Open source – yes!

Thanks for the feedback to my previous post!! I merely described the current situation.

But things are changing. We see many new kinds of devices appearing: Internet Tablets, small PCs, multimedia computers, and so forth. For all these new interesting devices, open source is the way to go. Seriously, what else? A closed sw stack? I do not see any other way to develop these new interesting devices –bundled with interesting services – but to use open source more and more. That is simply the way to build these devices. It is the only approach flexible and powerful enough.

In the traditional phone business, things may be a bit more difficult. Traditional phones have already good operating systems and software optimized for their reasonably narrow set of use cases and for fixed business ecosystems. So, it’ll be more difficult to change that landscape to more open direction. I thought the same was the case with the PC – but Ubuntu may be proving me wrong. So you never know about the traditional phones either. The sure thing, though, is that for all new interesting highly connected devices, Linux and open source is the way to go. This is my opinion.

Then, what can we do to speed this all up? We work very hard on the next highly connected products – to bring new stuff to maemo and develop it further. And I also want to invite you all to do it with us.

So, please, take a look at this. For the next 10 days, we are opening a brainstorm period for the future of maemo.org. The goal is to consolidate feedback from the developers and users in the community, and integrate that feedback into the mid-term agenda of the project.

The work we do with maemo is our practical implementation towards more open environments for mobile devices. In our case, the Tablets provide a challenging new device category that will evolve over time. And open source and community participation are the only means for us to succeed.

We hire people and open new initiatives to get there.

P.S.
Linux phone shipments declining. Why
1) one reason descibed above
2) another reason
3) a third reason