Talk:Open development/Why the closed packages

Contents

[edit] I have a couple of questions and comments

Questions from an anonymous user. Breaking them out into sections so they're readable. —GeneralAntilles 09:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] File Manager

Why File Manager is closed? While being not so bad in general it has some annoyances and usability problems.

  • Bluetooth progress dialog is horrible. Bluetooth file transfer turns multi-tasking system into useless brick while file transfer in progress since UI is locks up. That's really differentiates all Nokias. However I'm pretty sure most users are HATE this differentiation and inability to do file transfer in background. This is EASY to fix but without sources it could be just partially worked around by disabling supermodal dialogs. This however not allows to resort to other methods of progress displaying. For example, why not to draw tray icon with progress? Or notifier popup. Something except this evil dialog which by default completely locks ui up and still remains on top even if supermodal dialogs were disabled.
  • I'm really prefer to receive file over Bluetooth without questions and without opening it into some predefined folder like "Inbox" - this will reduce annoyance for me when I'm using Bluetooth. There is no such option and it can't be changed easily. I believe I should have choice. By default system could behave as it does now, but I want to have option to override this behavior. With closed sources this is at least more hard than it should be. This is "differentiating" Nokia devices too. Hey, Nokia, you;re calling these devices computers? Come on, computers are well known to have a good overriding and customization options. Not a case with Nokia though.
  • Some file operations with File Manager are annoying and very hard to execute. I see no simple way to do something with it. The only way is to reinvent the wheel and re-work file manager from scratch.
(sorry for breaking nthe list but this is the only why that occurs to me to answer) I will ask why the File Manager is closed. I couldn't find any request at bugs.maemo.org for opening it. If you could do that and provide the reasons why (as you are doing here) that would be useful. About the rest of FM complaints, are there bugs or enhancement requests filed? Your feedback is appreciated, but definitely useful when it lands in the right place.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Media

Media players... it is what ALWAYS "differentiates" Nokia, especially from computers and PMPs. These are supporting very few file formats, have dumb unusable UI and usually also VERY SLOW. Not to mention than Nokia ignores our requests to add Ogg Vorbis codec so many times. And even their own Map program uses OGG files - that's really moron that there is no official OGG support since bundled software supports OGG anyway. So if you see very crappy and useless player - you can be pretty sure, that's Nokia. Differentiating? Really, but I prefer something else as differentiation. Good and open player could be really good attempt to change this situation after all.

Media Player is already explained in the main page. Please provide votes and additional comments in the related enhancement request. Ogg support has nothing to do with the Media Player itself. Read the comment on osso-dsp-modules and the last comments made in https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176 to understand why tghere is nothing stopping the community to provide Ogg support optimized and integrated in the maemo platform.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Connectivity

Connections... looks good but as a result, developers have a hard times when there is need to implement other connections support like Bluetooth PAN, VPN, ... - result usually half-baked and poor. I believe this could be improved if connections framework is open so people can extend it to suite specific needs like PAN, VPNs or so easily and without dirty half-working hacks and numerous workarounds. Right now connection applets impose too many limitations. If this is differentiation, I dislike it.

Devices equipped with Maemo connect quite well and seamlessly in many case and for many users, and this is considered differentiation. See the comments made to the Connection Applet in the maein page. If there is a specific component you would like to see open from the Connectibvity framework please file an enhancement request.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
The ICD2 headers were released to -developers just last week anyway. —GeneralAntilles 08:27, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DSP

DSP... hmm... well, Nokia is unwilling to include Ogg Vorbis so far. Now they also going to deny developers from chances to develop power-efficient codecs running on DSP side? Pulse Audio probably can't decode OGG Vorbis (or other not supported format) out of the box on DSP side using DSP which is better suited for such tasks. The real problem is that there is no open and well-established development tools to cope with DSP.

Again, please look at the DSP comments in the main page and look also at the new Multimedia architecture in Fremantle, where you can see how codecs are running entirely in the ARM side. In practice, ARM optimization (lack of) is a bigger issue than any closed DSP related problems. Nothing stops the community (or ARM and the rest of its partners) to work on such optimization.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Power management

Power management... don't you think that if these parts are open people will have chances to improve it and all this in best interests of both Nokia and everyone who uses Nokia devices. Differentiation? Huh? I'm hardly happy with active operating times of my N810. So you guys are probably joking about differentiation. Battery is low after just few hours of www browsing! I'm really want newer tablets to have more powerful battery AND better power management.

Are you reading the comment about mce in the main page? Still, battery life in the tablets is remarkable nowadays compared to similar products.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flasher

Flasher. There is already open one - 0xFFFF. I'm really preferring this one to be written based on specs from Nokia rather than based on reverse engineered information. Due to reverse engineered nature of protocol it could be supported not very well.

Again, commented in the main page. Open an enhancement request and lobby for community support if you want to speeed up things.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bootloader

I also hope that day will come when there will be U-Boot rather than stupid proprietary NOLO blob which has too many limitations and shortcomings. You cannot backup your data before flashing so if device no longer boots - you're doomed and will never be able to access your data from device's flash. You can not simply select boot source (flash, card, network, ...). Also it is not so bad idea to release x-loader sources. Ti offers default ones anyway and rest could be quite easily reverse-engineered from X-Loader code.

File enhancement requests explaining your reasons, please.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WLAN

wlan-cal is needed for "open source" wi-fi driver. If some parts are closed, wtf it's called "open", then? Same with retu-time - people could for example fine-tune their clocks with simple programs using NTP to compute clocks adjustments. And there is already utility to calibrate system clocks. However this does not works when device is switched off since in this mode time measured by Retu and nothing can be done to adjust it's RTC speed (undocumented and proprietary).

File enhancement requests explaining your reasons, please.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
There's nothing to be done for this one. Kalle has already put in the effort to fix it, but it just isn't going to happen. See the stlc45xx-devel list on Garage for details. —GeneralAntilles 09:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Certificates

Certman... I hope Nokia will open it one day. Now, browser and certman are interoperating more than poorly. If Nokia is not going to improve this itself, at least why deny others from doing so as well?! Right now you cannot easily authenticate anywhere (for example browser) with SSL and certificate using certman.

File enhancement requests explaining your reasons, please.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Boot customization

I hope Nokia will figure out that many users like to change boot logo, etc and it's behavior. On computers this is whole class of arts. On Nokias ... uhm... it is prohibitively hard to change logos and virtually impossible to change their behavior without re-writing related things from scratch.

File enhancement requests explaining your reasons, please.--qgil 06:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Please use proper list formating and remember to login and sign your comments. —GeneralAntilles 14:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Quite useless list, ignoring already existing explanations, non-structured, mixing up lots of things. Bug reports don't belong here at all (and some of them have even been fixed for Fremantle already). If you really have issues, properly file them. --Andre 14:18, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://wiki.maemo.org/Talk:Open_development/Why_the_closed_packages"