[maemo-developers] Lovin' the Maemo Community

[anthony.hand]

Title: Nokia Standard Document Template

Hi, folks!   I’m a user interface designer in the Enterprise Solutions unit in Boston – far away and removed from the folks who are in charge of the Nokia 770 somewhere in Finland. (Unfortunately!) I _personally_ love the device and think it’s wicked cool. A handful of my co-workers here in Boston are also big fans.   Anyways, I just wanted to say that I’m so glad there’s such a great community of talented people working to improve the Maemo OS and create compelling apps to run on it. I wish I could contribute more myself, but although I’m a hobbyist programmer in my spare time, I only know C#. Perhaps someday the Mono project can get ported to Maemo, too – wouldn’t that be cool?   Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but is there someplace where projects post talent needs? Perhaps I can still contribute in some way with my user experience design and usability skills – unofficially and in my spare time. (My day job is related to designing software for Eseries phones.) If you need a helping hand, please give me a buzz directly.   BTW, and again, this is my _personal_ opinion, but I think it’s great validation of this market space that Sony has released the Mylo and Microsoft is releasing the Origami. I think the Maemo platform has greater potential and is more exciting because it’s open that those guys. The goods news is probably that Sony and Microsoft will do a lot to help develop the market overall for Internet tablet/PDAs, and the Maemo platform will surely benefit.   Another comment regarding recent requests for more transparency from Nokia on the roadmap. Note that I have *NO IDEA* what’s going on because I’m far, far away from things here in Boston and this is my _personal_ opinion…   Upstairs they’re developing the new Open Source browser for the S60 release 3 devices. The core of the OSS browser is the same as Apple’s Safari, as most of you probably know, and it’s wicked cool. It’s a quantum leap forward for browsing on the severely resource constrained mobile phones. Folks should keep in mind that Nokia has been gingerly stepping up to take active roles in more open source projects, the OSS browser and Maemo being two prime examples. With the OS browser, Nokia is deeply committed to developing the project and honoring the spirit of the open source aspect of it. But given the company’s general lack of experience with big OSS projects like this, I think you’ll hear OSS browser leaders talk about the learning curve involved. Part of what those folks are trying to do is get the OSS browser to a suitable level of maturity before opening up the OS portions – and then working with Apple to manage/coordinate/nurture the community contributions, which is also a big effort. (BTW, I think the OSS portions were recently published.)   I think I’ve heard on this board, also, that there’s been a learning curve for the Nokians involved in Maemo. I think the community should definitely continue to push Nokia on issues that are important to the community. That pressure is a key channel for how Nokia as a company learns to be a good OSS community citizen. But also keep in mind that Nokia feels strong competitive pressures and is still a BIG COMPANY that can sometimes act very slowly. Remember the shiny new Mylo and Origami products mentioned above? Nokia has to walk a fine line between transparency and tipping off the *evil* closed source competitors too early. (Just kidding on the evil part!) Nokia probably won’t always find the right balance there, but that’s why it’s important for the discourse to remain _open_ and _civil_ on all sides…   Anyways, thanks again to everyone involved on this project. I love dropping by the Applications page on the wiki from time to time to see what’s new! It’s really exciting to see a young platform like this get stronger and more compelling every day…   Cheers, Anthony Hand

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