These are tough times for fans of open mobile environments. Android is less and less open, Symbian was closed again, HP stopped making webOS devices, and now Intel abandoned MeeGo to work with Samsung and operators instead. So, what is the community to do?

One option is to follow the lead of the big companies, hoping that Tizen works, or that Google again sees the benefit of working with others in the open.

The other is to take the matters in our own hands. There is precedent for this. Much of early Linux activity came from the efforts of the community, not on the initiative of corporate interests. And there have been OpenMoko and Mer, the latter an attempt to make a fully open version of Nokia's Maemo environment, suspended when MeeGo promised to bring the same benefits.

Well, now Mer is back.

The goals for Mer align pretty well with what the community would need:

• To be openly developed and openly governed as a meritocracy
• That primary customers of the platform are device vendors - not end-users.
• To provide a device manufacturer oriented structure, processes and tools: make life easy for them
• To have a device oriented architecture
• To be inclusive of technologies (such as MeeGo/Tizen/Qt/EFL/HTML5)
• To innovate in the mobile OS space

There have also been some other invitations to new potential homes for the community, ranging from openSUSE to Debian.

It will be interesting to see how this works out. But whatever we as a community do, we should ensure we look at more than just licensing.

A few days ago, I posted MeeGo not being dead until the fat lady sings. Now, the reason why I was being so cagey is out in the open: Mer is alive again, and aiming for MeeGo 2.0.

This isn't just a continuation of MeeGo, of course - nobody in the MeeGo community proper would argue that there is a need for change, and we've got a few lined up, such as an easier porting story to other devices and architectures (and a much friendlier community atmosphere to such projects), complete meritocracy, and many more.

To get one thing out in the open: this is just the core OS, a Linux distribution. There is no UI, and hardware adaptations are seperate from that core OS. It's an extremely slim Linux vehicle for making products out of. What you put on top is entirely your business - it's just a tool.

The idea being that you can then take it, drop a hardware reference for a device you love quite a bit, drop a UX in on top (either one you write yourself, or one from the greater community, like the MeeGo handset UX), and you have a product. Plasma Active is another example of what could be dropped in as a UX. The MeeGo handset community edition will most likely be looking to rebase on top of Mer in the near future.

In terms of the app stories available: Qt is available on Mer, so for developers seeking to target Qt, look to install Mer derivatives on your devices. This doesn't stop other toolkits or technologies, of course - all are welcome to come and base around Mer. We also have high hopes that we can achieve some base sharing with Tizen, and ideally, easily atain Tizen compliance. It is HTML5, after all.

I look forward to running a MeeGo handset UX on top of a Mer core on my n900 soon, and what can be accomplished in the future.

If you'd like to talk with us, pop onto #mer on freenode or use the webchat. We also have threads on both the MeeGo and maemo.org forums, should you be a fan of those.

Mobile Linux characters have been acting out lately like they were in a bad adventure movie.

A Quick Look at Extras in Bugzilla
2011-09-26 through 2011-10-02

CuteSoma is a client of Soma.Fm streaming radio that I wrote using Qt/QML for Nokia N9 and Nokia N950. Previously it was available as a .deb only, now you can install it directly from the OVI Store. It’s only a 0.1 version and even if it’s quite stable it may contains some bugs: please report me any bug so I can try to fix them as soon as possible.

CuteSoma is opensource and released under the GPL v.3 license. You can find the complete source code here: https://github.com/andreagrandi/CuteSoma

There is a poll available to let the final users choose the new icon for this application, you can find it here: http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?t=4619
I asked for help to design a new icon and I received two, so I’m letting the final users choose which one they like most.

To get this application you need to search “cutesoma” on OVI Store client or visit this link http://store.ovi.com/content/205737

Please remember that CuteSoma is free, but if you want you can make me a donation or offer me a beer using the “Donazione” button on the right column.

Here’s some more good news for prospective N9 owners, the popular Sports Tracker app is also coming to MeeGo and the Nokia N9. While the app is expected to be released in November, the developers have already shared a few screenshots of what it looks like, and I have to say it’ll be one of the better looking apps on the N9.

The Sports Tracker app on the N9 will feature all the tracking capabilities you’ve come to expect from Sports Tracker and also support for the new Sports Tracker Heart Rate Monitor. It you’re keen on keep up with the developers, you can follow them on  Twitter and Facebook.

The popular is video playback tool VLC is coming to the Nokia N9, and if you’re willing to use beta pre-release software, then its here already. The app is still in the early phase of development, but if you’re itching to play that seemingly unsupported codec on your shiny N9 or N950, then there’s hope.

However, there are a few known issues like the fact that the UI is isn’t optmised for the phone, so its tedious work. Hardware-accelerated video decoding is not supported (however, color space conversion and scaling are hardware-accelerated). So its best not to throw those HD videos at it yet.

If you’re feeling courageous, head over to this page and you’ll find all the instructions you need to download and install the app.

Hat tip to @nsuffys for the find.

...is that it just doesn't die because somebody says so.

A lot of noise has been made about Intel closing up the MeeGo shop and heading for new waters, but predictably, a lot of people aren't very happy with this move, both individuals and companies who have products based around MeeGo.

I won't rehash the story any more than that, except to say this: MeeGo, or the ideals of it - an open mobile-oriented platform featuring Qt is still very much valid and needed, and it's not going away. There's some discussion already going on on the MeeGo lists about how best to continue, already.

Watch this space. MeeGo (in some form or other) is not dead, and neither is Qt.

Back in August, Jarkko Mikael Palonkangas has been looking for Maemo 5 users without any experience in using gPodder. His Master's thesis is about the Thinking Aloud usability testing method on mobile devices, and he chose gPodder as the example application. The application used for managing the test cases has been written by Jarkko for Maemo 5 and is called Remota - it takes care of displaying the tasks to the users, recording screenshots and audio and retrieving the logging output from gPodder.

Remota log viewer with UI action log at the bottom
If you are interested in seeing how this looks, or if you would like to help to comment on the usability issues and find improvement ideas, please feel free to click through the videos below, which have now been uploaded:
User 1: Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Task 4, Task 5, Task 6, Task 7, Task 8, Task 9, Task 10, Task 11User 2: Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Task 4, Task 5, Task 6, Task 7, Task 8, Task 9, Task 10, Task 11User 3: Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Task 4, Task 5, Task 6, Task 7, Task 8 (1st try), Task 8 (2nd try), Task 9, Task 10, Task 11User 4: Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Task 4, Task 5, Task 6, Task 7 (1st try), Task 7 (2nd try), Task 8, Task 9, Task 10, Task 11
Unfortunately, user 4's logging output had problems, so you only have audio and video for these tasks - for users 1 through 3 we also have logging output about UI interactions, which was possible by patching the gPodder source to add additional handlers to buttons and other UI elements while the UI was created on application startup.
Please feel free to add comments to the videos - Jarkko is going to process them and include the finding in his final work, so that would be an easy way to contribute.