Harmattan UI is mostly open source [LWN.net]

Harmattan UI is mostly open source

Posted Oct 6, 2011 7:49 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750)
In reply to: MeeGo becomes Tizen - maybe by alison
Parent article: MeeGo becomes Tizen - maybe

Actually that's often mistankenly thought, and I did that too. The Qt Components are open source, and the MeeGo Touch Framework (https://meego.gitorious.org/meegotouch) that is used in Harmattan on N9 is open source. The modified mcompositor and swipe gesture are proprietary, as are the graphics.

Meego touch framework is only in maintenance mode now and kind of deprecated (although that was from MeeGo side that now no longer exists), but elsewhere the Wayland compositors that can be based on Qt Compositor framework can manage similar level of performance as the custom mcompositor, and Qt Components (https://qt.gitorious.org/qt-components) is continued to be developed.

It's more about missing media coverage that makes it easy to assume N9's UI has hidden proprietary magic. One can also study their X.org and Qt sources among else to see if there are some optimizations.

They just finally had mature technology (Linux + Qt) and resources and learnings to pull off a smartphone like Nokia N9. Hopefully some other vendors see the potential here, and not to forget the rumored Nokia's Qt for next billion either.

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Harmattan UI is mostly open source

Posted Oct 6, 2011 8:03 UTC (Thu) by alison (✭ supporter ✭, #63752) [Link]

>not to forget the rumored Nokia's Qt for next billion either.

I have yet to hear even the slightest hint that Meltemi, the project to which you refer, will be open-sourced.

> Wayland compositors that can be based on Qt Compositor framework can manage similar level of performance as the custom mcompositor, and Qt Components (https://qt.gitorious.org/qt-components) is continued to be developed.

True, qt-lighthouse and qml-scenegraph look great, but having great components is different from having a great UI like Harmattan. Harmattan isn't really even running on MeeGo, but on Maemo 6. That's why it uses the deprecated Touch Framework.

The situation is such a mess and the public code remains incomplete, so I think that no one will touch it.

Harmattan UI is mostly open source

Posted Oct 6, 2011 11:28 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

"will be open-sourced."

Yes that was a separate mention from the Harmattan UI's open sourceness. I'm semi-happy to see also proprietary UX:s made on top of great FLOSS stack like Linux + freedesktop.org + Qt, because they prove a few things on their own part. That said, I don't care about Nokia's possible future plans in that sense that much since I'd also guess that if there's something coming, it'll be less open than Harmattan. But still, it'd be great to see fancy Qt based phones.

"Harmattan isn't really even running on MeeGo, but on Maemo 6."

That's mostly irrelevant, since the free components can anyway incorporated in any (completely) free distribution. And that's why I was speaking about Harmattan, not MeeGo.

"The situation is such a mess and the public code remains incomplete, so I think that no one will touch it"

The lesson with MeeGo should be not to wait for some company magically doing everything right, sticking with one strategy and offering everything on a silver plate. They never do it, business plans and political plans change all the time.

Many pieces of the Harmattan UI are already in use in the MeeGo (Mer) CE UI, which is the nearest to product quality free mobile UI out there at the moment. And it's MeeGo, not Maemo 6, if it matters something. Still more a great base than a complete suite, it's up to us all if we're interested in continuing that great work. So, the code has already been touched.

I have not completely understood the complaints about something being not completely free. If there is something free offered, and it's the best free thing that there is currently, why not work on that instead of just complaining that companies don't do what you want? I do understand advocation, but enough is enough.