default and command line applications and tools are no problem at all in almost all cases. As for GUI tools, do they need to be Hildonized before they can be used? Not necessarily. Hildonizing certainly helps applications to be more touchscreen friendly and fit in with the look and feel of the desktop better, but apps that already look OK in an 800x440 window should run and be usable to some degree without any extra work.

9. OK I have a personal pet peeve with Mer's Midori web browser on my N800! I still cannot enter any text within webpage fields. I suspect that this is not an issue for the N810? When will this get resolved?!

John: We'll be switching to Bundyo's Tear web browser after a couple things get resolved. That should fix the issue nicely as well as adding a whole bunch of tablet specific features, such as drag-to-scroll, a touch friendly UI and good usage of screen real estate.

10. Where do you see the Mer project going after stable distributions are commonplace.

Carsten: My personal hope is that the Mer project will help put the Maemo platform everywhere - and to group together efforts in the various device communities. If we can put Hildon on a lot of different devices easily, and bring along all the applications with ease, it can only be a good thing :) Maybe you'll see a Hildon application made for the Zaurus running on your N810. Or Maemo Mapper on a X86 MID. Imagine the possibilities.

Also, consider that Mer is not "just" a Fremantle backport project. The original idea was to revolutionize and reconstruct the Maemo platform - in order to make it more tolerable for developers, community, users, etc. Maybe Mer might actually the future of the Maemo platform? Who knows? Nevertheless, we are only packagers of the
excellent work the Hildon and Maemo teams at Maemo SW (and contractors) are putting out, but we try to do this in a new way and develop ways to make it easier to work with for developers, community, users, etc.

11. Anything you both want to say to the Mer and Maemo communities?

Carsten: We wouldn't have gotten this far without all the small and big contributions made by you to the Mer project and I hope you'll help us to get to the finish line (a fully day to day usable OS on your tablets) - we still need a lot of hands.

John: I think Carsten said it better than I could. Thanks for all the help, testing, positive reinforcement and constructive criticism, everyone. We're getting closer everyday.

'Post'-Mortem by EIPI

Thanks Carsten and John for taking the time to participate in the interview.

The development of Mer excites me. It is an amazing display of a community coming together to shape its own future. It is obvious that the Mer team is working extremely hard to get a polished working product in our hands.

Mer as an operating system excites me. Mer looks quite polished, and I have no doubt that it will be a polished and usable operating system once some of the hurdles are overcome. Some of the highlights that stand out to me:

Hardware graphics acceleration on the OMAP 2!
Ubuntu's beefy repositories!
Mer in other everyday devices - Think about Mer-based set-top boxes, SOHO servers, media players, and beyond!

For those of us that will not be continuing along with Maemo's progression past Diablo, I encourage you to install Mer, update it with each release, file bugs, suggest enhancements, port applications, and quite simply - help out in whatever way you can. The Mer team is looking for someone with GTK experience to help out ... if you are that person, or you know of someone who is, let the project leaders, Carsten and John know.

Interview with GeneralAntilles, the Maemo Community Council Chair

2009-01-09T19:58:00.001-05:00

Mobile Tablets! is pleased to present this Q&A session with GeneralAntilles, the first Maemo Community Council Chair. GeneralAntilles is one of the most infamous characters in the internet tablet scene - largely for his dry and matter-of-fact demeanor. He might rub some people the wrong way, but there is no denying his love for this platform as well as the effort and energy that he volunteers into all aspects of these devices. Considering his very busy schedule, especially over the holiday season, I feel fortunate that he agreed to do this interview.

1. As I understand it, you are in your early 20's. Can you tell us what you are currently doing outside of the Maemo world (i.e. are you working, getting educated, a combination of the two, or something else)?

Currently I'm a Junior studying Computer Science at Florida State University. I don't work during the semester, so I usually work at a local new & used bookstore over breaks to scrape together enough cash to get me through each semester.

2. As with many of the members of the Internet Tablet community, you appear to be quite knowledgeable in the areas of Linux, computer hardware, etc. Is this self-taught, or do you have formal education in any of these areas?

Self-taught inasmuch as I didn't receive my knowledge from formal education, but that's not to say that there weren't a lot of very helpful people along the way. ;) My background is in Macintosh, but the 770 was my first real foray into Linux, and Maemo is where I've picked up all of my Linux knowledge to date.

3. Congratulations on becoming the first Maemo Community Council Chair! Since the Council's inception, we have likely had many new members join maemo.org who may not know what this Council is all about. Can you tell us what the mandate of the Council is?

Well, the Council's basic goals are to facilitate communication between the community and Nokia (and vice versa) to make sure Nokia understands the community's motivations and issues, and that the community understands Nokia's; to act as leaders for the community to help provide direction to maemo.org and the Maemo Community; and to just plain get stuff done.

4. Do you or your fellow Council members have an area of expertise that you handle independently, or do all Council members deal with each issue?

We each have our own areas of experience and expertise, but we don't really have predefined areas of responsibility, and most of us don't really have a particular "role" we fill. Arguably, there's really only one person who would fit into a specific description, and that's Tim Samoff, since he might be called the graphics person. He's been handling most of the Council's end of the maemo.org redesign, and was involved in selecting the new maemo.org logo before the Council was formed. The rest of us, well, Andrew Flegg and I are sort of the "community" people, while Simon Pickering and Eduardo Lima are more the "developers", but there's overlap between everybody.

5. Can you give us an idea how much of your time you spend on Maemo related activities each day (e.g. participating in the forums, mailing lists, Bugsquad, Council activities, etc)?

It varies a lot depending on my non-Maemo-related workload, but Maemo-related activities usually occupy a high percentage of my time. Probably somewhere in the range of 1-5 hours a day on average—depending on what I happen to be working on. Maybe a little more if you factor in idling on IRC. :D Usually I at least check the latest bugzilla, wiki and mailing list activity in the morning and evening.

6. What is the exact mechanism that community members can pass issues up to the Council for discussion with Nokia? And what is the method that Nokia's comments make their way back to the community?

If there's something specific, the maemo-community list is the best place to raise it. Collectively the Council pays attention to almost all of the data exchanged day-to-day in the Maemo Community, so if an issue pops up somewhere you can be almost certain one of us will see it and address it if need be. If Nokia has input on an issue, the best place to voice it is right in the discussion (just as they do now).

7. Do you make any distinction between *users* and *community members* when it comes to whether people are heard or not (e.g. related to an individual's maemo.org Karma)?

Well, I certainly weight a respected community member's opinion more heavily when forming an opinion on an issue than someone with whom I have no prior experience. This isn't dependent on a silly metric like karma, of course, but on my knowledge of the person and previous dealings with them. As far as considering as issue, though, for me, it really has less to do with the person raising the issue than whether or not the issue is a valid one and would benefit from the Council's help.

8. Can you give us an example of a community issue that has gone through the process of being voiced to Nokia/Maemo via the Council, and back again to the community? Something that gives the community members a sense that this process is working?

The first issue we pushed just after the election dealt with the repository setup for SSU (multiple repositories with inconsistent contents), it has since been addressed and fixed, but I'm not really certain how much of that had to do with Council input. ;) More recently we've been working with Nokia (Quim, in particular) to help push a community backport of Fremantle, which hasn't yet had time to show results, really.

But, of course, the Council's responsibilities encompass more than just dealings with Nokia. Tim and Andrew are pushing the updated maemo.org style and layout, Andrew and Simon are working on patching the Application Manager, Eduardo and myself pushed Canola into the maemo.org Bugzilla, and we all helped push and collect translations for the new categories list.

9. You've recently started to play around with the OMAP 3530 based Beagleboard. Based upon this, and what we know of the Maemo5 device (RX-51) - would you say you are excited at the prospect of having those performance numbers in a tablet?

Hell yes! :D Anybody who's followed any of those "N900" speculation threads should know exactly how excited I am about the OMAP3. It really, truly is light years ahead of current generation hardware. Huge performance improvements in everything from web browsing, to video decoding and OpenGL. I'm about as excited about the next tablet as one can get about small consumer electronics. I think it's going to become quite apparent why publishing an official backport of Fremantle for OMAP2 isn't really feasible for Nokia once people get the new hardware in their hands.

10. Speaking of the RX-51 - there is alot of discussion going on about Fremantle over at Internet Tablet Talk. One of the sticking points with 770 and N8X0 users is the confirmed lack of an official Nokia Fremantle distribution for those wonderful devices. Quim and yourself have been prodding the community to rise to the challenge and make Fremantle happen on these devices since the platforms are moving towards more open source components. Can you give us a rundown on where exactly you see the community helping out? For instance, which components should be targetted?

Carsten Munk, and John Bloom were already hard at work with Mer well before the call went out officially, and have, amazingly, stepped things even more since. There are a lot of disparate efforts ongoing in different areas that fall under community efforts for a backport, coordinating these efforts will help a lot. Replacing Nokia's "differentiation" products (closed-source applets, connectivity, themes) with free, and open-source replacements is an important area to work on, and will have benefits not just for a community backport, but all users of Maemo and any derivatives.

11. I am going to venture into a slightly personal area. I think it will be enlightening for users to hear what you have to say about this topic. I know some users on Internet Tablet Talk do not have a positive impression of you, which is based upon how you have replied to posts in the forums. I think the saying is that "you do not suffer fools well". What is your strategy for separating the forum trolls from those who are angry due to legitimate problems they are having? What about the naive newbies that sometimes ask questions about advanced issues, only to have you tell them to stick with the default software? Do you paint them all with the same brush, or do they trigger different styles of response from you?

It's hard to really get a useful impression of somebody from a few forum posts, and I think some of that negative perception stems from people making judgements on just a few forum posts. I'd ask anyone making a judgement about someone else to avoid making their final judgement with so little information.

Tone is everything when you're evaluating whether somebody is actually an honest newbie or just a troll. If you come in ranting and raving about how much the device, the software, the documentation, and (especially) the community sucks, then don't expect a positive response from people. On the other hand, if somebody says, "Hey, I'm having trouble with this, I looked at the documentation, I searched around a bit, but I don't really understand what I need to do to make this work. Can you help?" I'm more than happy to help, unfortunately people often start out with, "Everything and everybody here is stupid, this thing sucks, and I demand that you help me!" which, personally, makes me much less inclined towards helping. ;)

As for the newbies who ask about stuff that's really beyond their skill level, it all depends. I'm more than happy to help people learn new things and explore areas beyond their current skill level, but I have to make a judgement call based on their posts as to whether they're likely to be willing and able to do it. The reality is is that some things simply aren't intended for general consumption. Booting from a flash card isn't a simple procedure, and you do a disservice to people by directing everybody who shows the smallest interest into trying it. You'll save people a lot of time and frustration if you recommend what's appropriate.

12. If you don't mind my saying, you looked a little stiff in your previous avatar. It did not go unnoticed on Internet Tablet Talk when you changed your avatar to something that was friendlier looking. Was this a conscious decision to make yourself look more approachable? Or was it just a picture change, without any hidden meaning?

Hehe. That's actually the picture I took for use in the Council presentation at the Summit. I thought it was a better picture than the old one so I went ahead and made the change. Nothing more to it. That said, it is interesting to see people's reactions change based solely on an avatar. ;)

13. What are your top 3 tablet applications (other than anything installed by default), and why?

In no particular order: Maemo Mapper, FBReader and Canola. Maemo Mapper and Canola for those long road trips, and FBReader because reading ebooks on these things is one of the best things ever.

14. Anything you want to say to the Internet Tablet Community?

I'd like to say how awesome it's been seeing this community grow over the past 3 years. :D I wont pick any particular names to thank (you know who you are), but there are a ton of great people involved here and it's always a fantastic experience working with them. I'm greatly impressed by how far we've come so far and very excited to see exactly how far we'll go in the future.

I do want to single out the Nokians among us who go above and beyond the call of duty and put so much of their time into this community. I know you're frequently in a tough place stuck between the community and Nokia, and I know you don't get the recognition and thanks you deserve for putting yourself in that position, so I'd like to make sure you know how much we appreciate you being here and thank you for it. :)

'Post'-Mortem by EIPI

First of all, thank you GeneralAntilles for participating in this interview.

I went out on a limb at the start of this process by asking GeneralAntilles to indulge me as I wanted to tread a bit in the area of the public's perception of him. As we all know, he has come off arrogant in forum posts, and there are certainly those who make their negative opinions of him known. I wanted to get a feel for how he deals with this issue. I've never had any contact with him prior to this interview, so I did not know what to expect. He was pretty cool about it. He even offered this quip which he used to describe himself: "I yam what I yam, and that's all I yam.". For those of you that missed the reference, that was a Popeye line.

The conclusion that I have drawn from dealing with the General is that he is all about how you carry yourself. In a text based community such as ours - implied tone is everything. We should all keep that in mind in our dealings with everyone, and hopefully it will lead to a more vibrant community.

~EIPI

De-Mistifying the maemo.org Bugzilla - An Interview with Bugmaster Andre Klapper

2008-12-12T06:32:00.001-05:00

Mobile Tablets! is pleased to present this exclusive Q&A session with maemo.org's Andre Klapper.

Andre is one of two Bugmasters responsible for the Maemo platform bugzilla. He faithfully wades through all the bug reports, comments, and votes that are filed daily on bugs.maemo.org. The end result of that effort is an Internet Tablet community which continues to have a feature rich and reliable device in its hands.

I'm sure that everyone reading this would love to have a few minutes of Andre's time. I consider myself fortunate to have him agree to do the following Q&A:

1. You were recently appointed as one of two maemo.org bugmasters. What exactly do you and Karsten Bräckelmann do on a daily basis as bugmasters?

The job description vaguely says "Administration of the database and communication with users and developers". This covers triaging the reports (reproducing them, asking for more information if required, cleaning up old reports), "educating" users to file good reports, forwarding "valuable" issues to Nokia's internal bugtracker and keeping it in sync (that's not a long term solution but right now it's due to Nokia's current workflow), Bugzilla maintenance (repetitive stuff like adding versions or target milestones), setting up the Bugsquad and guidelines for people interested in helping, and collecting technical knowledge from developers commenting on bug reports that miss information.

I think that covers most of what I'm doing. Of course I also try to follow up discussions on mailing lists and the Internet Tablet Talk forum to streamline issues and get them properly filed in Bugzilla.

2. Is bugmastery a full-time job, or do you fit it in between other activities that you have? Are you considered an employee of Nokia/Maemo?

The job position was created in May 2008 and is a full-time position. Karsten Bräckelmann and me shared the position for the first months (each of us working part time), but since I started full time in October Karsten has become the bugmaster in Nokia's Desktop Team and does not spend much time on maemo.org Bugzilla currently. He still helps me with technical issues (and might be back in a few months).

The job position is sponsored by Nokia, but I decide myself what is important and what I work on, so it is completely independent. I was explicitly told that I'm free to disagree and ignore anything Nokia comes up with (but that hasn't happened yet, I prefer to convince people instead). ;-)

I consider myself an employee of the maemo.org community because they basically decide what I'm doing (and if I'm doing it well or not), and of course of Openismus because they pay me and are a great company to work for.

3. Many tablet users out there do not participate in bugzilla. I for one, only started a few months ago. Can you give us an overview of the process that a bug report takes internally on its road to being dispositioned as fixed, and what groups within Nokia/Maemo are typically involved?

When a bug report gets filed the first thing to be done by the Bugsquad is to check whether enough information has been submitted and whether it can be reproduced. This might require providing instructions to the reporter to come up with some application specific information (for example creating a log file if the email application cannot connect to the server). When the report is in a good shape I forward it to Nokia's internal bug tracker (as already said, that is the current workflow and I'm the bottleneck, like it or not) and keep both reports in sync when new comments get added. When a bug gets fixed in the codebase, I also close the public bug report and add a comment about the version that will include the fix and its weekly build number. This is often a bit confusing as the fix is not immediately available for public, and we all have to wait for Nokia pushing a public SSU update (honestly, I also don't know about any release dates - that's unfortunately Nokia's current policy).

That's the normal process for software bugs. Development platform or Website bugs are directly handled in Maemo Bugzilla only.

4. Are there any common mistakes made when users file bugs that makes your lives difficult as bugmasters? Something that reporters/voters should do differently?

Reporters using the bug template and being as exact as possible already help a lot, because it saves time that is otherwise required to ask for more information. Imagine tracking down a short and simple "Can't send mail, please help" report and the follow-ups required to find out
whether it's really a bug or just a misconfiguration. The more valuable information, the better. If reports are vague in general I link against https://bugs.maemo.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html , if a log file or specific information is required Bugsquad members can pick up potential questions from the wiki at https://wiki.maemo.org/Bugs:Stock_answers . Regarding voters... I just want to have more people voting. Raise your voice! It really helps to identify the main issues and make Nokia aware of them.

5. Has any thought been given to providing some sort of dummy-proof way of getting a device's log info appropriate to a particular bug uploaded onto the bug report? What I envision is a bug reporting client on the tablet that you can invoke after you experience a bug. It would take a snapshot of the logs and/or device configuration and upload them to the bug report. Reporting bugs would become easier for the casual user, but may be a headache to implement, and also to manage on your end.

Nokia has announced a Crash reporter at Maemo Summit. As far as I know it will be available for download from the SDK tools repository.

From my point of view and the experience in GNOME Bugzilla offering such a functionality for non-crashers will likely cause problems and noise, because bug reports will mix up with support requests that better fit into forums or mailing lists.

6. There has been some disgruntlement in the community regarding the lack of frequent OS bug fixes via the SSU. Is there a triage system in place that relates the severity of the bug to the frequency of an update via the SSU? For instance, one critical bug may generate an SSU to rollout a critical fix, but every 10 normal priority bugs will be rolled up in a separate update via SSU. Or is it a looser management system?

Uh, that question relates to Nokia's internal policies when to ship an SSU update, and I simply don't know of Nokia's release management's guidelines here. I assume that a high number of critical issues or even blockers will increase pressure to push an SSU update soon, but I think we all agree that we would like to see Nokia publish updates much more often than they currently do.

7. It seems to me that we are approaching a point in time where a monumental division in the community will occur. This is the creation of community developed/modified Maemo distributions (e.g. Mer) versus the officially supplied versions. Since maemo.org is supposed to be a community site, will bugs.maemo.org handle both, or just the official versions?

We already have a few community projects in the "Extras" classification in maemo.org Bugzilla (Canola, Community Kernels etc.).

In the long run, we want to make Bugzilla the home for every community project maintainer who is interested. However, to lower the amount of administration (creating components, versions and target milestones for each product) this requires some non-trivial code work first that unfortunately will not happen that soon, so I currently prefer to only have some outstanding community software hosted. Some community members already have permissions to set up new products in Bugzilla.

If the Mer maintainers are interested they are of course highly welcome!

8. There is a 'Fixed in Fremantle' discussion going on over at InternetTabletTalk. It has been pretty fiery over there. I know that one of the valid points users have made is that a bug logged against Diablo should not be closed as Fixed, unless it is fixed in Diablo. Obviously, each OS iteration has a finite life that is dictated by Nokia's business strategy, so the 'Fixed in Fremantle' logic can make sense from a corporate viewpoint. What do you think of this issue and the community's concerns? Are they founded, or is there fear mongering occurring due to a lack of understanding of things that will transpire?

I can totally understand the complaints from my user point of view, but it's simply the life cycle of a bug. Having a patch committed to the codebase ("RESOLVED FIXED") is something different than having the fix available for public and verified ("CLOSED FIXED"). Some issues are much easier to fix in the Fremantle architecture and backporting them to Diablo would create a lot of additional work, and Nokia is still a company that is interested in selling products and does not have unlimited resources and manpower, hence they concentrate on Fremantle and put less efforts in Diablo as time passes by. This is exactly where the community can fill the gap by picking up the code and continuing to hack and improve it, and Mer is the right direction to kick this off in an organized kind of way.

9. Stephen Gadsby over at ITT does a bang-up job of providing a weekly bug jar in his blog. Do you feel any pressure from this since the bug status is on the loudspeaker each week, or do you take it in stride as an interested community keeping a check on your activities?

It's not only my activities, it's the entire Bugsquad, other community members and Nokia employees that are involved too.

Stephen's weekly bug jar has been very helpful to me to see the progress we make and to identify issues. It's definitely motivating to see the number of open bug reports and enhancement requests decreasing in the last weeks. I would call it a kind of "positive pressure".

10. Anything last minute to say to the community regarding bugs or anything else going on at maemo.org?

Get involved! :-)

Report issues, triage bug reports - even testing one bug a day (if it's reproducible in the latest public software version) is already a big help. If you want to get started check out https://wiki.maemo.org/Bugsquad and start triaging your favourite bugs (e.g. old moreinfo bugs, your favourite product that you have good knowledge of, new incoming reports etc.). Generally speaking, my impression is that we are on a good way to get Nokia more involved in the feedback provided through maemo.org Bugzilla, though of course everybody in general loves to see things happen faster. Having good bug reports and showing Nokia that the user feedback in maemo.org Bugzilla provides additional value and better over-all quality of the Maemo software is an important step to make Nokia understand the advantages of open source software and culture better.

'Post' Mortem by EIPI

Thanks Andre for providing some insight into the bugzilla process, and for the valuable discussion.

As can be seen, the maemo.org Bugzilla is THE PLACE to work within to have your frustrations with the platform officially heard and dealt with. Many users do this on Internet Tablet Talk, which provides alot of entertaining discussion, but does nothing (unless Andre happens to hear you there) to fix problems for you or anyone else.

Hopefully users will hop onto bugs.maemo.org to file bugs, vote for bugs, or even become a member of the Bugsquad (I didn't even know we had one!).

EIPI

Android v1.0 on the N810: An Interview with Peter McDermott of NthCode

2008-12-10T19:56:00.001-05:00

Mobile Tablets! is pleased to present this interview with Peter McDermott, CEO and founder at embedded Linux consulting firm NthCode. His company recently made news at Internet Tablet Talk and Engadget over the porting of Android v1.0 to the N810. Peter is originally from the United States but has been living in Beijing since 2002 and founded NthCode there in 2005.

Peter, as you can imagine, is busy over at NthCode, so I feel fortunate that he could take some time to participate in this interview:

1. Could you tell us a little bit about NthCode? For instance, what type of Linux projects do you typically undertake? What hardware platforms do you develop for?

Thanks for the opportunity, EIPI.

We've spent most of the last three years writing system software for a large mobile phone manufacturer's 2.5G and 3G Linux phones (unfortunately, I can't say who that is). We've also helped other customers develop software for embedded Linux media devices. These have all been ARM-based systems with similar hardware configurations to what you see in the Nokia Internet Tablets.

2. I read on your corporate website that you are an expatriate now working in China. Why did you chose China when establishing your company?

Well, I spent most of 2000 to 2002 backpacking around Asia -- and four months of that in China. After I returned home to the U.S., I felt a longing to be back in the middle of the amazing energy and changes taking place in Beijing. So I repacked my bag and moved. After arriving, I found a software development job working on one of the first Linux handsets. And, in 2005, I founded NthCode to focus on what I like and know best -- embedded Linux.

Beijing isn't heaven, but it's a very interesting place. And there are lots of great software developers here who are looking for the opportunity to work on new and exciting technology. So I feel Beijing is a natural fit for me and for NthCode.

(I should also say that I studied Chinese as my foreign language in college -- but I was absolutely the worst student in that class. So it's fair to say that I've had an interest in China for some time. My Chinese is functional, but not fluent, now.)

3. The reason I wanted to interview you was due to NthCode's recent porting of the latest Android v1.0 to the N810. This made a big splash over at Internet Tablet Talk. I assume that porting Android to the N810 is not a bread and butter type of work for you guys over at NthCode. Can you tell us a little about Tang Yongjun and the team, and their impetus to work on this particular project?

Well, in addition to Android being the hot new thing, we had received inquiries about whether or not we could do Android work. So I wanted us to get some experience and have some tangible proof that we could do it.

Yongjun is a talented hacker. And due to a lull in another project, he was not as busy as some of the other developers, so I asked him to try the port. It turned out to be a great learning experience for us. We try to use agile methods, specifically, the Scrum process, for the projects we run. We all work hard here. But Scrum keeps us focused on what's important and mostly lets us rest on the weekends. That being said, I found Yongjun on IM one Saturday night and asked him how he was doing, and he answered, 'I almost have the display driver working.' He said he was having fun.

4. Many of us flocked to your corporate website to see the video of the N810 booting up into the Android desktop environment. It was mind blowing. The previous Android port which qwerty12, penguinbait, and b-man worked on in the summer ran inside Maemo as an application. NthCode's port, as I understand it, allows you to boot the device into Android directly. Many of the tablet community are like myself - interested in technology, have a basic understanding of hardware and software, but are not developers. Can you explain to us in lay terms the challenges that you had to overcome to make this happen, and the level of effort involved?

Ha! I mostly expected people to say, 'It's been done already. It boots slowly. Who cares?'

The analog in the PC world to what we did would be to take a PC that typically runs Fedora Linux and make it run Ubuntu Linux. I don't want to say it's just that easy, but it's definitely doable if you know how the Linux kernel interfaces with embedded hardware. What Penguinbait, Qwerty12, and B-man did is actually a bit more interesting: They took the equivalent of a PC that is already booted into Fedora and made it launch Ubuntu. Very slick!

The biggest technical challenge we faced was to bring-up of Android after we had merged the N810 and Android kernels. We had to work past a number of issues related to file systems, display drivers, and random reboots. But, we took them one at a time and eventually got the system up. This bring-up piece took Yongjun more than a week of focused effort.

5. At the time your port was announced, things like the wifi and touchscreen were not working properly, if I recall correctly. Has there been any work at NthCode on resolving these issues? For instance, using the open source wifi drivers with the 2.6.25 kernel that you are using?

Actually, the touchscreen worked fine. But you're right that WiFi did not work.

Since our initial release, we've enabled the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) and updated the display driver to fix some nagging video issues. The ADB lets your PC debug a USB-connected Android device. This includes ssh-like functionality and the ability to use the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment to single-step through Android code running on a device.

And, as of just today, WiFi is working in our 2.6.25 kernel. That being said, you have to use ADB to get inside the device to configure it. So we are not at the point of having WiFi ready for casual users.

6. Are you planning on getting this to work on the N800? I believe that the on-screen keyboard might be an issue here.

Our primary focus right now is to make the N810 port functional and stable enough for our needs. If someone else could do the N800 changes, we would gladly merge them into our kernel and userspace so that more of these devices can run Android. That being said, we can sure try to add N800 support later if we have time.

7. As with many great inventions, simultaneous work by independent parties occurs. Obviously, I am referring to Solca's work on NITdroid. Solca is using an updated 2.6.28 kernel, and has incorporated wifi support. Were you aware of their work, or did it come as a surprise to hear of the independent port they came up with?

I wish we had known of Solca's effort earlier, so that we could have put our heads together with his. But I'm very happy that he is getting the recognition he much deserves for his port. It's wonderful that he's been able to make WiFi and the newer kernel work.

8. Solca's work has really picked up. Are you eyeing any of the developments on NITdroid for inclusion in your port?

We have leveraged some of the work he's done in his Android port to make ours better. The display driver and WiFi fixes I mention above are based on the work he did. So we owe him a big, 'Thanks!' I hope some of our changes can help him out, too..

9. Now that you have some development work on the N8X0 series of devices under your belts - do you see any other projects that you want to undertake on this hardware platform?

I'm interested to see what we can do in the Android user-space on the N810. And I'd sure like us to build some kind of Android application that people can download to their Android N810s and other Android devices, even if it's just something simple and free.

10. Do you own and use a Nokia Internet Tablet?

We have three Nokia N810s at the office that are used by our developers for various projects. If we can make power management work in Android on the N810, I think it would be fun to have one just for bragging rights. But I'm one of those folks who is forever connected to his laptop, so I don't use one on a daily basis. I think mobile devices are getting better at replacing laptops, but they aren't quite there, yet.

11. Anything you or your team at NthCode would like to say to the Internet Tablet community?

In addition to Solca, who's helped us with some of his patches, I'd like to thank Penguinbait, Qwerty12, and B-man for their documentation on what they did in the Android prerelease port. We were able to use that as a basis for our work. As well, I think Nokia deserves a round of applause for creating such wonderful hackable hardware.

'Post' Mortem by EIPI:

First of all, thank you Peter for participating in this interview. And a big thank you to Tang Yongjun, the developer who worked on getting the latest Android to boot on the N810.

Being new to this arena of technology, I thought I had all my ducks in a row, but I did manage to make an error regarding the touchscreen not working on NthCode's Android port. You can clearly see that the touchscreen works in the last seconds of the video on their site.

NthCode's interest in developing applications for the N810 Android user space is promising news. The effort that Solca and NthCode have put into getting a bootable Android on the N8X0 devices is a welcome development in our community. It means that we may have more to select from when it comes to picking an operating system to power our tablets. This is a great thing!

EIPI

N800 As A Baby Monitor 'Gizmo'

2008-11-25T08:52:00.001-05:00

Turn your old N800 into a baby monitor, nanny cam, or surveillance device.

The inspiration for this blog post comes from qole's idea to use two tablets as a baby monitor. His idea was to have an application written for the tablets to do this. I clumsily wrote a few responses on ways that this could be achieved with the tablet's existing functionality, but then thought of a simpler way that I'll share with you all.

Required items:

Qty. 2 Nokia Internet Tablets (770, N800, N810, etc). The N800 for this application is ideal due to the swivel feature of the camera.

Qty. 2 Gizmo SIP accounts (let's call the two accounts UserA and UserB).

Optional Items:

Qty. 1 Gizmo Call-In number (to use with one of the advanced monitoring options)

Inital Setup:

1. Setup the 'transmitting tablet - Tablet A'. Place this tablet in the room to be monitored. Setup the Gizmo client with UserA login credentials, and set it to auto-answer incoming calls. Plug the power cord in, put it in a convenient spot, and aim the camera at the area you want to monitor. Don't forget to turn the volume to the mute setting.

2. Set up the 'monitoring tablet - Tablet B'. Set up your Gizmo service using UserB login credentials.

Monitoring:

1. When you want to monitor the room that Tablet A is in, simply use the Internet Call application or Gizmo Client of Tablet B, and call Tablet A by dialing 'UserA' from your contacts list. Tablet A should auto-answer, and you'll be able to see and hear any action going on in that room.

Advanced monitoring:

2. Assuming that you want to remotely monitor what is going on, e.g. while at work while your nanny is taking care of your kids - simply connect to the internet using Tablet B, and repeat Step 1 above.

3. If you do not have access to the internet, but want to eavesdrop (for instance, if your kids are being babysat while you are at a movie), then you can eavesdrop on what's going on by using your cell phone. For this, you need to have a Gizmo Call-In number tied to the UserA account on Tablet A. Simply dial the call-in number from anywhere, and instantly hear what is going on in the house.

That's it. I hope this post is of benefit to someone out there.

Notes:

1. I could not find an option within the Internet Call application to auto-answer incoming calls, therefore Tablet A must use the Gizmo client. If anyone can prove otherwise, please post a comment here.

2. Tablet B can use either the Internet Call application or the Gizmo client.

3. The video usefulness is questionable in low-light conditions.

4. Disclaimer: Use at your own risk - we are not responsible for any outcomes associated with using this how-to!

Interview with qwerty12

2008-07-23T06:21:00.001-04:00

Mobile Tablets! is pleased to present this exclusive Q&A session with Internet Tablet Talk member, qwerty12.

qwerty12 is one of the newest members of itT. In the short time that he has been involved with the tablets, he has made a real impact on the community. His range of contributions includes several software ports, assisting Penguinbait and b-man with porting Android (in a usable form) to the N810/N800, and of course, for finding the back door to a pre-release of Diablo!

I'm sure that everyone reading this would love to have a few minutes of qwerty12's time. I consider myself fortunate to have him agree to do the following Q&A:

1. How long have you been a Maemo user, and what lead you to purchase a tablet?

I've been a Maemo user for about 7 months now, and I was registered on Internet Tablet Talk for about 3 months before that. I remember going on Internet Tablet Talk and seeing penguinbait unveiling KDE for the tablets, fanoush with his page of maemo hacks and the effects of Canola.

But I had no money to get an N800 then so I went onto other things (Modifying my phone and my router). Then the N810 had been announced and the price of the N800 dropped sharply. This was my chance to get one and I went for it.

2. From what I've read, you are one of the youngest members of Internet Tablet Talk. Do you think that is an oddity, or are the tablets well suited for people within your age group?

I would have to say that is an oddity. Everyone in my school is under the impression it is an phone and no one had heard of it before they had seen my tablet. The only other person that I know has access to one, is my friend's uncle with an N810.

3. You appear humble with respect to your contributions within the internet tablet community. You're obviously fairly talented. Did you pick up your skills on your own, or do have any formal training?

Well, there have been times where I have been not so modest... Before experimenting with the tablets, I used to mess around with my phone and I just started picking up things. I have read a lot of Linux books years ago and I guess bits of those books come back to me from time to time. But I mostly taught myself, I like to look around in the filesystem and see what I can change etc.

4. Your recent involvement with penguinbait in porting Android over to the tablet made internet news. Has this made any impact on you at all, or is it par for the course, so-to-speak?

Well, I was quite surprised by how much attention it recieved. Android had been available for tablets before, just not in a easily usable form. It was b-man who introduced me to the android on N810 page and he asked me for some help mounting the android and to keep it quiet.

Later, on the maemo irc channel, I get a PM from penguinbait saying that b-man said I had gotten android working and I was confused because I never had said that, but penguinbait said he had an installer working, it was just the kernel that was messing up.

I offered to take a look at the kernel and I went onto the site and I spent a good few hours getting the android kernel patch (from android-on-n8xx) ported to the diablo kernel sources. This allowed me to have an working android - minus the touchscreen. Penguinbait reported the touchscreen worked for him on an N810 and he released it. I remembered the N800 touchscreen was different to the N810 and I started porting the N810 touchscreen fix to the N800.

5. Speaking of Android, I know that there is a pretty lengthy thread on itT which gives the installation instructions. Can you give us a quick summary of the status right now? For instance, is the N800 touchscreen now working?

The SDK used is an older version. This means quite a bit of newer android applications will not run on the version that is in the installer. With some knowledge, it is possible to run the current version but we chose to use the older version because the current one runs much slower due to Android now using page-flipping which the LCD controller in the N8*0's do not support. The workaround for that makes it run quite slow.

6. Are you planning any further projects with penguinbait?

No, although I'm available if he needs a tester :P.

7. Do you see yourself staying the course with the tablets, or are you eyeing any other platforms right now?

I'm staying on course with the tablets. I don't find any other portable Linux platform is as good as maemo. And with developers making new and brilliant applications everyday, I'd be hard pushed to change.

8. You have obviously caught the attention of Nokia, as evidenced by your recent invitation to attend the upcoming Maemo Summit. If approached by Nokia, would you have anything to suggest to them in terms of improving the tablets?

All I can suggest is that the N900 isn't as backward as the N810. The N810 has some good improvements over the N800 (GPS, Keyboard, Transreflective screen) but the odd usb connector, no fmradio as in the N800 and the soldered 2GB internal card were definitely a step back for me. Combine the two properly, add proper 3d hardware acceleration, a2dp and a GPS that doesn't need A-GPS to support it; rather compliment it, will be a winner for me.

9. Do you have any unique uses of your tablet that you'd iike to share?

Not really, I just use it for going on the internet and playing Duke Nukem 3d and playing GBA games on it (now I don't have to carry my old gameboy and the N800).

10. What are your future plans? Do you have any idea what you want to do in the future?

Can't really say anything on this one, I just plan on going College after finishing school.

Thanks for taking the time to participate in this session, qwerty12.

EIPI

Upcoming Exclusive Interview with qwerty12

2008-07-21T22:27:00.002-04:00

Mobile Tablets! is pleased to announce an exclusive Q&A session with Internet Tablet Talk member, qwerty12.

qwerty12 is one of the newest members of itT. In the short time that he has been involved with the tablets, he has made a real impact on the community.

Tune in to see what qwerty12 has to say!

My WiMAX Experiment - Part 6: Summary and Final Thoughts

2008-07-20T22:19:00.002-04:00

My experiment in the Rogers Portable Internet over the past several weeks has left me with mixed feelings.

On the positive side of things, it has enabled me to be connected while at work as I illustrated in Part 2. However, in its present modem form, it is bulky and fairly non-portable. It was neat to get a flavour of a WiMAX enabled N8X0 via my in-car experience of Part 5. I thought it was pretty slick to be downloading maps while I drove.

Positives:

1. Offers some mobility in Canada without using expensive data via cell phone. For a fixed second location such as what I required, it is adequare.

2. The price is fairly good - $20/month for 10 GB which is cheaper than any data plan I can get with tethering in Canada.

Negatives:

1. The Portable Internet Basic that I had was slow. 512 kbps is nothing to write home about in today's day and age. For mobile versions of popular sites, it was adequate.

2. Not really portable. My in-car setup showed that using this modem in a car is impractical due to its size.

3. Frequent loss of signal has meant that my connection hangs in sometimes critical points of surfing.

4. The flavour of WiMAX currently retailed by Rogers and Bell does not allow the modem to handoff to the next tower - a severe limitation for true portability.

5. VOIP - forget about it.

Discussion:

Primus Canada is trialing a newer version of WiMAX that runs on 3.5 GHz in Hamilton, Ontario. This may be the type of WiMAX that allows handoffs. However, that trial is limited to Hamilton, and there is no indication when a nation-wide rollout would occur.

If Rogers and Bell upgraded their networks to allow faster, more reliable connections with the ability to maintain connections while travelling - it would then come down to price. For instance, you can currently get a USB 3G modem from Rogers, which costs $50/month. It only gives you about 300 MB of data. The speeds are much higher, and it runs on cell technology, so coverage is excellent. Coupled with a Cradlepoint router, this would be a faster and more portable internet solution. Of course, tethering from a 3G cell phone would be better also, but recently, tethering in Canada has become expensive.

My conclusion:

I started off this experiment without a hypothesis really. I did not know what to expect. What I found is that given better hardware (faster and more portable), and a more advanced network, this would be a viable mobile solution. For instance, a pocket sized WiMAX modem could be coupled with a Cradlepoint router.

Alternatively, something like a N810WE with a more advanced network would probably be fine for me. I am however beginning to think that 3G makes more and more sense. For existing tablet users, something like a USB 3G modem. And for a future tablet, an integrated 3G radio.

If there is a network upgrade in Canada, and I can get my hands on some newer hardware, or a N810WE, I would love to redo this experiment. Until then, I think I will reconsider my WiMAX subscription.

My WiMAX Experiment - Part 5: On the Road!

2008-07-12T00:18:00.002-04:00

Part 5 of my WiMAX experiment deals with the in-car use of my N800 with the WiMAX modem. This is actually not a usage case for me. I only use the WiMAX modem at work. As you'll see, the setup is large, cumbersome, and totally impractical. However, I thought that it would give us all a taste of what is possible with the N810 WiMAX Edition.

Disclaimer: I do not recommend that anybody try this on their own. Driving, tabletting and filming do not mix!

Video #1: Maemo Mapper

The video didn't turn out as well as I would've liked.... mostly due to the ambient brightness and the fact that the N800's screen is not trans-reflective. I deleted all my downloaded maps, and then started driving around to show off the fact that Maemo Mapper was downloading them as needed while I drove. If you are familiar with Maemo Mapper, I used the 'auto download' option for the maps, and if you look closely, you can periodically see the download progress bar in the upper right part of the tablet's screen. My in-car setup is quickly shown in this video also. Unfortunately, my PDA mount is broken, so I rested the tablet on the cup holder.

Video #2: Application Download

Another neat thing I tried was downloading and installing the bomberman application while driving. It was a fairly quick thing to do, but I was caught starting off in 3rd gear!

When the modem enters the coverage of a new cell tower, the connection gets dropped. In my experience, I could not reacquire a signal until stopped. The Rogers Portable Internet is called 'Pre-WiMAX', and cannot handoff to another cell tower. I am not sure if they have started to upgrade to the flavour of WiMAX that will be used by the N810WE.

If they have upgraded, I would sure love to test out a pre-production N810WE as part of my experiment. Alas, that would require some generous folks at Nokia and Rogers to be reading my blog.... :)

Stay tuned for Part 6 of my WiMAX experiment, where I will summarize my thoughts on this technology and its use on Nokia's Internet Tablets.

N800: Restoring On-screen Keyboard following BT Keyboard Disconnect

2008-07-09T11:38:00.002-04:00

Many times after disconnecting my i-Go Bluetooth keyboard, I am faced with a problem - The on-screen keyboard does not pop-up when required. This happens sometimes, and I am not sure what events lead to this behaviour.

It turns out, I am not the only one experiencing this. Maemo Bug 2850 deals with the same. I found comment #8 interesting, as it provided the fix.

It turns out that you can type the following within xterm, and the on-screen keyboard will re-appear:

gconftool -t bool -s /system/osso/af/slide-open false

I added this command to the list within osso-statusbar-cpu. Now, whenever my on-screen keyboard disappears after I use my bluetooth one, I am a few clicks away from restoring it. Sure beats having to reboot or to use the command line!

My WiMAX Experiment - Part 4: VoIP Call Quality

2008-06-18T21:17:00.001-04:00

Part 4 of my WiMAX Experiment deals with VoIP call quality while using the WiMAX Modem. I have placed a few calls to date and have had some great calls, but also some not-so-great calls. It seems to not only be dependant on my modem reception, but also some unknown factors which I could not quantify.

I thought that I would share recordings of some tests that I did to gauge the call quality relative to a cell phone. Note: they look like flash videos, but there is no video - only sound.

Call #1 - Cell phone call to a Vonage voice mail

The purpose of this call was to baseline the VoIP call quality relative to a traditional cell call.

Call #2 - Gizmo call via WiMAX to a Vonage voice mail

The proof is in the pudding, so-to-speak: my first documented test of a VoIP call with the WiMAX modem.

The VoIP call was a little unclear in spots, but I thought it was feasible, even with the latency and bandwidth I can attain with the WiMAX modem. Those initial tests gave me the courage to record a conversation with someone while connected via the WiMAX modem...

Call #3 - a real life Gizmo call to an InternetTabletTalk member via WiMAX!

I cold-called ITT member, qwavel, by sending him a PM on Internet Tablet Talk. Since he had made some comments on my experiment, I wanted to see if he would be interested in participating in a VoIP call with me. He instantly agreed. Since I did not know of an easy way to record the call on the tablet using Gizmo, he offered to record the call on his end via his Nokia N95. Hats off to qwavel for his enthusiasm and helpful conversation!

The interesting observation I had after listening to this recording was that qwavel sounded pretty clear to me at the time of the call, but on the recording, I sounded distant and broken up frequently. If both voices were relaying through the WiMAX modem, why was there such a difference between my observation during the call, and the subsequent recording?

Stay tuned for Part 5 of my WiMAX Experiment, where I will take the show on the road - literally!

My WiMAX Experiment - Part 3: Speed Tests

2008-06-12T21:10:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in Part 2, the Portable Internet Basic I have from Rogers is slow, but usable. Slow is a relative thing. They advertise 512 Kbps download and 256 Kbps upload. I found it hard to get a reliable speed test using the WiMAX modem since many of the speed testing sites I would traditionally use on a DSL connection were too slow to load and relied heavily on flash.

I did find a mobile version on DSL Reports that was advertized for use with - ahem - the iPhone. Well, it turned out to be the most workable speed test site to use in this case.

http://i.dslr.net/tinyspeedtest.html

I found that the download speed was heavily dependant on the reception of the modem. Today, my reception ran anywhere from 1 bar to 3 bars of service. A little fiddling with the modem placement and orientation allowed me to gauge the speed of my connection as a function of the number of bars of reception I had.

Bars	Speed (avg – Kbps)
1	53.5
2	92
3	172.5

Table 1: Average Download Speeds as a Function of Reception

I wasn't expecting much of a correlation, but it seems relatively linear.

Most of the time, I was running at 3 bars of reception. The spread in my connection speed ran from 114-224 Kbps.

Figure 1: An Example Speed Test Result from http://i.dslr.net/tinyspeedtest.html

The spread in latency was large - ranging from 94 ms to just over 1000 ms. The IP for dslr.net is somewhere in the USA, and the domain is registered in New York. That level of latency is large for a server a few hundred kilometres from me!

Many of the mobile-optimized sites worked quite well, loading relatively fast. I tried out the following:

http://m.gmail.com
http://m.facebook.com
http://www.cbc.ca/mobile
http://internettablettalk.com/forums (using the Mobile II theme)

The mobile facebook site worked quite well, and allowed me to do all of the things I normally do on facebook. That mobile site, in my opinion, should be benchmarked by Google for their mobile optimized GMail. The mobile version of GMail had a pretty poor interface. The Inbox view is OK, but the Compose view isn't. The body of the message that you're typing is very narrow. There is an iPhone optimized GMail site, but it doen't work consistently on my N800, or at least, I could not get it to work consistently. I resorted to using the basic HTML view for GMail, and it didn't get bogged down by my WiMAX connection.

Stay Tuned for Part 4, where I will review the quality I get using VOIP - pumping the calls through WiMAX...

My WiMAX Experiment - Part 2: Teething Pains & 'Mobile Setup'

2008-06-10T21:38:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in Part 1, my intended usage for the WiMAX modem is at my workplace, where I do not have WiFi. One of my main concerns was with concealment of the modem/router package. I solved this by strapping the router to the modem, and tucking it between my computer and the cubicle wall. After work, I place the modem and router in my desk and lock it.

The first day brought to a light a few problems. One was the choice of router. That FON router would drop connections often. I recalled that there was an issue with using this router and the NIT's, related to the power saving mode in the WiFi. I bought a cheap D-Link router that night, and the router issue was solved.

The other problem I had was with the modem dropping connections sometimes. It would go roaming for a signal, and take a few minutes to acquire it again. Some twisting and shifting of the modem proved to be useful in securing a reliable spot to place it in.

Surfing on the first day was good. I used the 'mobile' versions of most sites that I frequent. Funnily enough, the ITT site was one of the hardest to switch to mobile since the option is in a drop box at the bottom of the page. Loading the full site on the Basic connection I had was slow. Gmail, Google, Wikipedia, CBC News, and more were very usable in their mobile forms, or basic HTML versions.

I was chatting via GoogleTalk with some friends, and even placed a VOIP call via GoogleTalk. The call was fairly clear, but would cut in and out frequently. I need to do some more testing of the VOIP when connected via the WiMAX modem.

The Portable Internet Basic I had was slow, no doubt about it. But for access at a fixed remote location, and with the usage of mobile optimized sites, it proved to be very usable.

Stay tuned for Part 3, where I will discuss actual speeds obtained from speed tests and load times of common mobile sites.

My WiMAX Experiment - Part 1: Background

2008-06-09T11:37:00.002-04:00

I have been eagerly awaiting the N810 WiMAX Edition since news of it
surfaced last year. The N810WE would offer true mobility - a pocket
computer coupled with the excellent bandwidth that WiMAX delivers.
Canada is one of the few places in the world that has an existing WiMAX
network, albeit of the 'Pre-WiMAX' variety. Rogers and Bell offer
'Portable Internet' and 'Sympatico Un-Plugged', respectively. Both are
resellers of Inukshuk's WiMAX network.

After thinking about the N810WE more and more - a thought occured to
me. Did I really need to wait? My two main usage locations for my N800
are at home, where I have WiFi, and at work, where I don't. The reason
I wanted the N810WE was to be able to use it at my second location -
work. My company has a restrictive internet policy, and no WiFi.

Could I not then sign up for Rogers Portable Internet, and use that
service at work? Sure I could. I had my doubts - what would the
reception be like? What if I don't like the service? I don't really
want to spend $100 on a modem that I may not use for that long. How
would I hide a modem and WiFi router at work?

I found a used modem on craigslist - they were asking $50, but they
accepted my offer of $40. I was in business! That night, I spent about
20 minutes on the phone with the Rogers salesperson. They offered me a
deal on the Portable Internet Basic - $19.95/month and no activation.
The price was good for 12 months, and there was no contract. At the
most, I would be out one month of service, and would have to unload a
modem I bought for $40. Pretty low capital outlay for an experiment in
WiMAX. I had a spare FON router lying downstairs doing nothing useful -
time to put it to use and see what this WiMAX thing is all about.

Within 15-20 minutes, the modem had aquired its signal and registered
itself onto Rogers' network - a one time procedure for new modem
activations. The modem showed 3 bars of service, and I logged onto the
FON AP. I was in business!

Stay tuned for the second part of My WiMAX Experiment: First Days
Teething Pains and 'Mobile Setup'.

Welcome to Mobile Tablets!

2008-06-04T22:58:00.001-04:00

Greetings fellow Internet Tablet users!

Welcome to Mobile Tablets, a blog aimed at sharing with you my experience of using an internet tablet in the daily grind. I intend to comment on my usage pattern, successes and frustrations with using my N800 at work and at home.

The idea for this blog came from the 'personal accounts' section of the internet tablet talk wiki.

Coming soon:

WiMAX, an experiment in mobile tabletting - it's not perfect, and certainly not for everyone.

Stay tuned and Enjoy!

EIPI