MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
The Finnish startup Jolla Ltd says that it has raised €200 million from a number of, currently unnamed, telecommunications companies and that it will be unveiling a MeeGo-based device next month. The funding consortium is reported to include at least one telecom operator, a chipset maker, and device and component manufacturers." Though MeeGo itself is free software, Jolla evidently plans to keep its "
well-patented" user interface layer closed and license it to other companies.
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MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 4, 2012 19:55 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 7:25 UTC (Fri) by hadrons123 (guest, #72126) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 10:19 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
I don't think they have a chance. Nokia most definitely had a chance but it blew it with it's Microsoft's surrender, but Jolla? I doubt it. It's all about timing.
This year about 40% of all phones sold are smartphones. Next year we'll pass 50% point. Which means that while in the last few years most smartphone users had dumbphone background and it was easy to attract them couple years down the road most users will already have a collection of apps and sizable chunk of data tied to one platform when they will come to shop to pick a new smartphone.
Thus maybe, just maybe Jolla have two years left out of the window of opportunity - but they plan to make sure this window will not be used to it's full extent because its "well-patented" user interface will be closed and thus unavailable for many tiny players. And they have no billions for Microsoft-style marketing gimmicks.
This is similar to introduction of Mac and NeXT Computer: they were produced and developed under the very same Steve Jobs which later gave us iPod, iPhone and iPad. Yet Mac only achieved modest success while NeXT is just historical curiosity. Because both were introduced later in the game when PC market passed it's "most buyers are new buyers" stage. Similarly: Nokia had some chance of success last year, Microsoft have much smaller chance this year (WP8 is truly the last bet it can place in this game) but Jolla? They have run out of time.
Sad, really. MeeGo looked promising on N9...
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 14:44 UTC (Fri) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
- legacy systems. Which includes SymbianOS, Bada, Xperia and a whole lot of others which some are now are also being sold with touscreen. Especially in certain countries like India these are the most sold.
- iOS
- Android
- Blackberry
- Tizen, has backing by Samsung and Intel
- MeeGo has backing by Jolla and telcos
- FirefoxOS, has backing by Mozilla and telcos from I believe especially South America
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 14:46 UTC (Fri) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 17:29 UTC (Fri) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link]
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 6, 2012 0:26 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Today's state of the affairs is nearly identical to what PCs had twenty years ago.
Remember these days? Amiga, BeOS, GEM (on Atari and on PC), Mac OS, OS/2 and RISC OS (from Acron) - and these are only "big boys"! There were smaller contenders (like DESQview/X or OPEN LOOK), too!
All so cool, all so hip, all so promising, all so… dead. After Windows 3.1 release it was only matter of time. They all have died, only MacOS managed to survive (barely) because it was so entrenched and Microsoft at some point become complacent and have not killed it when it had the chance.
Today situation is similar. All the systems mentioned are already dead except for Android and iOS. The only hope for Microsoft and others at this point are lawsuits. Nokia had the ability to play this game while Jolla does not have legal resources to survive.
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 6, 2012 8:46 UTC (Sat) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
It's true, the computing world always wants to move to one system (or only a few at least). Look at standards or even wordprocessing document formats.
I agree with one of the parent posts, maybe there is still 2 years tops.
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 6, 2012 22:38 UTC (Sat) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]
Similarly, Jolla can survive if it manages to carve out some niche markets with their phones (and/or other devices) & OS.
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 6, 2012 22:58 UTC (Sat) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
That's an interresting statement on what is that based ?
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 7, 2012 7:00 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
You forget that UNIX/linux + X11 based solutions also survived as a desktop OS, have a growing marketshare nowadays, and actually own certain important niche markets...
Nope. Linux (and to some degree UNIX) survived as server OS, not as a desktop one. Sure it constantly tries to attack desktop but it fails consistently. The important fact is not that it fails (this is to be expected), the important part is that remaining tiny desktop niche does not support it. If you have years and billions of dollars to pour to such adventure then you can eventually succeed (you just need to last long enough till winner will do a major mistake), but the fact is: you can not receive enough money for such adventure from some market niche, they must come from some totally different (hopefully adjacent) market. XBox is a great example: yes, it's quite successful and now even [slightly] profitable, but how many years and how many billions thrown to this hole it took?
Similarly, Jolla can survive if it manages to carve out some niche markets with their phones (and/or other devices) & OS.
Again: Nokia had a chance, Jolla does not. Nokia had other departments which generated revenue, Jolla is trying to sell it's creation to the tiny niche which is just not big enough to support full-blown operation.
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 7, 2012 10:20 UTC (Sun) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link]
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 7, 2012 11:44 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Situation in China is slightly different. Everywhere else people accepts the fact that Android is directed from Mountain View, but China likes Android yet hates Google. They had a plan: make sure Google keeps Android open till China can ditch Google. Google said quite clearly: if you want to go your own separate way then you can do that - but you need to decide to do so from the start: with your own developers and your own OEMs.
So yes, this opens the niche which Jolla can exploit (also note that Apple was unable to sign a contract with two biggest China telecoms so far). If they will succeed in China then maybe, just maybe, years later they will be able to attack the rest of the world.
The only problem: even if "they may succeed in China" is valid point I doubt we'll see anything in the rest of the world (at least not for a long, long, looong time). Do you know that Nokia produces Lumia 800 clone for Chinese market with Symbian (it's named Nokia 801T)? Well, it's over there, you can buy it in China, but how relevant is it for the rest of the world?
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 18, 2012 19:29 UTC (Thu) by wtanksleyjr (subscriber, #74601) [Link]
Remember that Microsoft didn't "not kill" Apple -- they funded Apple when it seemed like Apple was dying. Perhaps that's complacency, or perhaps it's something along the lines of picking whether you want to fight a small incompatible competitor or the antitrust folks. (Who could have guessed at the time that Apple would produce the iPhone craze.)
-Wm
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 19, 2012 11:42 UTC (Fri) by davidjensen (guest, #87328) [Link]
Apple started the finger paradigm with the iPhone. It was intended for computer challenged people. That was followed by a similar tablet and the Android OS also using the same focus. Samsung recently came out with a pitiful attempt at windowing on Android. Retrofitting iOS and Android with the keyboard-and-mouse paradigm will be a major overhaul. However, there are three native OS's (not browser OS's) that start with keyboard-and-mouse: Jolla/Meego, a derivative of Maemo, Windows 8, and the forthcoming Ubuntu multiplatform in 2014. These will have the finger paradigm added on and will have more utility because of keyboard-and_mouse.
Meego (which apparently had problems solved by Mer which Jolla is based on) was very open sourced. It used Python, one of the easiest languages and widely used in projects that many end users can modify. It also has massive libraries because of its ease of use. Whether Microsoft or Ubuntu has a similar open source environment is uncertain (they both have strong support for Python).
Software patents have confined innovation but may be coming under attack. Donald Knuth was against them. Open source apparently bypasses IP restrictions. Open source may fit into China's philosophy since it and other Eastern countries have a history of ignoring IP. The question is how to make money on open source.
The open source, keyboard-and-mouse finger systems may end up being the most heavily used in serious applications, which could also demand higher prices.
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 20, 2012 2:44 UTC (Sat) by Fowl (subscriber, #65667) [Link]
Try using on of the "Transformer" tablets some time. (I thought it was a gimmick at first too).
There are only two sensible choice
Posted Oct 28, 2012 17:08 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
The game seems to focus on getting the most money, not the most functionality.
Not most money. Most users. There's a difference: Microsoft was much smaller then Apple in in 1992, but by 1995 situation was very different because PC ecosystem was much bigger. We'll see if Apple will be able to prolong it's "much larger profits on much smaller userbase" longer this time.
The open source, keyboard-and-mouse finger systems may end up being the most heavily used in serious applications, which could also demand higher prices.
Why? What advantage will they have? You've said it yourself: one side (Android/iOS) must add keyboard and mouse support (and this process is well underway as you know). Other side must add decent finger support. Why do you think adding decent finger support is easier? Please take a look on Microsoft Surface reviews! They all say one and the same "nice idea, but it's still undercooked!".
My gut feeling is that keyboard and mouse in Android and finger-support in Jolla/Meego and Windows8 (or, more likely, Windows9) will mature at about the same time (I'm not sure Ubuntu will be ready by then). And in about 2014-2015 we'll have few contenders for the throne of about the same quality: Android, iOS, Windows8spX (or, more likely, Windows9), may be Jolla/Meego and/or Ubuntu. With couple of billions active users for Android, close to billion active users for iOS, may be half-billion for Windows8spX, tens of millions for Jolla/Meego (if they are lucky) and nothing for Ubuntu.
The only hope for contestants beyond the first two is litigation: they desperately need to stop growth of Android or iOS to have fighting chance at all.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 21:39 UTC (Fri) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 6, 2012 0:30 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Treatment of open source ideas is irrelevant at this late stage of the game. You need patents to even be a contender as I've already explained: in a world without patents it'll be safe bet to say that Android is winner and noone else has a chance, in our world Blackberry, Tizen, and WP8 have small chance if they'll play legal card right. Nokia had cards to play the game with, Jolla does not have them. End of story. Unless some telco will lend a hand (and I seriously doubt it'll happen) the game is already lost.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 7, 2012 0:55 UTC (Sun) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 7, 2012 7:12 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Normal Linux is better than Android and therefore will have more chances.
What is "Normal Linux"? GNU/X/Linux? It had more chances five years ago. It squandered them all. Now it's only hope are patents and litigation and somehow I don't believe it'll help.
Patents or not patents - system wise Android is too crippled.
Why? What exactly is missing? Yes, years ago Android creators viewed Linux as "just a bag of drivers on the side" and have not considered it important enough: the goal was to create a platform where everything is in a bytecode and ARM hardware is not accessible to application programmers. Over time they realized their mistake and released NDK. If something else from "Normal Linux" will be good enough to have on this new platform - they can release it, too.
It can't compete with fully capable mobile Linux.
That's what UNIX workstation vendors said about Windows NT desktop twenty years ago. Today they all are dead and Linux is dead as a viable desktop platform, too. It survived on server and tries to return on desktop regularly, but once you've lost the market it's very hard to regain it back.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 7, 2012 21:36 UTC (Sun) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Android crippled in many things in its own architecture. The release of a second class citizen NDK didn't mitigate Android shortcomings.
Mobile Linux (such as Mer and derivatives) had and has chances. And it will succeed, Android regardless.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 7, 2012 23:17 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Normal Linux is one that shares stack and effort with its desktop counterpart.
Ah. Then the problem can be very easily solved: just build desktop around the Android. And I'm only half-joking.
Android crippled in many things in its own architecture. The release of a second class citizen NDK didn't mitigate Android shortcomings.
Android is limited, I'll grant you that. But it does not mean that it'll continue to be limited forever. It's [relatively] easy to add missing functionality. It's not easy to convince users to switch.
Mobile Linux (such as Mer and derivatives) had and has chances.
If you want to believe in fairy tales then it's your choice. At least others pointed to the reason for why then think there are some small hope left, your position is just pure wishful thinking.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 3:39 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 6:52 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
You don't have a "good mature system" to use. There are no hardware to run it on.
This Mobile Linux (such as Mer and derivatives) had and has chances story looks as hopeless as the esperanto story.
Esperantists also can not understand why people are willing to spend years of their life and [collectively] hundred of billions of dollars to learn "crippled" English language when Esperanto is so much easier to learn and use. But the answer is obvious: with English you can gen sensible ROI (if you known English then this directly translates to higher salary in many countries), but with Esperanto... why would you bother?
Similarly with "crippled" Android and your "good mature system": with Android you can reach billions of users out there (sales of Android phones will surpass billion in 2013), but with that "good mature system" you maybe, just maybe, will create something which you can share with ten of thousands GTA04 users. Why bother? Sure, some people will code anyway (hey, if people are still keeping Haiku, ReactOS, and even Hurd alive then you can bet there will be someone who'll keep this "good mature system" on lifesupport), but can you call this "success"?
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 16:43 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 14:51 UTC (Thu) by union (guest, #36393) [Link]
Unfortunately in marketplace technical standpoint is mostly irrelevant.
I mean IOS is nothing to write home about from technical standpoint either.
Doesn't metter how much better MeeGo is than Android or IOS if nobody will use it.
Unless there is some entity that is prepared to spend billions (or at lest hundreds of millions ) on marketing MeeGo, and bootstrap its app market this will not change.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 8, 2012 1:48 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 3:31 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 13:29 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 14, 2012 19:19 UTC (Sun) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 3:38 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 6:36 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
It started as a proprietary project, and its architecture design didn't consider needs of the global Linux community when it was created.
Sure, but it did consider the needs of manufacturers and users.
Linux community for example shifts from X to Wayland, and that's where drivers are shifting as well. Android just goes its own incompatible road, showing everyone one big fat "No way" sign (i.e. try getting X/Wayland drivers from any manufacturer who is too busy with Android - and good luck with that).
I can understand the problem with X, but Wayland is new. Why was it not developer to reuse Android drivers? Is it impossible or just to hard? Can they propose some specific changes to make Android drivers usable for them? I don't think they've ever looked - and that is the problem.
It's the same ages old story: "Linux community" tries to impose requirements on others without offering them anything interesting. Why would they accept such bargain? Manufacturers know how to count money very well indeed. When drivers allow them to sell hardware for billions of dollars (on server) they spent a lot of efforts, when they can sell hundreds of millions chips they spend a lot of time and money to support Android. But why will they need or want to suport X/Wayland? Where is the money in that?
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 9:37 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
The bad news: Wayland also needs KMS and some extensions added to Mesa. I believe that the amount of work needed for adding this is peanuts compared with supporting GLES, for example, but it will take time to get the required code into the kernel and out to the user's machines.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 8, 2012 23:38 UTC (Mon) by swetland (guest, #63414) [Link]
And from the very beginning, the virtual machine was never seen as a security feature -- that's why apps have always run in their own processes, under their own user IDs.
And yeah, there's really no reason why just about any existing Linux userspace software can't be supported under the NDK -- which gives you a software or hardware display surface, input events, audio pipes, etc. I'm surprised there hasn't been more work to bring existing Linux software to stock Android devices -- there's a lot more users available there than on completely custom OS builds (though there are plenty of people who enjoy those too).
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 3:46 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
There are projects like libhybris, but it's like applying a patch to a constantly leaking ship. It might work, but something was flawed from the beginning. Wouldn't be better to use a good ship without leaks right away?
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 7:01 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
There are projects like libhybris, but it's like applying a patch to a constantly leaking ship. It might work, but something was flawed from the beginning. Wouldn't be better to use a good ship without leaks right away?
No. It's a race. The first seaworthy ship to leave the port wins. It does not matter if it needs dozen of pumps to keep it from sinking: it you can keep it from sinking at all then you are winner. The fact that years later you have built "a good ship without leaks" does not matter: the first mover advantage is too great.
Later (years, maybe decades later) you may have your chance (when the winning party will do a mistake), but till then... you'll need to keep your "good ship without leaks" in a working order without help from the most of developers or users. Very hard task indeed.
This explains in a nutshell why Android developers did what they did and this also explains why we are using Windows on PC and this is why we will use Android on mobile phones and tablets for the foreseeable future.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 8:22 UTC (Wed) by spaetz (guest, #32870) [Link]
Beg to disagree. This is NOT about first-mover advantage at all. It is not about the "first shop to leave the port". In this case, Maemo and not Android would be most popular now. Amazon would not exist (it was the 6th online book seller, not the first)...
This is about "network effects" NOT "first mover advantages".
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 16:33 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
This is about "network effects" NOT "first mover advantages".
These are related things. Yes, OS market is market with strong network effects which makes first mover advantage all the more acute.
It is not about the "first shop to leave the port". In this case, Maemo and not Android would be most popular now.
Nope. Maemo shot itself in the foot repeatedly. Maemo was half-ready earlier but instead of moving to the sea they continued to tinker with it to make sure ship will not be just good, it'll be great. When you read maemo 4.0.x is not API compatible with earlier releases you know that people who created that thing still don't understand how platforms win or lose the game. Results are, sadly, predictable.
Amazon would not exist (it was the 6th online book seller, not the first)...
Please please the Wikipedia article, at least, will you? It specifically says about significant occupant of a market segment. It does not matter as much if you are first or second if there are dozens of competitors. But when one of them catches 10-20-30% of the market - it starts to affect the behavior of buyers. Especially in markets with network effects but even in markets where these are not observed.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 16:42 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 17:19 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
What innovations happen in "good" Linux that can't happen in Android-land, exactly?
You know, with an attitude like yours Linux would be doomed to be the next Plan-9 (you know, it's still around: http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/index.html ). I.e. theoretically good but in practice an utter piece of excrement.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 17:23 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 17:36 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
And you keep talking about "shortcomings" of Android without bothering to tell us about them. What are these "shortcomings", exactly?
Android can with little modifications run almost all of the "classic" Linux software that doesn't depend on X. With a little bit more tweaking it can even run a rootless X-server like OS X does.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 18:20 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Not true. N9 is accessible. Jolla will release more devices soon (that's already for sure). Samsung might release something with Tizen (that's not so sure). Vivaldi PlasmaActive tablet is coming as well (that's not sure either, but hopefully).
The system is not theoretical. The lack of hardware is apparent, that's true. It it's not a system shortcoming, its the manufacturers issue. Jolla decided to solve it by manufacturing their own devices.
> Why should we-as-community work on crufty outdated Linux application stack instead of improving Android-based stack?
Regular Linux stack is not outdated - it's more up to date technologically than Android stack. I already answered the main reason why we-as-community should prefer it over Android - because it's sharing the effort with the desktop Linux and it's collaborative (important issue for the community). Android is selfish and not sharing anything (big minus for the community). If you don't care about these - why do you worry about community at all? It's commonly corporate (closed Apple/MS like) interests don't care about the community. But you seem to be interested in the open side of the issue.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 19:04 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>The system is not theoretical. The lack of hardware is apparent, that's true. It it's not a system shortcoming, its the manufacturers issue. Jolla decided to solve it by manufacturing their own devices.
Yeh. Do you want to buy my flying saucer? It has problems with missing hardware but other than that it's great.
>Regular Linux stack is not outdated - it's more up to date technologically than Android stack.
And how is it more up-to-date? You're stubbornly refusing to give actual examples of inadequacy of Android's stack. I can only conclude that you're simply trolling.
>Android is selfish and not sharing anything (big minus for the community). If you don't care about these - why do you worry about community at all?
Hm. /me goes to http://source.android.com/ - looks like they're sharing their source code. And they're actually working with kernel developers to get Android stuff upstream.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 19:41 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 19:51 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
What EXACTLY is wrong with Android? List the technical examples of its inadequacy, please. The world wonders.
Yes, it's developed behind closed doors and that's a conscious decision. No, they work extensively with Linux developers and tried to do that from start. Android userspace is different from the regular glibc userspace, but so is uClibc. So what?
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 20:03 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 20:15 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
What is exactly different in the 'desktop' Linux that makes it so superior to Android in regard to driver infrastructure?
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 20:27 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
The fact that so many manufacturers have closed source drivers that are specific to their particular android release.
This makes it very difficult to compile a replacement kernel (let alone an upgraded kernel) to run on that hardware. This prevents compiling a new kernel that enables something that wasn't enabled on the 'stock' kernel, as well as being a large blocker to running anything other than the vendor provided image (including running newer versions of android).
Putting some of the drivers in userspace, but with a kernel interface that breaks from release to release, is just adding insult to injury.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:24 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
These drivers are mostly for two things: video and wifi. Both are well problems in DESKTOP Linux. Most of other drivers are open source.
Besides, I dare say, the closed source drivers in Android are easy to work around. CyanogenMod has no problem building custom kernels, I also did this myself for my Samsung Galaxy S.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:37 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
CyanogenMod picks what devices they support in part based on how hard it is to deal with the drivers (with the bigger part being how popular the device is)
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 20:28 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Let's make it simpler. How do think is possible to take any regular (read not Android) mobile targeted Linux distro (such as Nemo Mobile), and install it on any common Android targeted mobile device, and get a usable system in result? From what I gathered - it won't be functional simply because of Android targeted drivers being mostly useless in such scenario. If you think it's not so, may be you can clarify what you mean?
Assuming its like I explained it, the result makes Android bad, because of the whole hardware manufacturers distraction effect.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:09 UTC (Wed) by swetland (guest, #63414) [Link]
Admittedly my knowledge is only based on seven years of working on Linux driver support for Android and working closely with a number of SoC vendors and on a number of lead (Nexus) devices, not reading about it online.
The quality of drivers and amount of non-open goop varies from SoC to SoC, from OEM to OEM, and from project to project, so it's difficult to make a blanket statement that in any way reflects reality.
What I will say is that for Google/Android lead devices, we've never shipped binary/proprietary kernel code -- only GPLv2 drivers, and we've never shipped binary userspace goop (opengl libraries, camera glue code, etc) where we could have shipped GPLv2 kernel drivers instead. In many cases we've written the necessary kernel drivers or worked closely with SoC and OEM partners to ensure that they get written.
We strongly prefer that drivers be open source and in the kernel. We do our best to achieve that goal, but it is not always possible.
I'm not sure that refusing to ship anything on an SoC until it has 100% Linux kernel support is a strategy that leads to overall success. I actually believe that overall success is much more about the user experience and app ecosystem than the specifics of the kernel and drivers.
Even so, there are a lot of folks working on Android who work hard to ensure we have as much open source kernel driver support as possible and strive to increase that coverage over time. Including pushing code to the mainline Linux, encouraging vendors to go for GPLv2 drivers, etc, etc.
Plenty of engineers at SoC vendors, OEMs, Linaro, etc, also work toward that goal.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:17 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:04 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
In theory, I haven't tried it (since we're talking about imaginary systems, anyway).
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:12 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:45 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
some of this is the device manufacturers opting to not be open, a lot of it is the underlying chipset vendors opting to not be open (video chipset folks are especially bad here)
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:18 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
You'll probably be missing video acceleration (because of closed-source video drivers) and have very shitty battery life (no suspend blockers in 'superior' desktop Linux). External firmware for WiFi drivers might also be required.
So no real difference from the desktop Linux here.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:26 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
> video drivers) and have very shitty battery life (no suspend blockers in
>'superior' desktop Linux). External firmware for WiFi drivers might also be
> required.
This translates to unusable system. Q.E.D.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:36 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Do you remember the time when 'desktop' Linux was present on a multitude of cheap and small computers? You know, so called "netbooks"? Do you remember that most of them shipped with the crappy Poulsbo graphics? Android is no different from desktop Linux, it has exactly the same problems.
So your argument is basically: "My imaginary desktop-Linux-on-mobile is superior to Android because it would have all open-source drivers developed by community. Also, unicorns and world peace."
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:51 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Linux on the desktop is very easy to install on the wide variety of hardware to get a fully functional computer. It's nowhere that hard to how it's on the mobile devices (where options are almost non existent). If you don't see the difference - there is nothing really more to explain (it would be pointless).
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:00 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
People are working on it, but it's got a long way to go.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:10 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:27 UTC (Wed) by swetland (guest, #63414) [Link]
Based on my observations of how the SoC vendors and OEMs operate, I find it unlikely that a "more desktop linux like" mobile Linux, if it were successful, would result in things (regarding Linux kernel support for ARM SoCs and mobile devices) moving forward any faster than with Android.
The obstacles toward full GPLv2 kernel drivers for problematic components (like GPU) are not made easier to resolve by changing the userspace software stack.
Android, I feel, has gone further in some areas here -- we've worked with most all of the mobile GPU vendors and see GPLv2 drivers shipping for the memory/resource/queue management, even if userspace opengl libraries are closed -- ensuring that the critical bits touching hardware and system resources at least are open source and accessible. Desktop Linux has taken an all-or-nothing approach regarding open GPU drivers and we see things like entirely closed binary blobs linked into the kernel if you want decent hw 3d accel on the modern/popular video cards...
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:37 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 14:12 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 15:35 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:01 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:17 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
- milestone 0 is a "regular Linux" (read: not Android) device that works WELL.
- milestone 1 is that sort of device with ALL Free software [i.e. besides drivers]
...
- milestone N will be Free hardware.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:22 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:32 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:37 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:42 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:42 UTC (Wed) by swetland (guest, #63414) [Link]
I can see that being annoying, but it's certainly not insurmountable.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:48 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Great, that's what we were talking all about.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 22:50 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Much better, since distros are interchangeable, sharing the lower stack (even closed parts). They aren't interchangeable with Android in the mobile case.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 23:40 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 23:43 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Did you follow the discussion really? We were talking about sharing the effort vs being selfish. Replaceability is part of the former. Incompatibility is part of the later.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 23:50 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
We're now back at your purely subjective opinion of Android somehow "not sharing" and being "selfish".
Have you thought that the same could be said about KDE and Plasma Active? They could have helped GNOME developers instead of working on a competing system!
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 23:59 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 0:00 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 0:03 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Also: Fedora should have switched to DEB, Debian should have switched to RPM and dogs should have become cats.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 0:07 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
I don't think Android designers thought about excuses much. They designed a commercial system, without much community interests in mind. No point to deny it, since it was originally proprietary and closed. It got opened only later.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 0:11 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
But that was 5 years ago. Since then Android developers work with kernel community to integrate Android features and fix ARM shortcomings (by using device trees, for example).
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 2:53 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
> And it was initially designed without input from community (and it turned
> out to be a good thing).
Very arguable. Open systems can rely on open development and community involvement. The model you described is a strong characteristic of proprietary systems. Not because it's better - because they are proprietary. And Android was designed in such way not because it was a good thing to do, but because it has no relation to any open development - it wasn't an open system. And I don't consider it a good thing, as it created a much bigger rift than it could, if the system would be developed with community interests in mind (and community input).
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 3:25 UTC (Thu) by swetland (guest, #63414) [Link]
In the 5-6 years since Android has been public knowledge, I've heard a lot about how we should throw out what we've done in favor of working with "the community", all throughout the stack. I am unconvinced that this would have been a good idea at any point.
Android's goal has been to provide a competitive open source platform for mobile, as an alternative to closed platforms (Symbian and WinCE in the early days, iOS later on, etc) where there is a level playing field for application development, and OEMs have sufficient control over their destiny, and users have more choice, etc. I think it's been pretty successful at this by most measures.
It's not perfect, and not everyone is happy with everything about it, but I'm unconvinced that a more-like-desktop-linux approach would have been massively better at anything other than being more like desktop Linux. And don't get me wrong, I like desktop Linux -- use it at work and home and write a lot of code on it -- but I'm not convinced that it's the right thing for my phone.
What I hear is "you should have done it the way we want it done because that way is superior to the way that you did it", which forces me to wonder why the superior way isn't out there being superior and winning mindshare. Unless it's not actually *done* in which case I'm not sure why I, as someone building a mobile platform, should go work on your platform under your direction, instead of building my own... what do *I* gain out of this, other than a bunch of people telling me how to do my job?
Meanwhile, the code that's been written for Android, is out there, and under an incredibly permissive license, and you're welcome to take it and build anything you'd like with it -- which a number of folks have done.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 4:27 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
There's no real way to argue that Android is bad. It's the most successful smartphone platform, and the dominant user-visible Linux. Perhaps adopting some of the existing technologies would have made it *better*, but at this stage it's pretty clear that the people arguing that (such as me) should actually do the work and stop expecting that purely theoretical arguments will win out against a shipping product.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 6:46 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 11:48 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 15:26 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Plus, there are fully open options like Nemo and Plasma Active, based on the same Mer core, which one will be able to use on the same devices. So Jolla is doing a very good thing, their closed UI part regardless.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 12, 2012 14:35 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]
Linux can be made to run acceptably on lots of devices, and there's plenty of unfunded community activity already going on that can deliver quite a bit of the stack - you just have to see how QtMoko (the community-maintained variant of Qtopia) still manages to roll along, regardless of whether anyone thinks it is blazing new trails - but cultivating a community around applications is something that the likes of Nokia only did in order to get access to the bits they needed. As a result of all this, people pin a lot of hope on Plasma Mobile (or whatever it's called this week) because it at least gives them the possibility to define their own platform.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a similar level of enthusiasm for Jolla's "open core" as there was for Nokia's efforts, where contributors merely get the satisfaction that their code is being used from the outside of a tamper-proof glass case. The difference between then and now is hopefully that more people are wise to the game being played.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 12, 2012 16:58 UTC (Fri) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
Plasma Active, and no, it has never been called anything else, so why the sneer?
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 3:39 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Attempting to start a large project usually results in lots of bike-shedding and very little of actual work. There are exceptions, of course, but they are rare.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 23:44 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
You said it. Why are you surprised that it's not considered friendly then? Something that doesn't respect the community (if you put it as above) won't be respected in return.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:27 UTC (Wed) by swetland (guest, #63414) [Link]
Yeah, running your own compositor and window manager / X server against the bare metal is challenging, but one could bolt this stuff on top of the facilities provided by Android, expose a suitable shared memory interface, and then run x/gtk/gl/etc apps with a connection to your bridge (either in a chroot'd container or just compiled standalone)
A little convoluted, sure, but something that could actually enable existing Linux desktop *applications* to run effectively as first class citizens in a stock Android environment (with 500M+ devices out there, that seems like an interesting target).
I haven't missed Linux desktop apps on my phone or tablet enough to dig into something like this, but if people believe that Android would be massively better if you could run a bunch of those apps, there are ways to do it (and get reasonable performance) without users having to "root" their phones, install custom builds, etc.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:45 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
If we end up with competing stacks with competing kernel drivers then that weakens traditional desktop linux much more than Android. If the systems can cooperate or standardize then they can add to each others strength in new ways, as demonstrated by Valve recently. If all the drivers were upstream in the kernel then the talent for optimizing them can be pooled and multiplied. If the A/V systems are standardized than that also provides a nice target for other distributions like Jolla, webOS, etc.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:56 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 2:43 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 21:46 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Using the lowest layer without any further Android stack to run other Linux DEs might work with help of something like libhybris:
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 16:12 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
No, it's a race of open against closed. Since Android tries to race against the rest of the Linux world without contributing back and collaborating - that's exactly what makes it bad and unworthy. As simple as that.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 16:42 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
No, it's a race of open against closed.
To some degree, yes. Race where two or three platforms emerged as potential survivors: Android, iOS, and maybe, just maybe WP8+. I fail to see how you can say that iOS or WP8 is more open than Android.
Since Android tries to race against the rest of the Linux world without contributing back and collaborating - that's exactly what makes it bad and unworthy. As simple as that.
Unworthy, heh. You mean you prefer iOS? Or WP8? Really?
My own choice is the most open of the participants. And that is Android. If you don't like it - then that's your choice, as I've said, but don't pretend that "worthiness" will save your beloved Mer or webOS. Or maybe you prefer to work with 10'000 owners (if even that!) of GTA04? That, too, is possible, but I prefer to tinker with platforms which have clear future.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 16:46 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 2:48 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
While we're talking about open and closed, while MeeGo did reuse almost the entire 'classic' Linux middleware stack (and often fund enormous parts of its development) such as GStreamer, PulseAudio, Telepathy, X11, etc, it wasn't an open system. Huge parts of its UI and even a bit of its middleware were completely closed. And that's without even going into the closed hardware enablement pieces such as the SGX GLES/EGL driver, the power regulator (without which you can't charge your phone), the telephony stack, etc etc etc.
Not to mention that while Nokia fulfilled all its obligations under the software licenses, and as I mentioned, sponsored a lot of amazing middleware development, every year a whole new OS would just be dumped on the outside world. The development was done entirely in-house, and the source was released after the fact; by the time the community got their hands on it, most of the developers had already moved on to the next iteration of the OS, for which everything had inevitably been rewritten. IOW, its development process was _exactly_ _the_ _same_ as Android's.
(FWIW, I worked full-time on ITOS/Maemo/MeeGo for 4.5 years.)
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 3:15 UTC (Thu) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 10, 2012 13:35 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
There's no real advantage in glibc over bionic for most of software. Even OpenOffice has been ported to bionic without much fuss.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 2:52 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
Bionic's thread implementation (to the extent that it exists) is substantially inferior to glibc's, and it's also missing some really useful features like timerfd, CLOEXEC, epoll, etc.
Most of those can be worked around, at the cost of reduced functionality and your code becoming the same kind of #ifdef spaghetti you get with trying to support OpenBSD.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 3:23 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
But these missing pieces can be added later, it's not like they are fundamentally impossible.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 11, 2012 4:00 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
The missing pieces of Bionic aren't fundamentally impossible to add, but it's a very real barrier to using Bionic today. Fixing pthreads is really quite difficult, and the binary-only GLES/EGL drivers you tend to get rely on pthreads being the way they are today (i.e. crippled by design). Not to mention the matter of various pieces of missing pthread functionality.
Crucially though, the big problem is that upstream has no interest whatsoever in fixing either pthreads or the lack of other functionality such as timerfd, and has repeatedly stated this.
Some of the guys I work with at Collabora did a lot of work on integrating a generic Linux stack into an Android system; you can see the results at http://cgit.collabora.com/git/android/platform/external. You can see all the work that goes into every single part of the stack to make it even build on Bionic, followed by all the bending over backwards to integrate them into Android's build system, which is much more difficult.
Even then, all that's assuming that you've got a full AOSP port to work with. If all you have is the NDK, then your life is a lot more difficult, especially if you want to do things like run D-Bus services with cross-process messaging.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 11:45 UTC (Fri) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]
As a (sort-of former) N900 owner, I really hope it doesn't. There is maybe the potential for one new entrant to the phone OS market to bring a system with the sort of practical freedoms that would enable novel and potentially disruptive things to be done with it, but this is not that system. The N900 nearly was, but Nokia took all the potential and threw it away. Now, anyone prepared to work within the constraints of a basically free-ish OS, but with closed drivers and a closed UI layer, can get all that on Android and also have a massive app market full of useful stuff.
What I want in a new mobile OS is for someone to succeed by being better, not by trying to pull the same crap as everyone else with some different branding on it.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 12:30 UTC (Fri) by juliank (guest, #45896) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 13:11 UTC (Fri) by nhippi (guest, #34640) [Link]
That said, I hink Jolla has better chance than Nokia had with MeeGo. Jolla operates in a startup culture where the sense of urgency is clear. Nokia operated in a complacent incumbent culture.
For an example of this culture remember Anssi Vanjoki comment in 2007 how there is a "5-step plan" to make maemo consumer friendly. "Yes Iphone has launched, lets not hurry, instead lets use 4 years and two steps till we launch N9..."
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 14:26 UTC (Fri) by nelljerram (subscriber, #12005) [Link]
What I want in a new mobile OS is for someone to succeed by being better, not by trying to pull the same crap as everyone else with some different branding on it.Agreed, and the GTA04 project is now well on the way to being better in that way.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 21:41 UTC (Fri) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 22:05 UTC (Fri) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]
Yes they are, they're a critical issue. They're what limit people who want to maintain OSes after their makers have abandoned them, They're what limit people who want to port novel OSes to practically available kit.
We have some interesting things going on with Free software for phone and tablet type devices, but it's all pointless if you can't run it on anything. We need free drivers as a key part of decoupling the choice of OS from the choice of hardware.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 7, 2012 0:56 UTC (Sun) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
"well-patented"
Posted Oct 5, 2012 11:11 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]
I see that Jolla's "parent", Nokia, is positioning itself as a patent aggressor as well. Once again, a reminder to legislators is necessary: the patent regime undermines healthy competition and the proper functioning of the market, diverts huge amounts of effort away from innovation and towards litigation, and stifles future innovation by giving unsustainable "rewards" for past achievements (in many cases, regardless of their merits).
Jolla may indeed fail, and a lesson from Nokia is already available: don't expect to be showered with champagne, medals or whatever after releasing one or two handsets when you are not Apple (or even Palm) and your other competitors are releasing tens of them. Regardless of whether Jolla does start to fail, its patents should be regarded by policy-makers as worthless: success depends on continuing innovation and the delivery of products, not on whether you have pieces of paper that claim you have innovated in the past and claim that you could deliver attractive products but somehow haven't done so.
It is precisely the state of being able to innovate and deliver that is valuable, not the ability to accumulate state-granted monopolies on mere claims of innovation.
"well-patented"
Posted Oct 6, 2012 1:02 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Once again, a reminder to legislators is necessary: the patent regime undermines healthy competition and the proper functioning of the market, diverts huge amounts of effort away from innovation and towards litigation, and stifles future innovation by giving unsustainable "rewards" for past achievements (in many cases, regardless of their merits).
Well, that's certainly true, but the problem for BlackBerry, MeeGo, Tizen, WP8, and others is the fact that we are talking about technology with positive network effects, market which is no longer growing as fast (40% of phones sold are already smartphones, increase that just 2.5 times and we are at 100%) and Android with >50% of said market
In a world without patents this will be the end. But since BlackBerry, Tizen, WP8 (but no longer MeeGo!) supporters have lots of patents there are still some surprise left.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, I'm just pointing out that patents keep other OSes (besides Android and iOS) alive as they are supposed to!
"well-patented"
Posted Oct 11, 2012 2:57 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
Apple have only ever released six handsets since mid-2007, while there's a strong argument to be made that a huge amount of Nokia's difficulties stemmed from their desire to release hundreds of handsets. They tried 'the more the merrier', and it just didn't work out for them.
Getting away from patents and on to real work would be really, really, really nice, but the cold hard reality is that you cannot even consider doing a mobile phone without either an extensive patent portfolio to cross-license, extremely deep pockets, or both. I think people are forgetting that despite OpenMoko being a fully open-source community-driven phone (which it wasn't), it was backed fully by FIC, which could afford to license it into existence.
"well-patented"
Posted Oct 11, 2012 12:04 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]
As for OpenMoko, I'm aware of how OpenMoko came about and why that project was able to bring a finished product into existence without being immediately sued, although I imagine that the real patent defence was mostly based on the licensing of the various patent-encumbered standards so that the various cartels couldn't "double dip" and demand that the project pay royalties for each and every affected component and then also the assembled product. Maybe FIC also licensed non-standards-related patents from all the different patent predators, too, but given what we see now, I really doubt that.
"well-patented"
Posted Oct 11, 2012 12:53 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
This is true now, but wasn't necessarily true (and certainly not to the same extent) when they launched the iPhone in mid-2007. At the time, people were saying that the iPhone was useless because it didn't feature a replaceable battery, or extendable memory (e.g. SD).
Say what you like about Apple, but they earned their position through consistently brilliant execution (iOS6 maps notwithstanding). Nokia once had that position — who said anything bad about a Nokia phone in 2005? — but utterly, utterly wasted it.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 16:19 UTC (Fri) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 5, 2012 21:22 UTC (Fri) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 6, 2012 9:58 UTC (Sat) by asherringham (guest, #33251) [Link]
What I would love to see is my phone running a reliable and trustworthy free distribution like Debia. Proper support and also where I have control over the OS from people that put freedom first. Jolla looks interesting but I think (and hope) that Firefox OS is a better proposition to me.
MeeGo to return next month with Jolla phone launch (The H)
Posted Oct 8, 2012 17:20 UTC (Mon) by DonDiego (guest, #24141) [Link]