MeeGo: open development and upstream involvement

The Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit (LFCS) is focused on, well, collaboration, so it is no surprise that a recent high-profile collaborative effort in the Linux world, MeeGo, had a strong presence at the conference. Both sides of the merger of Moblin and Maemo, Intel and Nokia, had representatives giving keynote speeches about MeeGo and how it intends to interact with the community. Since the project is hosted by the foundation, it makes sense that it would devote a good portion of LFCS—a day-long MeeGo track in addition to the keynotes—to the mobile distribution. The focus of both speakers was on developing MeeGo in the open and working closely with upstream projects, rather than targeting MeeGo itself.

Ari Jaaksi, Nokia's VP for Maemo devices and MeeGo operations, spoke first, which he saw as an advantage because Intel's Imad Sousou would be sure to correct anything he said "wrong". The goal of the MeeGo project is to "provide industry with an open platform" for various kinds of devices. Both companies have been working on mobile distributions, which means that they "integrate the same components multiple times", and that is "stupid", Jaaksi said. That is one of the main ideas behind the merger.

Nokia has been working with Linux and free software for a number of years, since 2002 or 2003, and that it has been a "learning exercise". It "made a lot of mistakes" but tried to work within the community by participating with many different projects. Its early realization that it needed to be part of the community, and not "just use the code", was important.

But the integration process, where the various components that made up Maemo were built and collected into a release, was not open to community involvement. That is something that will change for MeeGo: "We are going to build the MeeGo platform in the open". It is a "huge change" that is going on "right now, as I speak". The idea of doing that "may seem trivial" to LFCS attendees, he said, "but it is a big deal with us".

Sousou, who is the director of Intel's Open Source Technology Center, echoed that idea. Working in the open will make collaboration easier, but "you will see the messes, and we are OK with that". One of the keys to making that work will be to focus on the upstream projects, he said. It took Intel "some time to figure it out", but downstream projects must "contribute and use the open source model".

There are "hundreds" of Intel engineers working on MeeGo, Sousou said, but most of the work is not actually in MeeGo itself. "It's happening upstream", at kernel.org, freedesktop.org, and others. He doesn't want to see kernel patches, for example, submitted to MeeGo, "submit it upstream". It's all about "working with upstream and contributing upstream — there is nothing more".

Both speakers talked about governing MeeGo in the open, with steering committee meetings on IRC. Jaaksi notes that there is still some adjustment that Nokia needs to make. He gets email from other employees about seeing MeeGo roadmap plans on the Internet; they are worried about competitors getting that kind of formerly secret information. He tells them: "Yes, that's how we do things".

Jaaksi notes that Palm had gotten products out earlier than Nokia, "with our code", and that was "not their fault, [but] our fault" by being too slow to market. Google has also used Maemo code, and "we hope to use theirs". A concern is that MeeGo will give competitors an advantage, but he believes that it is the companies which participate in the project that will see the most benefit. That concern may not be relevant for most of the people in attendance, he said, but within Nokia, there is a question on how to differentiate itself.

Sousou listed oFono and ConnMan as two projects where the two companies had already worked together. For MeeGo, they complement each other well, Jaaksi said. Nokia brings experience working with mobile handsets, ARM, and the phone companies, while Intel has "so much knowledge about the Linux kernel". Both have good teams that "know how to work in open source and combine open source with business". Choosing the "best of breed" components from Moblin and Maemo—or elsewhere—for MeeGo is something that both speakers stressed—there is a general sense that the project is trying to avoid "turf wars".

But it's not just Intel and Nokia, as the MeeGo project is looking for more contributors, which is another thing that both speakers emphasized. Because of their close working relationship, it was relatively straightforward to merge Maemo and Moblin into one project. They didn't bring in other companies at the start, because, in Jaaksi's opinion, "it would have taken too much time" to get agreement with more companies. He said that MeeGo wants to "demonstrate that it is an open source project" that others can participate in. He listed multiple companies that have become involved since the MeeGo announcement, including hardware vendors, Linux distributors, embedded Linux vendors, and so on.

The two main participants have decided on a blueprint of the architecture, which includes Qt as a platform for application developers, but the design of the system is an "ongoing process that we invite people to participate in", Jaaksi said. "Now is the time to join MeeGo", he said, and there is much to be done, but there is little risk for others because they have made a commitment to do things in the open. Both stressed that there is a simple, open governance model.

But, as an audience member pointed out, there is a veto power that Intel and Nokia have over the project. The audience member wondered if a community can still be built around that veto. Jaaksi responded that things "will be fixed if we need to fix them" and that changes will be made for anything that becomes an obstacle. Currently, MeeGo is focused on getting more people involved and having "simple governance". Earlier in his talk, he said that the governance needed to stay out of the way to maintain the speed of development.

There are 200-300 participants in the IRC meetings, Sousou said, and anyone can get involved. "If you contribute, you can help make decisions", Jaaksi said, but MeeGo will "make some mistakes going forward".

The veto power for Nokia and Intel was one of the things that LFCS participants grumbled about in the "hallway track". There is concern that community input will be ignored. One area that is particularly sensitive is the choice of RPM as the mandatory package format for MeeGo-branded devices. Debian/Ubuntu-oriented developers felt slighted by that requirement, and there seems to be no room to change that decision, which gave rise to concerns about governance. Assuming it wants only one package format, there is no "good" choice for the project as either plausible choice would irritate some.

Beyond that, attendees seemed interested, some even excited, by the prospects of MeeGo. Some consolidation in the mobile Linux arena is to be welcomed. In the end, though, it will be the MeeGo devices that will largely decide its fate. While Moblin and Maemo are available, neither has gained the widespread device availability that Android is starting to enjoy. Most participants seemed to be taking a "wait and see" approach, with the sense that many will be watching developments fairly closely.