Re: [maemo-announce] New OS 2006 firmware released

On 1/30/07, Karl Bellve <Karl.Bellve@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Personally, I wish Nokia would have went with thunderbird and firefox
> that could be improved by the outside community. Instead, they went with
> buggy pieces of proprietary code that Nokia can't seem to fix on its own.
>
> My other big complaint is that the entire device has to be reflashed in
> order to run the new version of the OS. Why can't they update different
> pieces, like the browser, or the kernel? Since the browser and flash
> player hasn't been updated, I don't think I will update my Nokia 770.

I agree wholeheartedly with these points ! I would extend them further
to ask why the 770 OS cannot be as open as a standard debian
distribution.

That is, comprised of a standard kernel that gets the device up and
running, with proprietary drivers available as binary .debs. All the
various applications distributed and installable as seperate .debs.
This way unwanted applications can be removed, for example, the
ridiculous email client etc. Kernels should be upgradable with a
simple apt-get, the package management mess should be cleaned up and
fixed.

The advantage of opensource is in its flexibility and customisation.
Nokia have negated this by imposing a very rigid structure around the
770. That's fine in itself, but don't pitch the device as opensource
and be surprised when people get annoyed with the lack of control they
have over it.

Luckily for me, the one application I use very regularly, the
opensource FBreader, is highly stable. Otherwise I'd get very annoyed
with the device.

Gavin