(Some?) 3G support for Linux from Nokia - relevant for future models?

Lorn Potter lpotter at trolltech.com
Thu Sep 18 02:14:36 CEST 2008


Mikko Rauhala wrote:
> to, 2008-09-18 kello 05:45 +1000, Lorn Potter kirjoitti:
>> Mikko Rauhala wrote:
>>> Personally I'll be loathe to buy Nokia products anyway, they're just way
>>> too inconsistent with their policies and have no commitment to free
>>> software whatsoever.
>> I would beg to differ. Trolltech is now part of Nokia, Qt and Qtopia 
>> certainly are open source and I can tell you for certain, we are 
>> committed to keeping them open source.
> 
> Sure Nokia has some products which happen to be free software. That
> doesn't make them committed to free software, what with being eg.
> hostile to free formats,
IANAL, but... (nor am I a spokesperson for Nokia)
Nokia's position is that here are no 'free' codecs. _Everything_ has patents surrounding it.
According to Nokia's attorneys, ogg/vorbis is encumbered by patents as well, regardless of what Xiph 
says about it. Nokia does not want to chance getting sued over patents, they are _very_ costly. They 
have very deep pockets.
It's not just Nokia, it's other phone manufactures and mostly phone operators.

> a strong opponent of independent software

Have you seen forum.nokia.com? or maemo.org? Know about 'Qt Everywhere'?

> development in general through their patent lobby, very much clueless in
> top level press comments about these subjects, 
> and in general not being
> very consistent in what they're up to in this area.

Nokia employs thousands of _individuals_, we are not borg, nor do we all think and act the same.

> 
>> Maemo is quite good. That is pure Nokia. Qt and Qtopia are good, that is 
>> now from Nokia...
> 
> The tablet OS has significant proprietary portions, both third party and
> in-house - the latter having insiders commenting that it's difficult
> (when at all possible) to get the go-ahead to free the code properly.
> Not to mention the target hardware platform pretty much requires binary
> blob kernel code and such (last I checked anyway).
> 
> Not meaning to start a Nokia flamefest here, it was originally just a
> side comment, but since we have a (paid) on-list representative here,
> apparently a reminder of the other side of the coin is in order.

Not sure if you are aware, but I have my roots from within the community, was the community manager 
for a few years and I am very aware of the community side of things. I am a fence sitter. It is part 
of my job to see both sides.
I have done my share of complaining about Nokia's software patents (directly to the Finns too!), the 
closed-ness of maemo and (for a year or so) Qtopia.

Change _will_ happen. But it will happen slowly.


-- 
Lorn 'ljp' Potter
Software Engineer, Systems Group, Trolltech, a Nokia company





More information about the community mailing list