Importance Of The Maemo Community Randall Arnold

with input from Ed Page and Daphne Won

The goal of this presentation is to explain the benefits of the Maemo community and development experience for interested mobile developers

Maemo came to public attention in 2005 with the release of the 770 Internet Tablet. The developer community that soon arose was naturally small and full of leading-edge types who seemed more interested in “hacking” than in formal development processes. Which was okay at the time, because there was little support for such processes. Hacking also pushed the boundaries of the devices and even generated surprise within Nokia at what could be accomplished. As the community grew and the platform gained greater attention (helped by the N800’s perceived polish), developers began to demand more transparency and support from Nokia. This was slow in coming at first as Nokia was treading new and potentially risky territory by bridging commercial interests and open source.

The transition from community-led 770 to N800 and N810 application development was rough and involved passionate discussion in the growing community. Many felt Nokia was not moving fast enough to further open the operating system. Some believed Nokia was not even listening. A compatibility break between the platforms caused even more discomfort. Nokia’s decision to support “hacker editions” of OS2007 and OS2008 went a long way toward alleviating much of that heartburn. OS2007HE and OS2008HE demonstrated that previous hardware generations need not be completely abandoned. This advent significantly improved community and developer buy-in, and paved the way for the advent of Mer (more on that later).

Progress! The current The current dynamics dynamics between Nokia between Nokia corporate corporate interests, the interests, the Maemo Maemo developer developer community and community and individuals: Input & individuals: some different some different Feedback desires, but desires, but increasing increasing movement movement toward common toward common apps apps goals goals

2009 saw a significant amount of positive change for Maemo. The Maemo Devices group was formed, pulling together formerly separate parts of the organization. The community demand for an increased openness in the OS bore fruit, as fact-based and well-reasoned requests were fulfilled. The Mer project, a community-led OS replacement, gained Nokia support. More to come! The introduction of the N900 with its full cell phone capability opened up new avenues for the maemo.org developer community. Handing out 300 devices to Amsterdam Summit 2009 attendees demonstrated Nokia’s commitment to the platform and its hardcore supporters. This drives a new, expanded view of the Nokia-community relationship…

Perfect! The ideal Software dynamics Service Patches between Nokia issues corporate Product interests, the Ideas Maemo developer User community and Metrics individuals: leadership, General feedback and Roadmap brainstorming Revenue Testing Ideas Custom OS

Some “soft” but useful data From Maemo Summit 2009: • Nokia sponsors numerous attendees to the event • Keynote presentation includes much-requested general roadmap (victory for developers!) • Some community members receive N900 devices for wide-open testing with few restrictions – unprecedented! • Maemo 6 concepts presented already! • Mer replacement OS highly represented and popular • Sessions were packed! • Ad hoc discussions quickly led to application features

Development Nirvana Development is not limited to a single platform. There are programmers working straight out of Ubuntu, Microsoft Windows and even right on Maemo devices! C++ and Python are the most popular languages but others are supported as well. The goal of platform-agnostic Qt is to broaden this as much as possible. The community has helped by contributing to tools like the Qt 4.5 libraries. Maemo offers two distinct but related paths to software publication. The emphasis has naturally been on free and open source development but commercial applications are expected to grow in number. The former find their home at maemo.org, the latter at Forum Nokia.

maemo.org This is the open source road, the domain of free- and donation-ware. Note that Qt licensing is free for this sort of development. Applications begin in the Extras devel environment, move to Extras testing for bug shake-out, and after achieving sufficient community approval, polished apps migrate to Maemo Extras for general public consumption. Newcomers and casual users are cautioned to avoid Extras devel unless they accept the explained risks. Extras testing is not as risky but it is recommended users gain some experience with their devices before plunging into testing. However, testers are most certainly welcome!

Forum Nokia Forum Nokia is geared more toward commercial development and support of the growing Ovi Store. Developers are expected to be set up as a commercial entity and possess coverage for liability. Qt licensing is not free for applications with consumer cost. More details available at Forum Nokia; see slide near the end of this presentation for links. “…some [FOSS developers] might bring up fear of competition with the community since it is so strong. I think a strong community can improve the commercial. It discourages a bazillion one of cheap apps that the iPhone app store gets spammed with.” -Ed Page (epage), Dialcentral developer

The following applications cover a broad array of uses and interests, and are presented in no particular order. Some are the result of individual coders while others involve large and diverse teams of developers, testers, researchers and managers. By this point Maemo is mature enough to present some truly commercial-grade apps, and we expect that wide adoption of Qt as a development platform will increase that exponentially. All of the apps shown are free of charge and available from the Maemo Extras repository. In additions to applications, a community-created replacement operating system called Mer is also presented. Code from these projects is typically made available to the community at large for other uses.

Grzanka's iconset by Iconbest Forecast on Nokia N900. Ultra-customizable weather widget for showing forecast the way you Beginning iconset want. Supported by various icon sets. By B. Gint Shiny Iconset Tango iconset Contour iconset by Jyri Kuparinen By Chris Stark By Andrew Zhilin

Development Status: A simple, lightweight interface to 5 - Production/Stable Environment: Gnome, the Google's GoogleVoice (tom) Maemo service. Intended Audience: End Users/Desktop With this native application you can License: GNU Lesser initiate Click2Call sessions, send General Public SMS messages, view and call from License (LGPL) Maemo/Tablet OS your google address book, see you version: All OS recent call log, view Voicemail Natural Language: transcripts and SMS messages, English and change your preferred callback Operating System: number. Linux Programming Language: Python Current Project One of the most popular apps, with Topic: Chat, Admin and 16358 downloads to date! Telephony developer: Ed Page In work: an evolutionary app called The One Ring, a Telepathy manager for GoogleVoice

Development Status: A mobile OpenStreetMap Editor 4 - Beta OSM2Go is a lightweight editor for Environment: Gnome, OpenStreetMap intended for Maemo mobile devices and small screens. Intended Audience: End Users/Desktop License: GNU This mapping tool is particularly General Public suited for small-screen portable License (GPL) systems such as subnotebooks, Maemo/Tablet OS handheld devices and netbooks version: OS2008 which do not have a network Natural Language: connection at all times. English Operating System: Linux OSM2Go features a tagging Programming presets system, background Language: C Project Admins: satellite/WMS layers, and gpsd Topic: Front-Ends, Andrew Chadwick integration. It was originally Vector-Based, Claudius Henrichs Visualization designed for the Maemo mobile Till Harbaum Linux platform, and so is lightweight and sports a simple, speedy interface to map editing.

Keep track of all your sports and Development Status: 4 - Beta outdoor activities. With eCoach Environment: Maemo you can get the most from your Intended Audience: End workouts by monitoring your Users/Desktop speed,distance and heart rate in License: GNU General real time. You can also use the Public License (GPL) built-in training diary feature to Maemo/Tablet OS track your progress as you work version: OS2008 Natural Language: towards your specific training English goals. Operating System: Linux eCoach supports Open Street Programming Map, Google Earth, and Virtual Language: C, C++ Project Admins: Earth,enabling you to view your Topic: Other/Nonlisted Topic Jukka Alasalmi routes on the map and share Kai Skiftesvik them with friends at a later point. Sampo Savola It currently supports FRWD B600 Veli-Pekka Haajanen and Zephyr HxM heart rate monitors.

Displays a real-time mirror image from the internal camera. Interesting fact: this application came about when a new female member joked that she wanted to see more apps for her gender. She offhandedly mentioned a mirror, and in short order Attila Csipa (achipa/attila77) had coded one up!

Goals Mer •Integrate the best solutions for a wide variety of small form-factor devices •Encourage wider access to device An open, community-led, capabilities through the Vendor Social Linux distribution (OS) for Contract mobile devices •Demonstrably provide an easy route to market for vendors “Mer shows there’s a big •Dramatically reduce costs to vendors of enough repository of coders supporting EOL hardware interested to maintain a •Focus, harness and support community community variant of Maemo.” contributions to the platform •Encourage and ease migration of existing -Carsten Munk (Stskeeps), applications maemo.org distmaster and Mer •Support experimentation, innovation and Project coordinator development

"The Nokia N900 shows where "The Nokia N900 shows where Going Forward… we are going with Maemo and we are going with Maemo and we'll continue to work with the we'll continue to work with the community to push the software community to push the software forward." forward." -Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia -Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia “I think openness is the number “I think openness is the number one sign that a company _and_ a one sign that a company _and_ a community is healthy. If a company community is healthy. If a company feels free enough to be open with a feels free enough to be open with a community, then something community, then something right is happening.” right is happening.” -timsamoff, 06 August 2009 -timsamoff, 06 August 2009

More Success Stories • Testing and early usage of the OS and SDKs by the device actually helps add quality to OS and SDKs for all developers • Nokia developer Vitaly Repin dives into talk.maemo.org to solicit direct feedback on Mail for Exchange (MfE) issues, listening thoughtfully and responding with helpful candor • Developer events and community outreach activities gain immediate high interest • Brainstorm solution proposal activity at maemo.org enjoys high popularity and deep engagement from all types of community members • …?

•VisionMobile blog article, “Open is the new closed”: http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2009/08/open-is-the-new-closed/ •Mer replacement OS Project: http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer •Maemo community: http://www.maemo.org •Introducing Maemo @ Forum Nokia: http://www.forum.nokia.com/Technology_Topics/Device_Platforms/Ma emo.xhtml •Qt development: http://qt.nokia.com/developer/qt-for-maemo- developers

Thank you! Randall Arnold texrat@ovi.com tabulacrypticum.wordpress.com maemo daemons group on LinkedIn 2

Another great point about community/commercial interaction is we've created a lot of example code for the commercial appsmore especvially for the more exotic areas like phone functionality. Not a commercial app but my work om The One Ring (Telepathy connection manager for GoogleVoice has been greatly accelerated by the existence of telepathy-butterfly. Some might fear the legal line between reading the code and using it in a way an open lisence might be violated. I would also guess that except for a few cases polish and innovation are the areas to focus on to stay competitive. > 2. Testing and early usage of the OS and SDKs by the device actually > helps add quality to OS and SDKs for the commercial developers

Importance Of The Maemo Community Randall Arnold

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Importance Of The Maemo Community Randall Arnold — Presentation Transcript