User:Peterschneider/develop overview
Developing on Maemo Platform
Innovation on Maemo platform can be divided into two area: developing applications on top of the platform and developing the actual platform.
Developing applications
Developing applications for Maemo is done with the Maemo SDK. The process from creating the first prototype of your application to distributing to a wide audience consists basically of three steps:
- share your application project in the Maemo garage
- make your application easy to install and put in the Application Catalog in maemo.org
- once you receive a high quality - be promoted on Nokia user site
The Maemo garage provides hosting services to get contribution to your application project from experienced developers. While your application might be still be in alpha quality, the first technology-savvy people start using your application. Once your application is maturing, achieves beta quality, and is easy to install to a device, then you can post it to the Application Catalog on maemo.org. The Application Catalog does not make it only easy to install applications for less advanced users, but also provides means for users to rate and comment your application providing your valuable feedback to fine tune your application. Nokia selects from the Application Catalog in agreement with the inventor(s) of the application which applications are promoted on Nokia's user site for devices running on the Maemo platform. Applications selected by Nokia have typically a novelty factor, are of high end-user perceived quality, and are fun to use.
Improving the Maemo platform
Great parts of the Maemo platform are open source code and it is easy to enhance or improve the software stack.