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Task:Defining maemo

Revision as of 10:47, 12 June 2008

This article is continued discussion from the maemo.org brainstorm Please see the 100 Days agenda for more.

Objectives

Feedback needed! Let's agree on the objectives first. --qgil 20:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• Define maemo, maemo.org and Internet Tablet OS / OS2008.
• Identify the blocks of the maemo software architecture and the projects behind.
• Define the roles of Nokia, the maemo community, the open source upstream projects and other organizations related to the maemo platform i.e. companies and universities.
• Produce an initial Who is Who in maemo.org based on the user profiles, to be expanded in a decentralized way.
• Produce a list of remarkable maemo projects.
• Document processes in maemo.org

Tasks

Help is welcome in all of them.

Ongoing

From the maemo.org June sprint:

• Publish a "Who's who in maemo", including Nokia engineers working with the community, contractors and volunteers. Encourage people to update their information to keep the document up to date - Dave
• Documenting companies involved in maemo development - Dave
• Documenting in maemo.org the web development process - Dave
• User profile improvements defined and started + bug Automatic data in user profiles - Oskari
• Bug maemo white paper architecture picture needs to be updated

In the backlog

Currently in the maemo.org backlog:

• Define maemo.org policies for things like editbugs, getting @maemo.org email addresses, and if it doesn't exist, getting svn access - Dave
• Documenting better Nokia contributions to open source projects, complement of http://opensource.nokia.com

Discussion

What is maemo

Many people are confused about what exactly maemo is, and the difference between Nokia's ITOS and maemo.org.

To my mind, maemo is "the open collaboration project which was started by the release of a free software stack which made up part of the OS installed on Nokia's Internet Tablet series". That's a pretty crummy definition, but engenders a number of important distinctions:

• maemo is not only the software running on your tablet
• maemo is not just the website and tablet user community
• maemo is not limited to free software
• maemo is software based in origin
• maemo is not limited to the needs of Nokia tablets - it can evolve beyond that usecase
• maemo is, above all, an open collaboration project - community developed software, free software, open access, and all of the infrastructure to support it

The major evolution of maemo should thus be a move to enable the community, to help maemo evolve away from its internet tablet roots. Things which allow maemo users to target other devices, replace "official" software or libraries, and otherwise hack on the maemo platform, are all useful. Discussions about opening drivers for hardware, or adding new applications to the tablets, are not. On the other hand, proposals to open up the documentation and APIs for proprietary components is a community enabler, and might be relevant.

Who wrote the text above? Only to know who are we discussing with.  :) Also, I have just posted some ideas about the scope of maemo as a "software platform based mostly in open source components" at bug #630 - Increased Bugzilla transparency - get the developers involved!.

That would be me. --dneary 07:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Describing the maemo community

Many people see the maemo community as a group of people having Nokia as a counterpart. A more accurate picture would:

• Have Nokia as a community player, describing the activities that are done at a community level.
• Show the relationships with related upstream projects: where the collaboration is happening beyond just using the free software provided.
• Add the many organizations involved in maemo development or research, from companies to universities.

Also, what about

• Go a bit deeper inside the "group of people" and identifying core contributors: more work on karma and user profiles would be needed.

Now the most visible are the one shouting louder and more often. It would be useful though to identify key contributors in the many community areas: application development, platform hacking, documentation, support, bug reporting, news, marketing... --qgil 05:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

--From a practical point-of-view, isn't maemo pretty much completely dependent on Nokia right now? Are there any viable non-Nokia maemo platforms out there? How much core development is not directed by the Nokia mothership? Claiming independence is counterproductive if it isn't tied to reality. - mee 04:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Categorise the Community - thoughts

The section above describes Maemo's place in the greater community. However, who is maemo serving? (this may be a start on going a bit deeper)

Tech Level 1:

• Users : Windows/Mac desktop users who bought an N800 and want new wallpaper, a neat clock etc.

Tech Level 2:

• Power Users : Install more apps, alternative launchers, alpha/beta sw, up to new distros (eg Debian). More complex networking, ssh, scripting, python, documentation...

Tech Level 3:

• App Developers : Porting/writing gui apps and daemons; may want api info. Need to get to know the various environments.
• WM Developers : Starting to hack on gtk or QT4, the X server etc etc
• Kernel Developers : Fixing kernel bugs, tweaks, backporting, hardware support.

Each of these user types needs information : even an experienced kernel hacker will want to know the current best practice to setup the dev environment (SB1 or 2?) More importantly pages should be written with an awareness of the target tech level.

Whilst thinking about the levels of user involvement I thought that we could help users self-categorise using some old Doom terms: "Easy", "Bring it on", "Hurt me". Saves newbies complaining when they start down a path labelled 'Hurt me'... lbt 10:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Building a strong brand

To built a strong brand i.e. something that people will remember and have have feelings about, we need foremost two things:

• clarity about what which name stands for and what are the values
• consistent implementation of the terminology

As pointed out already above, now we have maemo, maemo.org, Maemo Mapper, Other Maemo Weather, Internet Tablet OS, OS2008, ITOS and so on. This is not helpful. In general, as less names we have as stronger the remaining name becomes. So, why not center everything around the strongest word: maemo? Why not just talk about maemo platform, maemo software, maemo SDK, maemo community, Mapper for maemo, and maemo 4 (currently known as OS2008)?

And then, why do we want to re-educate people, newcomers, and tech writers in the use of English grammar? Why can't we use a capital "M" always for Maemo? Most of the strong Internet brands and open source brands have a capital letter: Google, Facebook, Ubuntu, Linux. Why do we need to be different?

Our updated terminology would be:

• Maemo Community with the home on maemo.org
• Maemo - the open source software that powers mobile devices
• Maemo SDK - the baseline to create applications
• Maemo platform - everything from kernel up to SDK
• Maemo 4 - the release with XYZ features
• Mapper for Maemo - a great application--peterschneider 08:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, I hate to sound rude, but where does one get off telling 3rd party developers what to name their applications? I could understand if it were Nokia applications you were discussing that you had some sway over, but asking one of the most prominent 3rd party developers to rename their application for "branding reasons" just doesn't sit well with me. :\

As for the distinction between maemo and Internet Tablet OS, I think this is a very important one. Internet Tablet OS is a fairly proprietary mobile operating system that ships with Nokia Internet Tablets, maemo is an open-source development platform for mobile Linux. They're two distinctly separate (if sometimes closely related) things. Moving forward, we should really be increasing this distinction, not blurring it further.

I do agree that consistent usage of terminology has been lacking in maemo-related stuff from Nokia (MicroB versus Mozilla-based Browser for maemo is a fun one, though I understand the reasoning behind it), but I don't think eliminating important distinctions is the way to go about improving this situation. —GeneralAntilles 10:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Team working in this task

• qgil coordinates the task and provides the information originated at Nokia.
• xfade is maemo.org webmaster
• Dave Neary is maemo.org docsmaster
• peterschneider is heading the Maemo SW marketing team @ Nokia.
• (add yourself)

Erm... I meant the team working in this task. :) --qgil 18:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)