How Nokia Learned To Love Openness

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Once Sebastian Nyström laid out the logic of moving to open source, there was very little resistance within Nokia to doing so. I think that's significant; it means that, just as the GNU GPL has been tested in various courts and found valid, so has the logic behind open source — the openness that allows software to spread further, and improve quicker, for the mutual benefit of all. That idea is also increasingly accepted by hard-headed business people: it's become self-evident that it's a better way."

Comments

Openess

[sopssa]

That idea is also increasingly accepted by hard-headed business people: it's become self-evident that it's a better way.

Of course this doesn't apply everywhere, but with things like Qt (cross-platform application and UI framework) it makes sense that everyone benefits from it. It's large things with thousands of users that do benefit from it, but if you're doing business with the the same product you cant really open it up and except still to get revenue - unless you go for the support route, but it also only works to certain types of products.

Re:Openess

[Interoperable]

Google is a great example of this. They have a good history of open-sourcing when it benefits them and closely guarding source when it doesn't. They manage to come across as a friendly, open organisation while maintaining a highly profitable business model.

Re:Openess

[DrgnDancer]

This. Open Source is self evidently a better way for certain areas of software development and certain companies. It doesn't necessarily follow that it is self evidently a better way in general. Open source libraries make sens in a lot of the same ways that open standards make sense. They're, in fact, the next obvious growth of open standards. If we can all agree on the inputs and the outputs of the blackbox, why don't we all just use the same transparent box instead?

Open source also makes a lot of sense when you look at "reinventing the wheel" type problems. I need an Operating System for my device. I don't really care about making money on the operating system, I want to make money on the device. Hey, look, here's this Open Source operating system that works on lots of devices, can be easily modified to work on my device, and saves me a ton of work. Open source makes sense. I can save a lot of work reinventing the wheel on a non-monetized product by using something someone else has already done and opened for me.

Open source makes less sense when your software is your product. Microsoft is understandably reluctant to release their source code. It is not self evident that Microsoft would benefit from opening up its products. In fact, most would agrue that the opposite is self evident.

Apple looked at the same problem that Nokia is looking at and decided that since they had an operating system in house already, it made more sense to just modify it then modifying someone else's open operating system. It's worked for them and it is not self evident that making a different choice would have worked out better.

It is self evident that using Open Source is superior in certain situations and under certain circumstances. It is self evident that NOT using Open Source is superior in certain situations and under circumstances. It is NOT self evident that using Open Source is inherently superior. At least not to me.

Re:Openess

[GMFTatsujin]

Great points. Here's my two cents.

I bought a N800 because it was the right hardware for what I wanted to do. I needed something I could write on, something I could instant message on occasionally, and something that was light enough and small enough to have on me all the time. Some phones are good for messaging, some notebooks are good for writing, but the N800 brought it together for me.

Having Maemo, the open source OS, come specially developed for the N800 was a super plus because it offered me a lot more flexibility. True, a lot of what's out there is the standard issue FOSS apps -- but that's the point. I've run SSH sessions from my N800 to diagnose headless server issues, for crying out loud.

The rest of the time, I write on it, do some twitter, and keep it comfortably out of the way but close at hand. It's a brilliant device, Nokia made some great hardware choices, but they're not in the software biz. FOSS only helps make it better, and was a solid development choice.

Re:Openess

[replicant108]

Apple looked at the same problem that Nokia is looking at and decided that since they had an operating system in house already, it made more sense to just modify it then modifying someone else's open operating system.

Except that Apple's operating system is based on modifying 'someone else's open operating system'.

Re:Openess

[TemporalBeing]

Apple looked at the same problem that Nokia is looking at and decided that since they had an operating system in house already, it made more sense to just modify it then modifying someone else's open operating system. It's worked for them and it is not self evident that making a different choice would have worked out better.

But remember, Apple didn't just use their own stuff - they took an open source project (FreeBSD) and built their stuff on top of it; in the process they created two more projects - Darwin and OpenDarwin - to encapsulate the open source nature of the underlying system.

Why did this work for Apple? B/c it let them build off a base system that worked pretty much everywhere, and focus on the quality and other aspects of the system their users care about instead of having to worry about all the nitty-gritty details of writing and supporting an entire operating system and all the utilities that come with it. They can instead let the community do that and focus on what they do best; providing back when they modify the underlying system.

Open source makes less sense when your software is your product. Microsoft is understandably reluctant to release their source code. It is not self evident that Microsoft would benefit from opening up its products. In fact, most would agrue that the opposite is self evident.

It could if they did it right. Apple did it right. Microsoft could follow suit. The likelihood of Microsoft doing so at least anytime in the near future is near zero. Windows built on a Unix/Linux platform could be done very well; and a lot of the little details that keep being problematic for Microsoft would likely go away - e.g. security, firewalls, etc. It would also allow Microsoft, like Apple, to focus on what they do best; though they have likely lost track of what that is.

If Microsoft focused on the right part of the stack (e.g. understanding business needs, custom software enhancements, adding support to open source projects, and providing support contracts), then they could very well be a strong distribution/competitor in the open source market. But they would have to drastically change their business model and self-perception - and that won't happen until at least Balmer leaves, if not a CEO or two after him.

Re:Openess

[DrgnDancer]

Yes and no. If we want to call the kernel the operating system, then yes. Beyond that it gets a lot more complicated. They are making use of parts of an open kernel, and many open tools, but the vast majority of what users see as "OS X" or "iPhone" OS is Apple code. If the the Free BSD project disappeared tomorrow, Apple would shrug, hire a couple more kernel developers and move on. If the Linux Kernel project disappeared tomorrow most of these "Linux Device" vendors would be up a creek without a paddle.

Put simply Apple develops OS X using some Open Source components. Linux device manufacturers use an Open Source OS.

Re:Openess

[DrgnDancer]

You're making the same point as the guy above you, but doing a much better job. I agree that Apple makes use of (and, quite fairly, contributes back too) Open Source software in many low level areas of OS X. However it is equally true that neither OS X itself, nor the iPhone OS can be called Open Source products. They are distinct from Darwin and OpenDarwin in ways that Linux device manufacturer's operating systems are not usually distinct from "Linux".

In a way Apple demonstrated my point very well. They are a company that has found Open Source to be very useful in some areas of the business model, and much less useful in others. It is self evident that Apple makes extensive use of Open Source. It is equally self evident that they make extensive use of closed source. Thus far this balance approach has served them very well. No Open Source projects have found real reason to complain about them as a citizen of the OS community, but they still manage to make extensive and profitable use of closed and proprietary technology.

Re:Openess

[marcosdumay]

Ok, I agree that open source may not be superior in every possible situation, but I lack counter-examples and yours isn't really obvious. Would the clients of Microsoft be better or worse if they colaboratively developed the software they buy? Would it be cheaper or more expensive? Would it have lower or highter quality? In short is Microsoft a leacher or a constructive member of society*?

* Specificaly for Microsoft, the answer is quite easy, but it doesn't extend to other software dealers on any obvious way.

Re:Openess

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

I think you missed the point. Apple switched to BSD because it gained them something in a reasonable term. From what I remember (I was very young at the time) OS 9 sucked. It didn't even have pre-emptive multitasking. So, Apple swapping things out for BSD on hardware they could control and even then it took a few iterations before OS X didn't suck. On the other hand, Microsoft has a huge, widely deployed ecosystem. Sure, they could realease Windows 11/BSD or something in a few years, but that would involve changing all of their drivers (which I'm sure the hw mfrs. would love after the joy that was Vista) as well as delivering a perfect emulation layer or nothing will work.
Apples move made sense, because, in effect, the had hit rock bottom and could only stand to gain from such a move. Microsoft has everything to lose, since if they don't do it perfectly, their competitors can point and say, "Incompatible! You might as well migrate to our platform instead."

Re:Openess

[gbjbaanb]

Sure, they could realease Windows 11/BSD or something in a few years, but that would involve changing all of their drivers (which I'm sure the hw mfrs. would love after the joy that was Vista)

It'd be ironic if Windows was the OS that depended on ndiswrapper :)

Re:Openess

[Guy Harris]

But remember, Apple didn't just use their own stuff - they took an open source project (FreeBSD) and built their stuff on top of it; in the process they created two more projects - Darwin and OpenDarwin - to encapsulate the open source nature of the underlying system.

Well, to be more a little more precise, Apple bought a company (NeXT) that had taken an open-source project (Mach) and a non-open-source-at-the-time project (BSD - not open source as it included AT&T-licensed code) and built their stuff on top of it, and then took NeXT's stuff, updated it with {Free,Net}BSD code (which, by that time, had become open-source), and continued to develop it (both the open-source stuff and the non-open-source stuff atop it).

Re:Openess

[Guy Harris]

And...

Why did this work for Apple? B/c it let them build off a base system that worked pretty much everywhere, and focus on the quality and other aspects of the system their users care about instead of having to worry about all the nitty-gritty details of writing and supporting an entire operating system and all the utilities that come with it.

Actually, Apple pays a significant number of people to "worry about all the nitty-gritty details of writing and supporting an entire operating system and all the utilities that come with it" - some parts of OS X might not be much modified from the upstream BSD version, but, for example, the kernel has some FreeBSD bits in it but is developed independently, and the same is true of libc (well, libSystem, as it's called).

Re:Openess

[Anonymous Coward]

You are failing to differentiate between selling ad space and writing ad copy. And obviously if the latter is done honestly then it's no more evil than anything else.

If you don't like looking at ads, you can skip Google or run a filter. That they don't provide you with their resources completely gratis doesn't make them evil or dishonest. In fact I don't think ethics enter into it at all. They're not a monopoly, and what they provide is not essential for life.

I'm not even saying that they aren't evil; just that you're going to have to find a better criteria than your (understandable) annoyance with advertisers.

Re:Openess

[TemporalBeing]

I think you missed the point. Apple switched to BSD because it gained them something in a reasonable term.

OS9 was good, but it wasn't going to take them to the future. Fortunately for Apple, Steve Jobs created NeXT and built NextStep after they booted him from Apple. When they brought him back (circa 1996), they did so through buying NeXT. Jobs then threw ought the next version of MacOS that was in the works (big failure project for Apple), and took NeXTStep and renamed it Mac OSX.

It had nothing to do with convenience for Apple at the time other than they needed a new OS. But it was Job's foresight that brought it to the table.

Apple also went out of their way to ensure their license (AAPL) was Open Source Compliant, and have done a fine job working with the Open Source Community, including maintaining CUPS and several other projects.

Re:Openess

[fph il quozientatore]

I suppose your work/university/school wireless network doesn't run TTLS/EAP PAP, then. Nokia smartphones have been missing support for that authentication protocol (very common in university networks) for at least three years.

Re:Openess

[arjan_t]

So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?

I think you left it lying in your flying car...

Re:Openess

[Hurricane78]

Ahh... repression and denial! How nice that you can just moderate my comments into oblivion, instead of actually facing the facts, isn't it?

Typical jerk and loser behavior. I laugh in your general direction!

Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

If those business people are happy to only compete on hardware, then yes.

If those business people also want to compete on software, OR, they don't read the license ("who reads the license?") and accidentally infringe, and therefore have to try to reach some agreement with a bunch of people who want nothing but to destroy them and see them humiliated, they might become less happy.

Nokia has decided to only compete on hardware, so no problem for them. Others who want to compete on software might disagree.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[jedidiah]

If you take other people's work and build on it and call the end result your own without
bothering to consider the terms involved then you quite rightly deserve to be humiliated.

It's no more than what you would get for acting like a toddler in any other context.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[NoYob]

Others who want to compete on software might disagree.

Competing on software is becoming a losing proposition for most. Software has become such a cheap commodity that solutions for most problems are available for free.

The markets have spoken: software has in many cases become worthless.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Tellarin]

Nokia did not decide to only compete on hardware.

They decided that their improvements to the base software (open) plus their hardware, will sell more phones than competitors. And if other people help you maintain the base software, all the better.

They don't need to open whatever software modules they feel should remain closed for now. Also, if it's your platform, you know it better than outsiders (at least for a while) and can also take advantage of that.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing price and value.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Hatta]

accidentally infringe, and therefore have to try to reach some agreement with a bunch of people who want nothing but to destroy them and see them humiliated

Who said anything about the BSA?

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Nursie]

"("who reads the license?")"

Anyone who wants to distribute software, particularly if they're doing it for money, that's who.

Otherwise they're no better than the guy selling ripped-off DVDs at the local market.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[plague3106]

So that's why there's still plenty of software packages commanding thousands of dollars per license, meanwhile hardware prices are at rock bottom? I'd argue that hardware is much more commoditized than software.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[DrgnDancer]

Yeah, Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, Blizzard, Bungie... All those guys are the verge of bankruptcy. No one is willing to pay for software.

Solutions to many problems are available for free, but those solutions are not always very good. Even when they are good, they don't usually dominate the market. Linux, Apache, and Firefox are all great examples of successful Open Source products, and even they are still fighting tooth and nail for market share against very viable closed source competition. In most markets the competition isn't even close. Closed source software rules the market with some Open Source competitors of varying quality holding a distant second or third position.

In some cases it's a real shame, because the Open Source alternative is on par with or better than its closed alternative, but even then the open version rarely dominates the market.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[daveime]

Freelance projects do tend to be more creative, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some is "good", but there's a lot of crap out there too.

Corps like RIAA etc. employ vast swathes of people who know what is crap and what will make money. Okay, sometimes a crap movie or album slips through the net, but on the whole they know what people want, and try to make sure they get it.

Without copyright, we may benefit from better pricing, better distribution and more creativity, but that doesn't mean we'll be any happier, as there'll be infinitely more crap to wade through before we find something that doesn't suck.

So I'll carry on sitting on this fence for now, no matter how much it hurts my ass.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[bertoelcon]

Linux, Apache, and Firefox are all great examples of successful Open Source products, and even they are still fighting tooth and nail for market share against very viable closed source competition

Of your examples Apache is the market leader on Web Server Software. If I remember the last time I looked it was over half.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[DrgnDancer]

I think it still is. I very carefully used words like "most" and "usually" through out my post. There are a very few exceptions where OS software is dominant in its niche and web server software is one of them. However, Apache is still fighting tooth and nail against a very viable closed competitor. IIS may not be quite a as popular as Apache, but it's hardly relegated to the distant corners of the market either. It's quite popular, and has nearly as much market share as Apache does.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Eil]

They decided that their improvements to the base software (open) plus their hardware, will sell more phones than competitors.

Exactly. They get more hobbyists to hack on their code, more community interest, applications, code contributions, testing, bug fixes, and visibility.

Most companies are afraid to open source their code because there's this fear that competitors will either use it and sell it in their product, or will "steal" ideas from it. The reality is that NIH (not invented here) syndrome almost always assures this is not likely to happen. Nokia's major competitors are not going to replace their software stack with Symbian or Qt, for the same reasons you'll never see Microsoft building their next OS upon Darwin or Linux.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[sjames]

Free software projects seem to be much kinder and gentler than proprietary vendors when it comes to infringement. They tend to start by asking nicely in private for the infringer to "make it right" and if they agree, even help them save face by announcing the release as a positive and forward thinking step.

It's the proprietary vendors that tend to lead with lawsuits demanding zillions in imaginary damages (that the unwitting infringer may or may not have), injunctions against shipping at all until the matter is resolved and press releases about how much cash they seek to recover from the infringer.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[ldj]

In some cases it's a real shame, because the Open Source alternative is on par with or better than its closed alternative, but even then the open version rarely dominates the market.

Sheer market dominance, momentum, and large advertising budgets play big roles in this. Except in very rare cases, a new and better product will not take over an existing market rapidly. It takes time. But I think the trends we're seeing are definitely in Open Sources favor.

In this case

[kdawgud]

Well, in this case it may have made sense for Nokia. They are a hardware company, so giving away the software for free would not directly harm their income. Other industries won't be convinced so easily (i.e. companies that make money off of selling software to the masses).

Re:In this case

[Ksempac]

Mod this up. It's been known for years that IBM and others hardware companies need software to sell their machines and therefore it makes sense for them to be involved in Open Source. By reducing the cost of software to zero, they manage to get more hardware sales.
Software companies on the other hand don't have such incentive to go Open Source, since that reduce the dollar value of their product. And therefore you see MS opposing Open Source.
The odd one is/was...Sun, a company that never decided whether it was a hardware (servers) or software company (Java, Solaris, ...).

Re:In this case

[c0d3g33k]

One could argue, of course, that "software companies" never did have much of a foundation on which to build a product to begin with. Unless they were able to distort reality by invoking "intellectual property rights" and similar techniques to bring artificial scarcity to a realm that by it's very nature facilitates abundance at very low cost. Until we invent the universal replicator, on the other hand, 'hardware' companies can rely on natural scarcity to support their business model. The smart companies, it seems to me, implement a hardware-based mode somewhere in their business model and are thus much more stable in the long term than exclusively software based companies. Just sayin'.

Re:In this case

[plague3106]

Interesting... so its the natural scarcity of wood that makes books so valuable, not the content? Could have fooled me, given that a book of blank pages is siginifcantly cheaper that one already filled with content.

I hate to break it to you, but physical items are already out as a way to make money. Yes, there are some niche things that don't follow the rule... but look at most anything... corn, building materials, fast food, computers. Face it, our economy is based on SERVICES. You don't grow your own food, you pay others to do it. You don't build your own house, you hire others to do it. You don't even cook your own food at least some of the time.

Content (which you dismiss as IP) is what matters... not the medium. People value the story, not the form of expression. Nobody buys a computer without software because it would be useless without software... but the fact that you can do your accounting on computers doesn't mean you'd not have accounting without computers.

Re:In this case

[SilverEyes]

My bitter take:

One could argue that. One could also argue that IP laws have been around since 1886 and are a compromise between individual incentive and societal benefit. Creative artists/writers/authors/(and dare I say, programmers) who want others to experience their work, but also want incentive to create, recognitiion, and not just be ripped off.

However, as with any compromise, the result is a massive shouting match.

Smart companies have large advertising departments. Companies like Apple, IBM, and Microsoft.

Re:In this case

[SilverEyes]

(This). Further, a computer without software is still a very attractive paperweight. Unless it's a Tandy 1000 or something. Then it is an ugly paperweight.

Re:In this case

[Ephemeriis]

Interesting... so its the natural scarcity of wood that makes books so valuable, not the content? Could have fooled me, given that a book of blank pages is siginifcantly cheaper that one already filled with content.

I would suggest that having an actual physical object - a book - is more valuable than a digital copy of the content. Largely because it is something that you can personally carry around and do with as you please. You don't have to worry about anyone revoking your license or anything like that.

I hate to break it to you, but physical items are already out as a way to make money. Yes, there are some niche things that don't follow the rule... but look at most anything... corn, building materials, fast food, computers. Face it, our economy is based on SERVICES. You don't grow your own food, you pay others to do it. You don't build your own house, you hire others to do it. You don't even cook your own food at least some of the time.

True... But once they've built my house I own a physical object. One that keeps the rain off of my head for years to come. One that I can eventually sell to another person. I may very well be paying another human being to build the house for me - but what I want is the house, not the building service. Those construction workers aren't going to keep me warm and dry - the house they build is.

Content (which you dismiss as IP) is what matters... not the medium. People value the story, not the form of expression. Nobody buys a computer without software because it would be useless without software... but the fact that you can do your accounting on computers doesn't mean you'd not have accounting without computers.

Again, I'm going to have to disagree.

People pay $20 for a CD, and $100 for a live performance of the same music. Yet that live performance only lasts a couple hours, and the CD can be played over and over again. By your logic the CD should be more valuable, but that simply isn't true.

Similarly, people will pay millions of dollars for an original painting, when they could have the exact same image digitally reproduced for pennies.

The medium is very important.

Re:In this case

[gbjbaanb]

Face it, our economy is based on SERVICES

Quite true, which is why OSS is the business model of the future. You don't sell your software, you sell your services to operate/manage/update/support/train/etc.

In fact, the more software you give away, the bigger your marketplace to sell services to.

Re:In this case

[binary paladin]

One thing I want to add to all of this is that open != free. There's no reason you can't have open source under a license that does not allow for reselling or whatever.

There are more choices in licensing than just GNU and BSD.

I'd be interested in seeing a software company take this route and see if/how well it does.

Re:In this case

[Al Dimond]

Hardware companies do the same thing. For most types of processors the design is what's really valuable. I used to work for Nvidia; they had no fabs (they probably still don't). The GPUs themselves are fabricated by independent companies, mostly in Taiwan, IIRC. Yes, fabricating an IC takes a lot more effort than copying bits around, but Nvidia still takes home most of the profit because it controls the design -- and that's really pretty fair, as it was indeed Nvidia that put up the R&D money to design it. If any of these companies took Nvidia's design and ran you can bet they'd be in some trouble. And probably wouldn't get any business from significant semiconductor designers again.

There have actually been cases of foreign companies making duplicate Intel chips. This is not the sort of thing Intel approves of.

Re:In this case

[plague3106]

I would suggest that having an actual physical object - a book - is more valuable than a digital copy of the content. Largely because it is something that you can personally carry around and do with as you please. You don't have to worry about anyone revoking your license or anything like that.

That all depends on the implementation. If the kindle (or whatever) allows me to throw a PDF onto it, then I don't see how the digial version is worth less, except that you don't have to pay for the physical component which makes up an insignificant portion of the price.

True... But once they've built my house I own a physical object. One that keeps the rain off of my head for years to come. One that I can eventually sell to another person. I may very well be paying another human being to build the house for me - but what I want is the house, not the building service. Those construction workers aren't going to keep me warm and dry - the house they build is.

And once you own the content, you own the content. There isn't a large history of losing access to the content; there have been a few cases, but that is certainly not the norm, which is why you hear just about all of the cases that popup. You can also sell content to others as well, including software, as a recent case deteremined.

My point though is that you're paying MUCH more for the house than if you just built it yourself. The materials are not the most significant part of the cost... its the act of actually building the house. Likewise, once you've read a story, you've gained from it, and you can't lose access to that anymore than you can choose to forget something. You can also re-read the story or re-install the software.

Again, I'm going to have to disagree.

People pay $20 for a CD, and $100 for a live performance of the same music. Yet that live performance only lasts a couple hours, and the CD can be played over and over again. By your logic the CD should be more valuable, but that simply isn't true.

Your memories of the perforance last forever, don't they? Also, the live performance is not the same content; there's a heavy visual component, and also the fact that you're in the presence of the band.

You're not just paying for the music at that point... and if all you really wanted is the music, you wouldn't go to a concert. but a live performance is more content + a service, much like eating at a nice restraunt. A steak cooked at home will feed you just as well as one from a fine dining restraunt, but you're paying to have someone cook it for you in a nice atmosphere. Food service isn't about selling food at all, nor are live concerts only about the music.

Similarly, people will pay millions of dollars for an original painting, when they could have the exact same image digitally reproduced for pennies.

That group of people is a vary small minority. And in that case, they aren't paying for the medium at all... they are paying a premium because it was the original. That's more dick waving than it is commerce.

Re:In this case

[plague3106]

Writing software is a service too. You can give away your software all you want, that doesn't mean anyone will actually use it though... which is why many firms charge for software (and you get the service for free).

Re:In this case

[NoOneInParticular]

Cue back to the eighties. Hardware vendors were selling hardware, software was there to sell hardware. Then Bill came along and proved that software could be sold on its own right. An industry was born.

Same time-frame. Hardware vendors were selling hardware, software was there to sell hardware. Industry decided that software was company secret. Richard Random Hacker wanted to tune his printer driver to be able to print. HP didn't want to open up the source code to that driver. This annoyed Richard, and a counter-movement was born.

Now Nokia wants to hire Richard to beat Bill. Small world.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[sopssa]

He has a point (and doesn't even mention Microsoft anywhere).

Open source development is often plagued with the lack of focus. And of course its like that, because *most* of the developers and programmers don't get paid for it. When you do and when software is produced commercially, there's lots of focus on it because it will also bring in the money. That's why most closed source *is* better than open source alternatives. Photoshop vs GIMP, Adobe Premiere vs. ??, Visual Studio vs. dev-c++.... And dont even get me started on games.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[cl0s]

ehh, I assume you're using IE on Windows. Apple's Safari browser, is open source. Apple's Mac OSX is based of an open source operating system that just doesn't have the additional licensing limitation forcing Apple to open source it back. Printing on your Mac uses open source cups :-o .. shall I continue? This is just open source within the company you named is the Anti-open source (though they kind of are). Even they are not CONTRIBUTING to open source, more USING open source... but non-the-less to make a profit -- which you say can't be done. Who know's how far they would be with out open source, having to create an OS and apps completely from scratch. I don't think you were serious though, but I'm bored at work and its right before my lunch break... so why not feed the trolls.

Now they get it.

[Krneki]

Too little, too late.

Now with Android showing the way, they realize how closed development put them behind. I enjoyed my Nokia phones, but I got frustrated with the lack of development.

Re:Now they get it.

[the ReviveR]

Too little, too late. Now with Android showing the way, they realize how closed development put them behind. I enjoyed my Nokia phones, but I got frustrated with the lack of development.

Too little? Too late?

You mean full linux platform where you can simply type "sudo gainroot" to get root access?
Platform to which it will be almost trivial to port a huge library of current linux apps?

Personally I really don't like Androids "open". The under the hood it's a closed platform that gives you a Java interface that you can use for most things. No easy porting, not even full Java libraries and carriers can prevent tethering etc. While Android is "open", it's not the same thing as real linux platform in your pocket. Maemo in my mind is something completely different. Something the other manufacturers will have to start catching up.

Nokias hardware has always been great quality, the software has just been dragging behind because Symbian platform just plain sucks. Buying QT and going linux seems like a real killer move to me. Now they just need to dump Symbian and really start spending time and money on Maemo. Hopefully rest of the linux community will gain something from Nokias enormous resources too.

Re:Now they get it.

[Skuld-Chan]

How is it late? Symbian was opensourced in 2008.

Re:Now they get it.

[EvilNTUser]

Maemo version 1 was released in 2005 on the Nokia 770. Before Android, before the iPhone. Just because Nokia's roadmap was a bit longer doesn't mean they weren't showing the way.

In six months we'll have all our lightweight desktop apps running on our phones and people will finally realize just how far ahead of everyone else Nokia really is.

Re:Now they get it.

[Krneki]

I hope you are right, I really do.

Re:Now they get it.

[CortoMaltese]

In six months we'll have all our lightweight desktop apps running on our phones and people will finally realize just how far ahead of everyone else Nokia really is.

Some heavyweight as well.

Re:Now they get it.

[tpwch]

Right, because android existed back in 2005 when nokia released the nokia 770, their first linux-based device, and the first in the series of what is now the N900. They would never have tried that if it wasn't for android.

Re:Now they get it.

[mdwh2]

they just fail to follow themselves ... Too bad they never figured out what to do with their abilities.

Yeah, too bad they ended up being number 1 in the market. Too bad they never figured out to get the media hype behind them, they might have ended up a niche player like Apple.

Re:Now they get it.

[mdwh2]

Thanks for the info - this is the kind of thing I'd really be interested in seeing. A geek site giving us cutting edge news - instead it's just "Apple Apple Apple now you can get Iphone 3G, and look at a website!", telling us news about the Iphone, 3 years or so after almost every phone on the market has adopted it.

In six months we'll have all our lightweight desktop apps running on our phones and people will finally realize just how far ahead of everyone else Nokia really is.

I hope so. Although I fear it will continue that the media, Slashdot, and many Slashdot readers, will still have this distorted view that the mobile market consists of Apple being number 1, with only Android and maybe Blackberry as some minor competiton. That way some people are talking, it would surprise me if in a few years people claim the mobile phone as an "Apple first" (already I've heard people claim that Apple "popularised" the smartphones - despite the fact that at least two billion non-Apple smartphones are around).

Re:Now they get it.

[gbjbaanb]

blimey. and connected to a big screen too, all it needs is a keyboard and the desktop could be dead for a lot of people (I'm thinking the sales guys, not just consumers).

cheers for the links.

I dunno, don't see a huge benefit...

[HerculesMO]

Right now Nokia has the biggest share of market for phones because their phones are high quality. This is echoed by results in Japan and Asia where users continually buy Nokia because they can beat the living shit out of the phone and still make a call.

Symbian is a piece of crap. It always was, and it never really evolved much. It's right down there with Windows Mobile. And the iPhone OSX is probably the best OS out there. Sure, Android is open source -- but how has that benefitted it so far? Look at the quality of the product -- it sucks. It may evolve, but it's not taking on strides like the mention to Firefox in TFA, and there's no reason to assume that Nokia is going to get a huge bump from just the benefit of O/S.

As I heard many years ago, an O/S project and closed source project can be about the same quality, as long as the number of focused eyes are reviewing the code per iteration. Firefox has a great community behind it which is why the benefit of being O/S helps, but look at Android -- fully open source, still sucks. iPhone's software is the easiest to use and has propogated the most thus far.

I am not sold on the benefit of open source for a variety of applications, and mobile development is yet another. Firefox has it working because it offers up a better browser with more options than IE ever did -- so the community is great. Android is another "also ran" in the mobile market, and if Nokia put Windows Mobile (yuck) on their phones they'd still be #1 in the world. Goes to show, that open source alone isn't going to make a huge difference.

It will be nice to take a peek at the underlying structure though.

Re:I dunno, don't see a huge benefit...

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Symbian is a piece of crap.

Huh?
Please clarify?

PS: On a different note; you have two hopes of Nokia putting the steaming pile of shite, that is windows mobile, on their handsets: No & Bob. :-)

Re:I dunno, don't see a huge benefit...

[mdwh2]

I'll bite - what can "Iphone OS" do that no other phone can do?

(I can certainly think of things that the Iphone lacks, that even dirt cheap 4 year old phones can do, but I'm curious in your answer.)

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Shikaku]

Apache, Firefox, 7-zip.

Oops, I shouldn't feed the troll.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[oodaloop]

IE vs Firefox...

FTFY

[Weaselmancer]

That idea is also increasingly accepted by hard-headed business people: it's become self-evident that it's^H^H^H^Hit can be a better way.

It can be a better way. It often *is* a better way. But it is not automatically a better way. A lot of it depends on project organization and leadership. Just like other non-OS projects.

Remember the great XFree86 wars and all the infighting? And the massive Xorg fork that was needed to get past all that? I'd say that XFree86 is an example of a OS project with serious problems. Xorg was needed to route around them.

So I'd say give OS a chance, but don't expect it to be a magic panacea. You still need to handle personality conflicts, code conflicts, and you still need someone at the helm that has a good sense of direction and good conflict resolution skills.

Re:FTFY

[jthill]

And the massive Xorg fork that was needed to get past all that?

...

Not that there aren't projects where closed-source is better, but ... does it really need saying? The ability to fork a septic project is a not-even-debatable advantage to open source, and this is one of the prime examples of it working: no project is immune to going bad like that.

Re:FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo... because of the infighting within XFree86, which eventually got resolved by the fork, closed source where no such forks can take place to get out of a stagnating or even decaying situation is... better? Or what's your "point"?

Re:FTFY

[Weaselmancer]

Exactly my point - no project is immune to going bad like that. Open source is not an automatic fix. That's all I was saying. The article said it is always better, and I disagree. It is usually better. Not always. XFree86 is a good example of an OS project with problems. And I could list a host of closed projects that are wonderful, as could anyone here.

And yeah there are ways around problems too, both open and closed. Open and you can fork the project like Xorg. Closed and you can sell the project to someone else and have them see if they're a better pilot.

All I'm saying is that people should enter into OS with the correct notions. It's not an automatic fix or magic bullet. If people think "hey I'll just open source my project and it will all be better" they'll be disappointed. I'd like to not see that happen. I'd like OS to maintain a good reputation. People need to know you still have to have good management and organization and conflict resolution or you'll be trading one set of disappointments for another.

Re:FTFY

[plague3106]

The fork was a huge waste of time and energy.... all over a clause that had to attribute to the developers be present in a binary release.

Re:FTFY

[turbidostato]

"XFree86 is a good example of an OS project with problems."

And the fact it was an open one that allowed itself to be forked away under the "Xorg" name probes that open source projects are in fact superior. Were XFree86 closed sourced it would have gone the CDE path to name an example that can be related to without a XOrg to take the torch. Being open is what allowed it to survive, only under a different name.

Re:FTFY

[turbidostato]

"The fork was a huge waste of time and energy"

Letting the hugh codebase die, as it would have been the case were it closed source, would have mean an even huger waste of time and energy, so still open sourced gets the better output.

Re:FTFY

[lordandmaker]

His point is pretty much exactly what he said:

It can be a better way. It often *is* a better way. But it is not automatically a better way

So, no, there's not meant to be an inference that closed source is better, or that XFree86 is proof that OSS is a silly idea or any of that nonsense. XFree86 is just a good and well-known example of a project that was open source without being free of problems.

It's pretty difficult to read that post without seeing that as a point, and this is first thing in the morning for me, too.
I must say, the '+1 Informative' and '-1 Troll' have never been close enough for me to hit one when aiming for the other.

Re:FTFY

[plague3106]

No, that actually wouldn't have happened if this were closed source. The reason is that there would have been management that decided the license change, and any developers that didn't like it would have to go screw. The company and most of the developers (that wouldn't want or couldn't change jobs) would move along fine... unless of course the product was crap anyway, but then it wouldn't have gotten the marketshare if that were the case.

Re:FTFY

[True Grit]

The fork was a huge waste of time and energy....

if you say so...

all over a clause that had to attribute to the developers be present in a binary release.

A rebellion was already brewing long before the clause issue. The infighting the GP referred to had been going on for *years* prior to this, but you don't fork something as massive as Xfree86 without serious consideration and thought, so there was much inertia. The clause problem was just the final straw that finally broke through the inertia.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[kurt555gs]

M$ office vs OpenOffice.org
Parallels vs VirtualBox

(Yes I used the epithet "M$"), now watch my theory that the "M$" folks have automated bots or paid shills to mod down any post containing said derogatory term.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Nadaka]

I'm not so sure that Visual Studio is better than the open source alternatives. Eclipse is quite good, and the latest versions of Visual Studio have hidden their keyboard shortcuts, making learning efficient use of the system more difficult.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Tellarin]

"Most closed source is better" is really relative.

Specifically if you consider money. If you don't have money to buy the "best" or if you don't need the features in the "best", than it is not so good, right?

I agree that in more specialized fields (such as image processing) the closed source versions are usually technically better. But, especially in more basic software (OS, deamons, compilers, ...), open source software tends to be better in the long term. UI apart, of course. The usability area is something that definitively the community should focus more.

And regarding one of your examples, I prefer using Eclipse than VS. Although not perfect, it's been improving quickly. Both for Java and C++ development.

Re:I wonder...

[Attila Dimedici]

I suspect that the writer of the summary was going for the connotations of "hard-nosed" business people, rather than "hard-headed" business people and doesn't realize the different implications of the terms.

Playing to Apple's weakness

[tick-tock-atona]

Nokia's "open" strategy will pay off big time in the long run. At the moment, their major threat is the iPhone, which inherits all of apple's strengths (RDF, UI design) as well as it's weaknesses (software/hardware lockdown).

The next-gen Nokia phone on the other hand (successor to the N900) will get all the hardware features of the iPhone, but with the openness of a linux software stack. Want to make an app that downloads podcasts? Fine! Want to use your phone as a modem? No problem! In fact, no corporation enforcing their moral or business rules on how you use your phone, or alienation of talented developers!

Maemo and Qt being open source will ensure that the software features of the Maemo platform quickly eclipse those of the artificially limited iPhone platform. Maemo's based on Debian - so Nokia automatically gets just about every open-source software package in existence available on their platform.

I think this is the most serious threat that the turtleneck sweater brigade have yet seen.

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[Skuld-Chan]

The next-gen Nokia phone [arstechnica.com] on the other hand (successor to the N900) will get all the hardware features of the iPhone, but with the openness of a linux software stack. Want to make an app that downloads podcasts? Fine! Want to use your phone as a modem? No problem! In fact, no corporation enforcing their moral or business rules on how you use your phone, or alienation of talented developers [macworld.com]!

Sounds like the way my N97 (S60 R5 device) works ;).

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[c0d3g33k]

I think this is the most serious threat that the turtleneck sweater brigade have yet seen.

Except for the inconvenient fact that I can't find a piece of hardware (aka phone) with an open enough software stack on a carrier that provides good coverage where I live. I can find the former, but only by getting a phone from a carrier that doesn't have coverage at places like, oh, I don't know, MY HOUSE. The turtleneck sweater brigade have a little bit of breathing room due to the way the market works in the phone industry. Give me hardware/software uncoupled from carriers, and your statement holds more weight. Sadly, that's a fantasy world at present.

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[icebraining]

Why wait for Maemo when you have Python for S60, besides a free SDK for C? I already have open-source podcast players running in my phone and mobile Wifi hotspot sharing my 3G connection, without having to jailbreak,

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[kbrannen]

... Give me hardware/software uncoupled from carriers, and your statement holds more weight. Sadly, that's a fantasy world at present.

I don't know where you live, but in the US, you'll be able to buy the N900 directly from Nokia (so no operator subsidies AND no operator removing stuff they dont' like), and assuming you have a working SIM card for ATT or TMobile (whichever works best in your area), you can slap that in and use it. (This is termed "open channel" in the industry.)

Disclaimer: I work for Nokia and I have an N900. It's got a lot of positives and if you're so inclined plus have the skills, you can do development for it.

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[jilles]

You might make the case that the N900 already has the better hardware when you compare it to the iphone. And for all people dismissing Nokia as just a hardware company, there's tons of non trivial Nokia IPR in the software stack as well (not all OSS admittedly), that provides lots of advantages in the performance or energy efficiency domain; excellent multimedia support (something a lot of smart phones are really bad at), hardware acceleration, etc. Essentially most vendors ship different combinations of chips coming from a very small range of companies so from that point of view it doesn't really matter what you buy. The software on top makes all the difference and the immaturity of newer platforms such as Android can be a real deal breaker when it comes to e.g. battery life, multimedia support, support for peripherals, etc. There's a difference between running linux on a phone and running it well. Nokia has invested heavily in the latter and employs masses of people specialized in tweaking hardware and software to get the most out of the hardware.

But the real beauty of the N900 for the slashdot crowd is simply the fact that it doesn't require hacks or cracks: Nokia actively supports & encourages hackers with features, open source developer tools, websites, documentation, sponsoring, etc. Google does that to some extent with Android but the OS is off limits for normal users. Apple actively tries to stop people from bypassing the appstore and is pretty hostile to attempts to modify the OS in ways they don't like. Forget about other platforms. Palm technically uses linux but they are still keeping even the javascript + html API they have away from users. It might as well be completely closed source. You wouldn't know the difference.

On the other hand, the OS on the N900 is Debian. Like on Debian, the package manager is configured in /etc/sources.list which is used by dpkg and apt-get, which work just as you would expect on any decent Debian distribution. You have root access, therefore you can modify any file, including sources.list. Much of Ubuntu actually compiles with little or no modification and most of the problems you are likely to encounter relate to the small screen size. All it takes to get to that software is pointing your phone at the appropriate repositories. There was at some point a Nokia sponsored Ubuntu port to ARM even, so there is no lack of stuff that you can install. Including stuff that is pretty pointless on a smart phone (like large parts of KDE). But hey, you can do it! Games, productivity tools, you name it and there probably is some geek out there who managed to get it to build for Maemo. If you can write software and package it as a Debian package and can cross compile it to ARM (using the excellent OSS tooling of course), there's a good chance it will just work.

So, you can modify the device to your liking at a level no other mainstream vendor allows. Having a modifiable Debian linux system with free access to all of the OS on top of what is essentially a very compact touch screen device complete with multiple radios (bluetooth, 3G, wlan), sensors (GPS, motion, light, sound), graphics, dsp, should be enough to make any self respecting geek drool.

Now with the N900 you get all of that, shipped as a fully functional smart phone with all of the features Nokia phones are popular for such as excellent voice quality and phone features, decent battery life (of course with all the radios turned on and video & audio playing none stop, your mileage may vary), great build quality and form factor, good support for bluetooth and other accessories, etc. It doesn't get more open in the current phone market currently and this is still the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world.

In other words, Nokia is sticking out its neck for you by developing and launching this device & platform while proclaiming it to be the future of Nokia smart phones. It's risking a lot here because there are lots of parties in the market that are in the business o

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[Elgonn]

The N900's hardware and Maemo's software are finally making phones truly open. But to truly change the landscape we'll need more phones. To hit different price points and form factors. At this rate I think they'll remain niche unfortunately.

I'd kill for a N900 in E90 form factor.

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[bug1]

Disclaimer: I work for Nokia and I have an N900.

Can the Nokia N900 be 100% functional with only open source... (or does it depend on closed source drivers) ?

If essential software for the n900 is closed then this article is somewhat ironic.

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[lamapper]

I'd kill for a N900 in E90 form factor.

Checked out the image online, that is a very cool phone. At first I searched for the N90, that screen size is too small. Then I realized that you put E90, duh moment for me. Its pretty cool that you can close it up and use it as a phone also.

Those keyboards IMO are just a little too small for many adult fingers/thumbs. And to be honest I do not like using my thumbs to type/text like that anyway, so thats my problem. Of course, I do not care for the keyboard on the screen either and that applies to the Nokia Nxxx series that I prefer. I like a little bigger keyboard, so the bluetooth fold out keyboards that you can get for the Nokia Nxxx line works great.

For the future, until they have an expandable screen or a virtual 3D screen that displays in the Air in front of you, this is the smallest size screen I would want on a Linux hand held / Linux computer. I like being able to use a full size browser, sure you might have to move the image left and right and up and down, if you do not use the + and - buttons to shrink/expand the screen.

Having moved from a 6M camera to a 10 Megapixel camera, I would like to see the next Nokia have no less than 10 Megapixels in the camera, And I would like them to give the next Nokia to flip the image around from filming you, to filming a person in front of you the way the Nokia N800 and N880s could do.

Have not checked out the Nokia N900's Micro SSD slots yet, but if it does not have two of them, I would like to see that return as well. This way you can use the internal one to grow the file system and add memory (albeit a little slower). I have seen 32GB Micro SD cards for less than $16 US. I picked up two 4GB cards for mine for FREE last Christmas, they were $5,00, free after a rebate...too good to pass up from Frys. (They made their money from me too as I bought some other things while I was there...a smart loss leader) The second external SSD can be for data, programs (non permanent) and more.

I love that the Nokia N900 has a USB port, much needed. Will be interesting to see if it works well with the Maemo Linux software. Granted I put my Micro SSD cards in a USB adapter now and use them that way.

I would love to see an Ethernet 10/100/1000 port (do they make mini ethernet ports?) on a device this size. I just do not trust WiFi to install binaries on a device and I am not sure if you can purchase one of those boards to assist in burning in the operating system. My guess is they are internal Nokia use only.

That E90 was interesting, however, anymore if the device will NOT run one or more Linux distros, I simply will NOT purchase it. So that probably knocks me out for the E90. I do not care what it does. Its not about free as in beer (free beer where, squirrel) for me, it is about options and choice. I will gladly pay for innovation, but I do not want to be led down any more blind alleys because some corporation wants to lock me in.

No Linux, the device is not smart! Smartphone, only if it runs one or more Linux Distros.

Epithet

[CopaceticOpus]

You asked for it.

Picking up where Palm left off

[rwa2]

Palm used to have a pretty neat developer community that would make their stuff do all kinds of wacky things. I've read a bit about the original creator of the Palm Pilot and how his company would get bought out and all the corporate folks would come in, and then he'd run off and start another company (Handspring) and introduce new ways to expand the device (remember the springboard modules? I actually had the GSM visorphone module one way back when). Anyway, I'm pretty distraught that Palm is kinda going the Apple way... they sort of replaced the expansion modules with SDIO, but now in the Palm Pre they got rid of expansion memory entirely (probably to lock you in to installing apps from their online store or via their proprietary conduit). Anyway, I had been holding out for Palm's Linux-based OS for years, but now that the Pre is here, I'm holding out even longer for Nokia's N900 "pocket debian box".

I've played with Familiar Linux ( http://handhelds.org/ ) on an old HP iPaq for a while, but the touchscreen gave out just as I had figured out a semi-usable configuration. Unfortunately, it didn't have much support from HP, so things like suspend or audio never worked completely right.

So I've been pretty excited about Nokia's whole Maemo effort, and even got the dev emulator running on my box at home. (Haven't figured out what to do next with it, other than look at the menu system :P ). It seems to have an emulator for legacy Palm apps as well, and I've also seen mention of it doing Android apps. I'd have just been happy with a decent ssh client :) After having used midpssh on a Blackberry, I'm looking forward to having a keyboard with a ctrl key.

They have quite a few years of community development effort behind them already with their previous models. I'm a bit concerned about their upcoming migration from gtk to qt, but applaud Nokia for buying Qt from Trolltech and releasing it under an OSS license, probably single-handedly saving the KDE project from Stallmanist criticism. I'm not even a big fan of KDE, but there are a few apps in there that are better than their GNOME counterparts.

Sorry for sounding like a shill, but I've always been pretty happy with Nokia... back in the 90's I bought one of their midrange phones and could actually set up and use a lot of the features like speeddial or voice dialing without having to crack open the manual. Even today I still have phone (Sony Ericsson, Samsung, etc.) where I have to dig around way too much to figure out how to simply sync my address book with my SIM card. I've also had good experiences with the hardware... dropped the phones several times without problems, once I managed to repair a corroded battery inside my phone, and recently my wife put her Nokia in the dryer with wet camping equipment for about 20 minutes and it still worked. The casing melted off, but we bought a new faceplate and still use it :P

Anyway, that's all the anecdotes I have on the subject.

That's not a source issue

[SuperKendall]

Want to make an app that downloads podcasts? Fine! Want to use your phone as a modem? No problem!

You can do all that on an iPhone too - you just jailbreak it (and even some podcasting apps are in the app store).

The issue blocking that is not open source, it's carriers (and Apple to some extent). Android on T-Mobile has some issues with what they will allow as well (and rooting is not really much different from jailbreaking in terms of user ease).

As another person noted, Nokia's attempt to do this is too late with Android on the rise.

Re:That's not a source issue

[Achromatic1978]

You can do all that on an iPhone too - you just jailbreak it (and even some podcasting apps are in the app store).

Unless you have one of the new 3GS's. Or every time Apple releases an update and re-jailbreaks it.

Nokia has all sorts of toys to play with. There's Python for Symbian, the N97 has more than the iPhone in a similar form footprint (everything that the iPhone has except multitouch and fully integrated kinetic scrolling which will come in the next two weeks with an OS upgrade, FM transmitter, 5MP camera, secondary camera. Turn by turn navigation out of the box. Your choice of on screen keyboard, full sliding QWERTY hardware keyboard, and handwriting recognition with stylus a la Palm), better battery, 32GB internal storage plus support for microSD up to 32GB, 33% higher resolution display, full integrated SIP/VoIP support - the N900 and its successors will have all of this and more on a Linux backend.

Re:That's not a source issue

[XedLightParticle]

Sure, one can jailbreak an iPhone or root an Android, but those are still limited frameworks.

The jailbreak iPhone community wouldn't get to be as big as the community making appstore apps over night.

Android could end up having quite a community, but since android is (mostly) open the huge Linux community can easily keep their systems Android compatible without locking the rest of the system up so much that they could not benefit from all the other good stuff going on around Linux.

So Nokia not committing to Android is a clever move in my eyes, because it opens up possibilities rather than limiting them.

Just my five cents...

Re:That's not a source issue

[turbidostato]

"You can do all that on an iPhone too - you just jailbreak it"

Only there's no "just" on jailbreaking the iPhone but a really big deterrent.

How many people do you think you can get to jailbreak their phone even in your wetest dreams? One in ten thousands? Just for a comparation, how many people do you think that unlock their phones after their subsidizing contracts, a perfectly legal and safe practice only a bit obscured by the providers?

Re:That's not a source issue

[True Grit]

You can do all that on an iPhone too - you just jailbreak it

Thats an answer? Setting aside the legal (you're breaking the law) and technical (not easy for noobs to do) issues here, in this day and age, why in God's name should anyone have to *crack* their own damn *phone*?

Nokia's attempt to do this is too late

If Nokia was some unknown, or running in a distant third place, then maybe... except they're currently #1 in the market, so given their *current* position, how have you concluded at this early juncture that they're already 'too late'?

Even if they slip to #2 (or even #3) in the meantime while they get their software up-to-snuff, they've still got plenty of staying power due to their size and diversity. Geez, its not like they're on the verge of bankruptcy because of being a marginal player in the market or anything.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[FlyingBishop]

The closed source parts of Safari are just chrome, there's not any real reason to release them.

Apple contributes a ton to open source.

[SuperKendall]

Even they are not CONTRIBUTING to open source, more USING open source..

That is totally false.

They are a major contributor to webkit (the engine of Safari). They are a major contributor to GCC in the past, and now the LLVM project.

They also contribute back for all the other technologies you mentioned, and many more like launchd and now blocks/Grand Central.

Apple is one of the few companies to grasp the benefits of open source early, but the benefits are as much in contribution as they are in use - if you keep improvement's to yourself others cannot improve on them.

Re:Apple contributes a ton to open source.

[Qwavel]

> Apple is one of the few companies to grasp the benefits of open source early, but the benefits are as much in contribution as they are in use - if you keep improvement's to yourself others cannot improve on them.

Apple grasped the benefits of using open source early. They grasped the benefits of contributing to open source when they had no other choice because they were building on open source.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[ZarathustraDK]

If anyone disagrees, then name a single piece of open source software that is better than its closed source competition. You cannot, because open source means lower quality due to its inherent lack of focus.

VLC, suck it down troll.

Better title:

[caladine]

Nokia or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Open Source
Tell me I'm not the only one who thought of Dr. Strangelove when seeing the original title...

Re:Better title:

[binary paladin]

You're not. That was my first thought when I read the title.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[sopssa]

IE is bad example because its not really meant for power users. In my opinion Opera (closed source, free to use) is way ahead of Firefox. But taking that aside, browsers are actually where open source can get income easily, because Google keeps supporting them to have Google as the default search engine. Both Opera and Firefox are funded the same way (granted, Opera also has income from developing their browser to mobile phones and Wii and various other platforms - just this weekend I was in a hotel and the tv suddenly 'rebooted' and it displayed Powered by Opera logo on startup)

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[ClosedSource]

No, Microsoft is pretty smart about making money. Paying people to mod down a post on Slashdot that contains "M$" has no business case. There may be a lot of people on Slashdot who avoid using MS products but none of them do so because somebody replaced a "S" with a "$".

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[ClosedSource]

Eclipse is one of the best Java IDEs there is, but not so great for any other language. Perhaps the designers got distracted by the idea of creating a platform instead of making the best IDE.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[bberens]

I point you and GP to the litany of shareware out there on sites like CNet et. al. Just because you think MS Office is better than OpenOffice doesn't mean that there isn't a BOAT LOAD of bad closed source software out there.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[KillerBob]

He is a troll, but VLC has a *long* way to go in terms of UI and useability. I much prefer xine or mplayer in that respect, and with the codecs installed, I don't need to worry about not being able to play something. Actually, I haven't run into a file I can't play even with Windows Media Player 12 (the one with Windows 7), as it just goes off to the Internet and downloads codecs automatically when you try to play something it doesn't recognize. As long as the file's meta information is intact, I haven't run into a single media file it won't play... even DivX/XviD. Like VLC, it plays DVD, and unlike VLC, it also plays Blu-Ray.

If you want to name OSS that's better than its closed-source competition, then I'd suggest you point at things like Apache, PostgreSQL, MySQL (some versions are GPL'd), Firefox (realms better than MSIE, but its superiority to Opera is debateable), and offerings like Evolution.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[pushf popf]

If anyone disagrees, then name a single piece of open source software that is better than its closed source competition. You cannot, because open source means lower quality due to its inherent lack of focus.

Postfix.

A bad comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Huge majority of Google's profits come from Internet advertising, which has very little or nothing to do with Open Source. In fact, Google's whole business model largely depends on it closely guarding the search engine's algorithms.

Google has a lot of Open Source projects certainly and I'm not denying that but any such are - in the end - pretty much a sidetrack. "If we have a thousand nice, small projects some of them will hopefully eventually be profitable enough to justify the rest and perhaps even add a whole new sector to our income and others just manage to keep us in the headlines..." Then they opensource some of those projects and that's great.

But Open Source certainly has nothing at all to do with their core business (searching and advertising), quite the opposite.

Re:A bad comparison

[Chandon Seldon]

In fact, Google's whole business model largely depends on it closely guarding the search engine's algorithms.

Not really. What do you think would happen if they published their algorithms? Hint: Nothing. It's not 1999 where Google's results are drastically better than Webcrawler's or whatever. Everyone uses Google. Everyone would keep using Google if someone else popped up and said they had Google's algorithms and a much worse database of sites.

Hell, for all we know Cuil or Bing has the greatest algorithm ever. No one will ever know because they don't go there.

Re:A bad comparison

[Chris Burke]

Not really. What do you think would happen if they published their algorithms? Hint: Nothing. It's not 1999 where Google's results are drastically better than Webcrawler's or whatever.

And it's also not 1999, where their only source of advertising revenue was via ads displayed on the Google search engine or other associated services.

Google is currently the King Kong of online advertisement. They were already heading in that direction, and then they bought DoubleClick. The Google.com portal is just one source of revenue. Actually, now I'm wondering just how much... But even still, they have many more services now. Search is not the keystone of their business so much anymore.

Hell, for all we know Cuil or Bing has the greatest algorithm ever. No one will ever know because they don't go there.

What are those? I'll have to google them. :)

Re:A bad comparison

[WiseWeasel]

The reason Google can't publish their algorithms is due to the huge SEO market, and people continuously reverse-engineering and exploiting it, leading to Google throwing in a new twist, lather, rinse, repeat. Google's results would quickly become irrelevant if their algorithms were known. Competing search engines barely even register as a concern in this case.

Re:Content and Medium

[TaoPhoenix]

Watch out for books. Lemme give you an easier example. You might have hinted at the valid method though:

TypicalSong: Sells for $.18 which is carefully set to come out 5/dollar AFTER tax. Your "Typical Album" would then sell for $2 digital. This includes some minimum good quality aimed at being a better bargain than the torrents.

*DELUXE UPSELL*
Neat package of case/photos/special bonuses, etc. $8-28 or something depending on how fancy. No one is deluded here about copyright... that's just a raw reproduction cost.

Books are JUST coming into range.
TypicalBook: $2 Digital
NiceHardback = $22 more.

It's Accessories FTW, major.

If you think you can do better, then you'd become an ACCESSORIES VENDOR.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[SilverEyes]

I'll agree with PostgreSQL. I actually hate that software.

However, you mention the word "better". What non-OSS browser is better than FF? IE8, maybe, but that is fairly recent, and the revisions are only stirred by FF's rising prominence. Even then, most people regard it as "definitely not as good" (read: unbetterplus).

Apache and IIS each have their strong points. Apache is generally regarded as superior, but lacking some capability that IIS has (ASP pages?) - you may have me on this one, I don't know much about either.

What's wrong with VLC? VLC works way better than WMP or Media Center at remembering what point in a movie I was in if I resume my computer from sleep. And it doesn't freeze unexpectedly if I minimize it. And resizing doesn't cause skipping and lag. Maybe this improved in the new version, haven't watched any DVDs on my Windows 7 install yet.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Schmorgluck]

UI apart, of course. The usability area is something that definitively the community should focus more.

UI is one thing, but I think the main usability issue of the overwhelming majority of open source projects is the user documentation. Even though nowadays software engineers are often taught about documentation, and even though the community has broadened enough to have some skilled redactors that could contribute that way (if the devs did give a shit), many projects have no documentation worth mentioning.

And I think it's a more important concern than the UI, in most case. New users can be a bit confused by an UI that isn't like what they are used to, it won't be a big concern (at least not for long) if the application, and its UI, is properly documented

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[SilverEyes]

Curiosity: does WMP 12 actually resume from sleep properly, and not lag horribly when resizing or minimizing? I haven't tried it yet.

I'll have to disagree with everyone else. I really don't like PostgreSQL. But still closed source manages to do worse, I hate OpenRDA's SQL far, far, more.

!offtopic

[Hatta]

I usually don't complain about moderation, but come on. The parent was claiming that those who used open source software and didn't follow the license would be confronted by people who want to destroy them. I was merely pointing out that using proprietary software and failing to follow the license would get you a visit from the BSA and be much more likely to destroy your business.

Sorry if that was too subtle for you, but in an article about the suitability of open source software for business use a comparison to proprietary software is definitely on topic.

It's not the competitors that are the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I (GP) earn my living from SEO business. So our (a rather large group. Certainly many thousands, most likely tens of thousands of people worldwide) business idea is practically "You pay us a high sum of money and we make your site get better ranking in google, which will boost your profits by a huge margin".

This is pretty much walking on a thin line. Optimizing a client's site as much as possible without going too far (Overoptimizing may lead to penalties from Google)... The site must appear well made and natural to both users and Google while still being optimized as far as possible. Now, imagine we knew exactly how the search algorithms worked. That would lead to one of two options:

1) The algorithms are complex enough that SEO would stay as the craft of those who actively follow numerous blogs, message boards, etc. about the subject. Top results for practically *every* search term would be based on who pays the most.

2) The algorithms are simple enough that people make very good "Website Optimizers" based on them. Practically every site becomes optimized to the limit. This is done by the companies, the government, etc... The only thing that search rankings will depend on is how much high quality links are pointing towards the site.

I exaggerate only slightly. I can guarantee that the results you would get from Google would be vastly worse than now if their search algorithms were public. It's not the competitors they need to worry about.

(And for the record, I do think that Bing gives a lot worse results. If I would need to use something else than Google, I would instantly turn to Yahoo!)

Re:It's not the competitors that are the problem

[init100]

I can guarantee that the results you would get from Google would be vastly worse than now if their search algorithms were public.

I thought that their algorithms were patented, so their workings shouldn't be a secret (patents are public, after all). But of course, what they patent is one thing, and what they implement may be quite another matter. They could patent the foudation, but introduce (secret) nuances in the implementation to make your job difficult.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Tellarin]

I agree with you. This not even mentioning proprietary crap that is internal to specific companies.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[KillerBob]

honestly, I don't keep it open when I put that computer to sleep/hibernate. As for horrible lag when resizing/minimizing, I haven't noticed it. That doesn't mean that it won't do it, though... but my system is running the 64-bit version of the software, with 4GB of physical RAM, so it's a little bit out of the mainstream.

Re:sure

[gbjbaanb]

Not that many actually, most sell services, or hardware.

2009 list of top 10:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/snapshots/6388.html

Now sure things have changed in that list recently :) but AT&T at 29th is the closest to software in the list (Siemens at 30, and HP at 32 - all hardware companies). Microsoft is 117th.

So those companies that sell hardware or services do a lot better than those that predominately sell software and will continue to do so even in the recession (as companies typically hire more consultants to restructure, whereas software and associated hardware sales falter).

The companies founded to make a quick buck selling OSS have failed, but their business model was typically as flawed as the dotcom companies they superceded.

Reality is more wild than your dreams

[SuperKendall]

How many people do you think you can get to jailbreak their phone even in your wetest dreams? One in ten thousands?

Pinch media has real stats. Four million unique devices jailbroken, and those are the ones that allow Pinch Media connections. Cydia claims over a million using their store to some extent. What you miss is that a lot of people have other people jailbreak for them, if it's too hard...

There are around 50 million devices out there, you do the math. It's much better than "one in ten thousands".

how many people do you think that unlock their phones after their subsidizing contracts

I had a hard time parsing what you are trying to say, but I imagine it would be rather low. It's far easier to jailbreak than to talk to the phone company.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Tubal-Cain]

But, especially in more basic software (OS, deamons, compilers, ...), open source software tends to be better in the long term.

Funny, when the GCC is brought up Slashdot frequently gives me the impression that MS's and Intel's compilers are clearly superior.

Nokia? Openness? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why there are closed components in Maemo? Why DRM is included in the upcoming Maemo 6?

Re:Janis Joplin said it best...

[Miner Willy]

Maybe so, but nothing don't mean nothing honey if it ain't free.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[gzipped_tar]

Bad documentation reflects bad design in some way. High-quality design are easy to explain. Fucked-up design (read: utter failure) are hard to put into good documentation.

Your fallback is bullshit too

[SuperKendall]

They have been contributing to every OS project they pulled in from day 1. They contribute for exactly the reason I said - force multiplier, when you contribute work other people can build on top of it. You don't even have to attribute any goodwill whatsoever to see the logic (and I know irrational Haters such as you can never see an ounce of that), it's simply a smart ROI to do so.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Kotten]

Eclipse is in my opinion far nicer environment than VisualStudio for C/C++ development. It has some quirks and visualstudio has some quirks but when sitting and coding eclipse is superior.

My favourites:

• Ctrl-tab to switch between header and cpp-file
• Formating of whole document
• Creating folders and storing the new classes there (visual studio i putting all sourcefiles in root catalogue)
• Automatic build
• Better indexer (intellisense). Not showing pages of alternatives that can't be used
• Indenting and auto expansion works as I want.

C++ Debugger in VisualStudio is better when showing values in classes.

There probably is a better C++ IDE than eclipse but it is not VisualStudio

Re:sure

[nomadic]

Good point, but profitable isn't necessarily synonymous with large. I would count Microsoft, for example, a much more profitable company historically than say, Enron...

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[ClosedSource]

Perhaps Eclipse has improved in the last few years but when I used it last for C++ it couldn't even bring you to the definition of a function.

Re:sure

[gbjbaanb]

ok.

Even on Most Profitable, MS is 7th. Still not many other software companies in that list either.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/performers/companies/profits/

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Kotten]

I have used it a little more than a year so I have no clue of how it was before, try it again you might like it.

Some people say netbeans is a great C++ IDE and Anjuta is starting to get really nice also but it is putting all source in the same place exactly like VisualStudio.

Tested in court?

[Brandybuck]

The GPL has been tested in court? I must have missed this one. I know of disputes that were settled out of court, but I am not aware of any court directly ruling on the GPL. Has the GPL been tested **IN** court? Please provide some references.

Re:Tested in court?

[True Grit]

The GPL has been tested in court? I must have missed this one.

No, actually you missed all of them.

In the US: http://www.fsf.org/news/wallace-vs-fsf

In Germany: http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/57353

In France: http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/09/big-win-for-gnu-gpl-in-france.html

Just google 'GPL tested court' for more links (there are older cases that got in front of a judge too)...

Open PC-Suite anyone?

[keesto]

Now only if Nokia would release PC-Suite under GPL, or at least some kind of SDK for OSPhone software. Don't really care whether the software running on my phone is FOSS or not. However the horrible PC-Suite would probably be vastly improved if open source community could put their hands on it. PC-Suite sucks ass big time, which is news to no-one.