LWN: Comments on "Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)"

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

richarson — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 23:59:41 +0000

Too old post, I know and I'm sorry if you're not interested anymore, but THIS is the kind of open I like!

I'll download the SDK to play with Sailfish and maybe I'll try it in my N9.
More or less open, I'm still very excited about this phone.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

tialaramex — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 17:38:43 +0000

I have a Nvidia chipset which I think is old enough to be unsupported by Nvidia, but since I never used Nvidia's drivers I haven't noticed any reduction in support. The free drivers do KMS, and I believe they can play 3D games, but I own supported hardware for playing 3D games on, so I didn't really try.

Probably there were dubious proprietary drivers for that webcam at some point too. Never tried them, if it doesn't work in free drivers then realistically (as you've observed) it will probably stop working soon and never work again, so why bother?

Eventually of course even the kernel developers stop caring. My first ever PC, if I still had it, wouldn't boot a modern Linux kernel. I don't ask for miracles, but it does seem as though Jolla doesn't give me most of what I'd actually care about. Thanks for your honesty, and good luck.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Jonno — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 20:58:23 +0000

> Can you install MER on a Sailfish phone? Are the drivers available? Is it possible to reflash it (or whatever is required)?

Actually, all Sailfish phones comes with Mer OS already installed. Sailfish is a user experience on running on top of Mer OS, just like Nemo and Plasma Active are.

And yes, you can add the Nemo repositories and install it using zypper, or you can flash a new FS image with Nemo pre-installed, whichever you prefer (though, obviously, you get to keep both pieces if you break it).

All drivers are available for use in alternate FS images, but some only in binary form (eg. as an RPM in the Sailfish repository).

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:35:10 +0000

preinstalled on consumer devices out of the box:

[nemo@localhost ~]$ git --version
git version 1.8.2

For backups we use git and some blob support:

[nemo@localhost ~]$ ls -laF ~/.vault/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 1 nemo nemo 144 2013-12-20 16:14 ./
drwxr-x--- 1 nemo nemo 1000 2014-01-17 14:07 ../
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 18 2013-11-08 12:29 Accounts/
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 18 2013-11-08 12:29 Browser/
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 10 2013-11-08 12:29 Gallery/
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 194 2013-12-20 16:15 .git/ <-----------
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 8 2013-11-08 12:29 Media/
-rw-r--r-- 1 nemo privileged 24 2013-12-09 18:05 .message
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 10 2013-11-08 12:29 Messages/
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 162 2013-11-13 17:08 .modules/
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 8 2013-11-08 12:29 People/
drwxrwxr-x 1 nemo nemo 10 2013-11-08 12:29 Phone/

[nemo@localhost ~]$ rsync --version
rsync version 3.1.0 protocol version 31

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

mathstuf — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:24:41 +0000

Wow. Sweet.

One thing I can think of doing off the top of my head is to run a tiny git server (probably just SSH though) on the phone which contains my dotfiles so that I always have them available.

I haven't decided what I'm doing for a phone in the future yet (currently on a Verizon Galaxy Nexus), but if making packages is that easy… If I can take my current SIM and move it over (would like to keep my truly unlimited data plan), Jolla could be a contender.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:17:33 +0000

I'm sorry - but they already made me put vim in :(

I saw this about 30m ago. I copied the opensuse (x86) tmux package to my home on the Mer OBS. Realised I needed libevent. Copied that. We call pkg-config pkgconfig and omit some suse spec macros so deleted them.

I did zero work on cross-compile setup or config.

2 mins later it had built and published for arm and x86 and is available for every Jolla device to install *and* any plasma-active device or nemo device or the raspberry pi port of mer or the emulator or the SDK ... :)

Then on my device (as user, not root):

$ ssu ar lbt-sdk http://repo.merproject.org/obs/home:/lbt:/sdk/latest_armv...
$ pkcon refresh
$ pkcon install tmux

Now:

[nemo@localhost ~]$ tmux --version
usage: tmux [-28lquvV] [-c shell-command] [-f file] [-L socket-name]
[-S socket-path] [command [flags]]

happy?

I'll promote it to mer-tools 'soon' when I do the packaging properly.

PS I also needed an excuse to try tmux - and having a persistent session on the device should be cool when wifi drops. I can also connect from fingerterm... nice.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 13:46:49 +0000

I (and I'm sure others around Mer/Nemo/Jolla) await details on the Blackphone with interest. Of course if it's all written targeting android/java then it's going to be less directly applicable to linux distros and hence Mer/Jolla. Even so I'm sure a port to desktop glibc and hopefully Qt userspace would be trivially implementable on Mer/Nemo based systems.

If the hardware and blobs *are* auditable then I see absolutely no reason that Nemo cannot take advantage of that and support that device too.

Note that we don't claim to be delivering anything like Blackphone's class of security/privacy.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

mathstuf — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 13:37:13 +0000

I'd certainly take tmux over screen in a heartbeat… The code quality is not even a competition, tmux has more features, better docs, configuration, etc. The only thing I'd consider screen for these days is talking to serial cables for embedded devices (it worked better than minicom in a class).

Also, vim. Sometimes you need to edit things. ;)

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 11:32:56 +0000

pfft we have ssh/sshd, mosh, screen, emacs and fingerterm on device - what more do you want?

yeah, I know "you don't have tmux - you suck!"

(^^^ humour for those with a buggy humour-detector!)

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 10:49:58 +0000

So the Jolla is similar to Android in that its drivers are closed, its kernel open, and its UI closed. It is distinct from Android in that its userspace is open. So in theory you could turn a Jolla phone into a webserver or something, which would be difficult with Android.

Yes, trivially. Developing apps is QML. Typical (non-app) development is ./configure; make; make install :)

You also seem to have a quality that I can only describe as "upstream-friendly" - i.e. trying to base your OS on standard components rather than essentially forking everything. The inability to recompile the kernel detracts from this, but (as you say) that's true of anything that uses binary drivers.

Yes.

aside: You can recompile the kernel fairly liberally (community already has open wifi drivers working) - I'm just saying that it's PITA to track /backport upstream changes.

Is that all correct? Have I missed anything?
From a Free Software perspective, both of those are useful incremental improvements to existing semi-open systems like Android.

No & we thought so.

It would be interesting to know which bits of closedness are imposed on you and which are your choice. Maybe a list of closed components with notes like "if people buy enough Jolla phones then we'll renegotiate with the hardware supplier" or "we're keeping this bit closed, but it's easy to swap out if you want".

Your wish is our command: http://piratepad.net/JollaSoftwareState :D This was a community driven exercise.

This may help too: https://together.jolla.com/question/3014/clarification-of-open-source-policy/

We're too small to seriously negotiate license changes but openness affects our HW decisions. Eg the closed wifi driver is 'supported' by our HW vendor but we knew there was a community hackable open one.

Things like MS Exchange; the Here Maps AGPS services are closed.

OTOH we use calligra for the office suite and that's all upstream.

Now the contentious part: we have chosen to keep the UI closed licensed for now (note most of the src is QML and visible/hackable on the device - most of the C++ is in our upstream : Nemo). We've always said we'd like to open it but I accept that wishes don't count. The rationale is that we need to survive in a far-eastern environment where we frankly think we need to do this for commercial survival.

Incidentally, for those who didn't catch the "our upstream" reference: Nemo is not a community fork of Sailfish, Sailfish is maintained internally as a branch of Nemo.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

The_Barbarian — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 05:09:50 +0000

Definitely would want a TWM (I use Awesome on the desktop. Awesome also is used with the Kobo ebook reader). Matchbox is alright though. Yes, overlapping windows would be silly.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

raven667 — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 04:29:20 +0000

Well in all honesty tiling window managers make a ton of sense on mobiles, Samsung and Microsoft are shipping them already.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

mathstuf — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 04:08:01 +0000

Well, real window management would probably be a tiling window manager[1] (maybe with the ability to split the screen if it's large enough). And I don't use a close button. </snark>

[1]Tiling WMs *manage* windows. WMs like Metacity and friends just hold them in place and have a few shortcuts for things. KWin *can* be taught to *manage* windows, but then you're managing a lot of tedious settings and such.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

raven667 — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 01:55:17 +0000

I have to say that overlapping windows and a close button are terrible on a small handheld device. We all made fun of window phone 1-6 because of how inappropriate a desktop ui is on a handheld

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

The_Barbarian — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 01:23:18 +0000

Too bad the Android UI model is terrible. Give me real window management and a close button!

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

deepfire — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 01:06:29 +0000

I second your proposal about an exhaustive enumeration of closed hardware and a structured effort to get rid of that.

There is a thing I feel afraid of, though.

I don't think it's entirely implausible that Jolla is only allowed to play in the same "real world" space with the big boys for exactly as long, as it has these hardware/binary backdoors.

Still I laud their efforts -- there still is a chance that a different, better future will emerge through the Jolla folks.

..and I would love to see an in-depth comparative analysis between Jolla and the upcoming Blackphone (by the Phil Zimmerman and the Silent Circle crowd).

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

deepfire — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 00:53:20 +0000

This was very clear and useful, which is a preciously rare thing to have with an actual mainstream software vendor. Thank you for that.

It will be interesting to compare this with Blackphone.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

dilinger — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 22:20:40 +0000

This is not a useful incremental improvement. We already have hardware with closed kernel components. We already have UIs with various closed bits. We already have forks that are completely free (comparing Replicant with Nemo, here) but not fully functional. Replacing the free middleware OS with one that's more "upstream-friendly" is not an improvement. Android's userspace *is* open, btw. It's busybox (if that's what you're referring to). Busybox has an upstream.

Promises of "we'll be more open in the future", especially coming from a for-profit corporation, are not to be trusted until the code is actually released. I don't care how nice and well-meaning the employees or the board members are, it ultimately comes down to money. People get fired, there are restructurings, people on top oust each other and make power plays.. It happens all the time.

I do wish Jolla all the best. I like the concepts in their UI, and I hope that they do eventually open up their code. But as it stands, they will not get much further attention from me unless they distinguish themselves in some way from the other semi-free offerings we already have.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Corkscrew — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:20:29 +0000

So the Jolla is similar to Android in that its drivers are closed, its kernel open, and its UI closed. It is distinct from Android in that its userspace is open. So in theory you could turn a Jolla phone into a webserver or something, which would be difficult with Android.

You also seem to have a quality that I can only describe as "upstream-friendly" - i.e. trying to base your OS on standard components rather than essentially forking everything. The inability to recompile the kernel detracts from this, but (as you say) that's true of anything that uses binary drivers.

Is that all correct? Have I missed anything?

From a Free Software perspective, both of those are useful incremental improvements to existing semi-open systems like Android.

It would be interesting to know which bits of closedness are imposed on you and which are your choice. Maybe a list of closed components with notes like "if people buy enough Jolla phones then we'll renegotiate with the hardware supplier" or "we're keeping this bit closed, but it's easy to swap out if you want".

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

ewan — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:37:42 +0000

"the vision and strategy are so opensource oriented"

...that they're keeping important chunks of the code closed.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:07:28 +0000

Never say never :)

OTOH the company is small enough and the vision and strategy are so opensource oriented that it's inconceivable at this point.

Also bear in mind that much of the code and tooling is derived from MeeGo and that Mer, Nemo and Qt are all fully open projects; the ability to survive Elop-style management has already been demonstrated - and that's actually a risk-management selling point.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

mathstuf — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:36:20 +0000

Didn't Elop show up after the n900/n9? What stops Jolla from having an Elopolypse?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

tao — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:39:52 +0000

What makes this different from N900/N9? Well, SailfishOS and the Jolla phones are not products from a company whose CEO would not possibly allow the success of a Linux-based system...

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 12:11:10 +0000

Rest assured - my intention is not to try and blur anything, apologies if I did.

I thought this was quite clear:
"yes, you're limited to the usual annoying embedded-kernel-module-version-tie"

Also note that we're not having quite the same conversation; I replied to :
"complete root access" and "ability to replace the entire stack"
but I think we need to be discussing:
"what's the long term impact of the hardware landscape in mobile today"

I suggest that the more relevant part of my reply is an nVidia card - once they stop providing support for an old card in a new kernel you're stuck.

Incidentally I was simplifying a bit: on this class of devices the GPU 'driver' is an opensource 'pass through' driver to userland but it probably exposes volatile bits of the kernel internals so it's essentially tied to a version.
Since the kernel is also the usual hacked about non-upstreamed vendor kernel which you could theoretically break into a maintainable patch set with **much** effort - realistically it's not going to happen.

Overall you're right though ... but is the answer "they're working towards our goals but they might go bankrupt, lets not bother supporting them"?

I'm not trying to answer that - but I am trying to explain why, as a free software developer, I'm excited to be making things better, not worse.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

ewan — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:20:33 +0000

It's a closed UI on top of an openish middle, on top of closed drivers, just like the N900 was. Is there any reason to believe it's not going to go exactly the same way?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

tajyrink — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 10:11:06 +0000

There's potential to get it fully free (at least to the level of Replicant) by joining the Mer / Nemo efforts. It runs GNU/Linux today, and Nemo has some pretty good UI pieces that are usable already on the N9/N950.

Even though I like Android to an extent, it's very far from an open project. Replicant is one way to go, but it's still very much dependent on what Google decides to put to Android. Mer / Nemo is more familiar to most of us on system level, and uses the non-Android components like Pulseaudio, systemd et cetera. That's why I think it's crucial that there are Mer / Nemo (+ Ubuntu Touch) and they are contributed to, since there's not much else there to stop traditional consumer GNU/Linux from going downwards together with desktop/laptop usage. The future of ~free consumer Linux can be Replicant/CyanogenMod/XDA Developers community, and it's good that all of them exist and do good work, but it's better if there are alternatives.

libhybris and friends make it so that Android transforms back to a board support package (we need the hardware support one or another, every time something is not yet in mainline Linus' kernel), and normal free software innovation and alternative library developments can happen on all other layers as usual.

I would like to see also some crossing of paths, like eventually porting Nemo or Ubuntu UX:s - both made with Qt - to be on top of Android which Qt >= 5.2.0 starts to support quite well.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

tialaramex — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 00:24:48 +0000

Either I misunderstand you or you're trying to blur the difference between firmware blobs and drivers, between "My USB ADSL modem needs me to have a copy of this mysterious file or else it's essentially useless" vs "My Jolla needs me to run a proprietary kernel module that exists only for specific builds, or else it's essentially useless".

The former is an annoyance, but it's fire-and-forget. I recall running some horrible perl script or something with a Windows driver CD mounted, and then it was done and the USB ADSL modem worked forever after even though I changed CPU architecture. Hobbyists put up with worse all the time.

The latter is a major obstacle, realistically without a large, dedicated engineering resource it will quickly rot and cease to exist.

Ten years or more after the makers of my (early, long pre-UVC) USB webcam went out of business AFAICT, it works fine in Fedora 19, arguably better than it ever did in Windows. Now, ten years after Jolla are bankrupt how much of a Jolla phone will work with a new Linux? My impression is that the answer is "not enough to make it a useful artefact".

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:30:14 +0000

Yes - plain Qt 5.1/5.2 with an emphasis on QML.

If you want more info get the SDK and try it - it's about a lot more than just Jolla devices so it shouldn't be a waste of time.

FYI it contains a Virtualbox VM which runs a minimal Mer installation with the build/cross tools.
There's another VM which runs an x86 emulator of Sailfish (or Nemo or...)

To jump in front of a common "oh you don't want to do it like that" theme:
Why this approach? Minimal cost to support 'any linux/windows/mac user'.
Is it an optimal use of your 12 core 16Gb quad-ssd dev box - no. Does it do the job? Yes. Is there a 'better' way for serious hackers? Yes.

dsommers posted some good links too, thanks.

also #sailfishos on freenode (or #nemomobile or #mer)

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Arker — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:11:33 +0000

"Well, no more so than on any desktop PC with an Nvidia card, a closed bios and, say, a usb ADSL modem or a wifi card with a blob."

Exactly.

I am not going to say that I have never purchased any of the above, but I can certainly say that I will go to some lengths to avoid them, and would certainly not describe such a system as free or open or trust it any further than my ability to audit.

"Also, yes, the NSA (or in our case more likely a far-eastern govt) probably have lower level access than you (via the blobs) if that's what you meant."

Even if it's only(!) the Chinese military that has the access today, it's almost inevitable that criminal gangs will gain access tomorrow.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

dsommers — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:58:45 +0000

AFAIK, it's all Qt. At least there SDK is built upon Qtcreator.

More info:
http://www.jollausers.com/2013/05/a-get-together-with-sai...

https://sailfishos.org/develop.html

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

aleXXX — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:51:40 +0000

I think so too.
I'm no expert in that area, but AFAIK on Android you have a Linux kernel and on top of that a custom system library and then a java API.
On Jolla you have a normal Linux libc, etc.
So I guess I could easily crosscompile non-GUI stuff for it ?
How do I get something running in the GUI, plain Qt or are special tricks needed ?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:17:05 +0000

Well, no more so than on any desktop PC with an Nvidia card, a closed bios and, say, a usb ADSL modem or a wifi card with a blob.

I *think* we're a tiny bit more hackable than a PC BIOS since the really early bootloader is the open "lk".

OTOH if you're alluding to the usual kernel/blob binding then yes, you're limited to the usual annoying embedded-kernel-module-version-tie if you want those bits of hardware to work (but some is done via libhybris and is, I think, more kernel-version agnostic). Sorry. Rebuilding the kernel and/or adding modules is fine though.

Also, yes, the NSA (or in our case more likely a far-eastern govt) probably have lower level access than you (via the blobs) if that's what you meant.

(usual disclaimer that hacking this kind of thing without knowing what you're doing gets you an expensive brick)

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Arker — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:49:20 +0000

I really do not think you can coherently claim "complete root access" and "ability to replace the entire stack" if this is all sitting on top of binary drivers.

Nonetheless it does sound like your heart is in the right place, so I wish you the best of luck.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:42:11 +0000

yes - and I was more meaning the 'smartphone' hardware aspect. Whilst the Jolla device is not bleeding edge, it is more advanced (and more closed) hardware than the GTA04.

The modern referred to systemd, user sessions, connman, ofono - that kind of thing (and the reason for the ps -ef)

You could theoretically run the same versions of userspace code on both Jolla and GTA04; I don't know where Openmoko is with Qt though. Mer/Nemo is about to hit Qt 5.2 (it helps that Jolla hired a lot of Qt developers and is actively pushing code into Qt too.)

Blackberry uses the QNX OS - so it's not even close to being as open as SailfishOS although of course they have Qt too.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

lbt — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 15:30:57 +0000

Well, Replicant is a great project to provide an android-like "free" system. However it is likely to suffer from the problem that android's direction is heavily driven from behind Google's closed doors and java's direction is heavily driven by Oracle.

The difference here is that Sailfish is a GNU/Linux system built on Mer, Qt and Nemomobile. The Nemomobile project is a fully free/opensource project to provide a UI for any devices capable of running Mer and yes, that includes the Jolla device and any others which use libhybris.

So that's equally as free as Replicant afaik (ie there are blobs needed to access modems, gpus etc in both).

So you are right - Replicant is way ahead of Nemomobile today and if you want a functional 'free' system then it's the place to go.

However I guess another issue is do you want a functional 'free' system where the direction is set in a non-free way or a less functional 'free' system which is pushing the GNU/Linux stack?

(nb I'm neutral on the GNU/Linux nomenclature but I think it is a valid differentiator from Android/Linux in this area).

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

pboddie — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 14:10:28 +0000

Of course this is indeed a *yawn* to anyone who's principles demand that they only use a GTA04 style device - but if you want a smartphone running a modern linux then this may be for you.

By "modern linux" I guess you're referring to something other than merely what kernel version you're using, noting this because as far as I can tell the GTA04 developers are targeting current kernel versions and trying to get everything upstream.

What's closed: some kernel blobs from our suppliers, some 3rd party apps and yes, the UI layer and apps are closed at the moment (we need to exist in a harsh commercial environment and survival is a key prerequisite to any improvements in this area)

So the burning question, then, is this: how much more open does this make Jolla than Blackberry?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

nhippi — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 14:05:18 +0000

If you want Free Sofware UI for phone, you are best off with replicant at the moment.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

dsommers — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:21:47 +0000

I'd expect this to work, at least to some degree, yes. I mean, some people have been booting up a different kernels. That's the key part in regards to drivers. There might be some firmware drivers which needs to be copied over to a MER installation, though.

Also considering that people have been able to run MER/Nemo on the N9/N950/N900 (plus misc. Android devices). As Sailfish is MER under the hood, I really would expect it to run MER/Nemo more like standalone installation. But I haven't tried it myself, and nobody have written any wikis or blogged about it yet, AFAICS.

It wouldn't surprise me if the MER community would help you out too.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

tzafrir — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 11:33:09 +0000

Can you install MER on a Sailfish phone? Are the drivers available? Is it possible to reflash it (or whatever is required)?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

dsommers — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 10:47:34 +0000

Android phones are definitely not more open than Jolla. So this whining is just nonsense.