Task:2010 Agenda

Help defining the maemo.org 2010 Agenda. This is taken to mean the vision the community has for the state of maemo in 2010.

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  • Hardware requests are entirely out-of-scope and will be removed by community members trying to keep this page focused and on-topic.
  • Software requests which would be trivial for a third party to provide—or are already on the roadmap—are out-of-scope and will be removed by community members trying to keep this page focused and on-topic.


Contents

maemo development process

Openness, openness, openness

  • Core libraries developed in the open by Nokia employees, and maemo.org community contributors.
  • Non-Nokia specification writing and approval, worked on by Nokia employees and maemo.org community contributors; discussed on public mailing lists.
  • The ability to build a complete, flashable image by maemo.org community for beta testing of open components in development. (May be less necessary in an SSU-based world: TBC)
  • The ability to strip a maemo-based OS down to its base and build it up again differently (for example, KDE and no Hildon).
    • By 2010, installing completely different UIs should be achievable through the Application Manager.

Maemo developer resources

  • Better localization guidelines for new and existing Developers. 
    --keep focused on the core of the project 
    --stay unified and work out the details later
    --focus every module in a step by step instead of a free for all 
    --delegate. Newbs need the experience
  • Development Framework. ???
  • Documentation System. (Help system???) 
    --getting started is way to difficult and will detour many great minds 
    --outsource to the blogger types in the group 
         --voice record "dictate to the typers"
         --video and slide w/audio help for many
    --cut out the opinions where are the real facts (make an easy to find location)
  • Better GPS resources. (GeoClue???)
  • Development Tools and Utilities for Linux, OS X and Windows. 
    --GUI development package (reduce learning curve)
    --Better feedback on testing of packages 
    --make simple system for ideas to be tried
  • Better modern native languages support - like Vala and D. && how to build a hello world app in C++/Vala in 10 minute (no more!) 
    --

Ship high level building blocks

  • Think of media server, VoIP, contact lists, camera, GPS localization. Currently developers only have the low level API's, while mostly they just want a widget that displays the mentioned data and listen to user interaction signal or device signals. This also makes these functionalities look the same in all applications using them

End-user software wishlist

Software requests are really out-of-scope and not relevant to this brainstorming session (or able to be provided by third party developers without maemo.org involvement); however, they are recorded here so they do not get duplicated:

  • A PIM system that can be tied into by developers, to provide PC synchronization etc.
    • A equivalent to telepathy for calendar,contact list, and tasks: A well integrated framework (with binding for many languages such python).
  • Telepathy:
    • Better video call support
  • Global sync-software
  • Office suite. (???) see discussion
  • Unionfs support built into the kernel (So users don't have to flash initfs and boot from SD, or make symlinks gone wild, just to install a few extra apps)
  • a2dp
  • Better support for right-to-left languages, such as Arabic, and Hebrew.

Becoming the best-in-class community for innovation on mobile devices running Linux

What does it take to become the de-facto community to innovate open source for Linux-based devices? Obviously, we are not alone when it comes to development on Linux on mobile devices. Development communities for Android platform and LIMO platform are likely to grow in the next 2 years. So, how do we ensure that we keep on getting the greatest brains to our community? Only through continuous growth and fresh community members from around the globe we can ensure that we get new ideas and new challenges from which we all can learn. Only through continuous learning we can create better software and better user experiences.

So again, what does it take to be a major force in open source for Linux-based devices?

  • a vision, a strategy, and mid-term objectives for the community
  • clear and transparent rules of engagement and recognition of contributions in the community
  • a virtual meeting place i.e. maemo.org but also community events for people to meet in person
  • a powerful core operating system incorporating the latest versions of open source upstream projects
  • best-in-class open devices for rapid prototyping on latest hardware
  • easy to use tools to create, prototype, and rewrite applications on top of the SDKs
  • tools for contributors to software "below" the SDK to prototype and publish enhancements
  • strong ties with the other open source community projects
  • deep understanding of consumer behavior, preferences, and consumer trends in different cultures
  • a mechanism on how to deliver software from open source innovation to millions of consumers

But at the end of the day, it's all about people, relationships and networks. The community needs to be able to maintain and extend the network between the people in an efficient, fair, and transparent way.

Only when we have in our Maemo Agenda 2010 answers on how we provide the above mentioned characteristics to ourselves, then we can succeed to bring open source innovation to millions of people across the globe and change their lives.

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