An idea of local device program (LDP) has been lurking in my mind for at least 5 months now. Actions to enable ‘hacker lounge’ kind of activity in Tampere New Factory were initiated already  months ago. The aftershock of 2/11 did have an affect on this too. Things have been a bit like hanging in the air. We did receive devices from Nokia already, but those devices are not part of hacker/developer activity now. The devices are either in a box or in the hands of end-users for ‘testing’. Reason for that is simple. There has not been anyone pushing this kind of efforts, no one has been named to be responsible for this, neither has anyone claimed the ownership (as it goes in Open Source) of this project. That needs to change. I’m willing to build this local device program and see how it could run. Perhaps if it a success, perhaps not. Whatever the result is, experience would extend our knowledge about organizing such activities locally. If it would be a success, the model could be replicated around the world. One thing is sure though. We need support from local companies and device vendors, either monetary or hardware.

Purpose

LDP is related to our (Finnish) other efforts to change or renew MeeGo activities described in my previous blog entry about Local Development Ecosystem.The need for LDP has not gone away. On the contrary, more and more often I hear developers (working on different platforms such as MeeGo, Android, WebOS, iOS) desperately crying out for devices for development and testing. The MeeGo project has global device program described in wiki.meego.com and in Randall’s email. LDP extends that program by adding another way for developers to get their hands on devices. In other words, intention is not to replace MeeGo project global efforts, but create an option with lightweight bureaucracy which operates only locally. IMO such programs (meego global device program and LDP) will become more and more important in the near future, when (hopefully) multiple vendors push MeeGo devices into markets. In brief, I wish to build activity around projects, which involves devices. Hacking without devices is like hmmm….making pizza without dough, messy and fun but without meaningful results.

Scope

LDP is not just about MeeGo. I wish to extend device program to include also other operating systems. MeeGo Networks will still remain focused on MeeGo, but we don’t spit on developer who wishes to do some exploration related to some other operating systems too. Narrowing scope or tying developers hands to so called ‘meego devices’ (what ever those might be) or to limit options in search for inspiration and ideas would be against the spirit of Open Source. The less limitations, the more options. If a developer is willing to discover strengths and weaknesses of for example another great Linux based OS and share that knowledge to others, who are we to say no? I’m hacker and a little bit anarchist by nature, and I resist artificial boundaries which are build on trademarks and such. I admit that some rules must be obeyed, but that’s another issue. That’s easy for me to say, since I have no ties to any corporation. I wish to keep our local networks too as independent as possible. Same applies to hardware. Intention is to get wide variety of different devices to hack, not just those which have been tested with MeeGo. I’d love to see experiments on hardware, which might at first seem nearly impossible to run MeeGo and eventually find a way to go around. Another great thing would be building devices by our selves. I know that would require possibly a little more efforts, but hey, people in hackerspaces do that all the time too. Open Source and hacking culture is not about bureaucracy and restrictions, it’s about breaking the boundaries and most important about freedom. Freedom to explore, participate, contribute and incremental development.

Process in a nutshell

Below is another ugly process diagram. A few words about that.

Developer contacts local MeeGo network (organizer) and briefly introduces project idea and need for devices. This is not supposed to be heavy document or full blown project description, but a simple form in meegonetwork.fi community portal.  Then developer signs loan agreement, which is by the way already defined and tested in New Factory activities. In other words, that part is ready in Tampere context. Devices are stored in New Factory facilities, where MNFI has lockable storages. Different vendors are encouraged to donate devices, hardware, components and even money which will be used for buying equipment and other needed items. Device loan time will be rather long (for example 6 months). Then developer uses the device(s) in Open Source project. Intention is also to extend projects to include open hardware related activities, which enables new device innovations. Projects will produce multiple outputs, which benefits whole ecosystem including device vendors, OS and application development and community.

Status and future

I and some other members (Jukka and Matti) of MeeGo Network Finland did have unofficials discussion about LDP with various people in the Meego Conference 2011 in San Francisco. The initial response was good and inspiring. Support for this kind of efforts was given. Agreement about testing LDP concept in Tampere was also agreed, again unofficially and behind the curtains. This program is not official part of MeeGo project, at least not yet. In the following weeks, I will start pushing LDP forward. This is call for action and that includes you.

MeeGo Summit FI 2011 was held at Finlayson area Tampere. Keynotes were at Plevna movie theater and rest of the program - three tracks, MeeGathon competition and Intel AppUp at New Factory. Friday evening party was at Gloria restaurant, which is well-known for cougars and table-dancing opportunities ;)

This Summit was possible because we have a very active MeeGo community in Finland (MNFI) which includes nearly 300 members. Big thanks goes to Hermia, COSS and other partners and sponsors as well. On Friday we handed out 259 badges. Some appeared to venue only on Saturday. Still over 100 did not come, which is bad and good. Bad because a lot of those who really wanted to come were left out (there was over 140 still queuing). Good, because the venue was not too crowded.

Overall impression that I have is that both sponsors and attendees were happy and enjoyed the Summit. Add your opinion as comment to this blog. Some verbal feedback was even flattering. Unfortunately I did not have time to follow sessions due to several responsibilities. Fortunately all sessions were recorded, so I will have a chance to look those after Summit. Those videos and session slides will be put available to summit.meegonetwork.fi as soon as possible. Pictures from Summit can be found from Flickr (search for meegofi).

People were quit eager to tweet about Summit since I counted over 500 tweets referring to Summit (hashtag #meegofi). Some blogs wrote about Summit too, for example MeeGoExperts.com. Our event IRC channel, #meego-summit-fi, had over 70 participants. Normal community channel (#meego-fi) was reserved for organizers during the summit. Even local radio “Radio 957″ had two news about the Summit in their website. Local newspaper did call me couple of times during the Summit, but I did not have time to see if Summit ever was mentioned in Aamulehti(.fi).

Some web stats:

It is not a surprise that program was most popular just after web root. A positive surprise is that visitors do check out sponsors too.

I don’t have the world map indicating browser origin before the summit, but I remember that just before the summit (about 2 weeks or so), just US, Germany, Britain and some other countries were included as origin. After the Summit, visibility is global.

Some tweets:

Feedback from participants

We are gathering written feedback from the Summit participants and deadline for that is 30th Apr. I have taken a preliminary look at the feedback (19th Apr) and below are some parts of it. Feedback form includes 5 selection questions and two free-form fields (topics were: Improvement ideas, Additional feedback). Citations below are from those free-form questions. The amount (N) of respondents was at this moment 64.

Overall impression

Nearly half of the respondents graded overall impression as ‘great’. Slightly under 1/3 felt that event was at least satisfactory and same amount saw it as ‘excellent’. One feedback sums this pretty good: “Venues used could be a little more convenient in general, but overall, you guys did a great job making sure everything clicks from day one.”

Program

Nearly half considered Summit program great. Nearly as many felt that program was satisfactory. 5% were possibly slightly disappointed. The numbers/opinions looks good since program is often the most criticized part of any summit/conference. Some participants did not see any need for long breaks between sessions: “A 45 minutes break between each and every session was maybe a bit overkill and extended the event late into the evening“. Some considered long breaks good. Opinions about facilities divided too. Some saw that “Seminars were nicely spaced so there was also plenty of time for networking and stand-browsing, which is important.”

The content was too shallow to some participants. Some would have liked to  ”see more in-depth presentations, since there definitely were a lot of very competent people who could’ve shared some of their wisdom.” “More technical and detailed presentations“. Of course these comments represent part of the participants view. Those who were happy did not give feedback and say “Ok, content was technical enough“. Nevertheless, we will take this under consideration when planning the next MeeGo Summit FI.

One great idea found in feedback was demo corner: “demo corner for participants to show off hw hacks or apps they have developed“. This was partly the idea of Hacking space at 4th floor, but it could have been emphasized a lot more.

Summit program was packed with different topics from mobile development and OBS to IVI and embedded solutions. Intel’s AppUp was the last part of official program. More than 190 developers gathered to 4th floor to learn about application development with Intel’s tools. After the session participants (190 lucky ones who had registered on time) were directed to hacking space where they received ExoPCs. This device was given for 3 three year loan, after which…well you know :) The smile I saw on people’s faces made me almost cry. My hacker heart was very pleased. Hopefully most of them will register to AppUp developer program, join our organization (meego-fi) in developer program and publish a lot of new kewl apps! That would make another AppUp in Finland more than likely.

Location & premises

Most of the participants were happy with location and premises. Most of the critique was about the arrangements on the 4th floor: “The North and South halls were too close to each other, and the presentations disturbed each other somewhat.” There were two tracks in one big hall. The tracks were separated only with curtain and that did not obviously stop the sounds coming from one track to the other. This is something that can be said to be sort of failure, but that was the best we could do with the given opportunities. Perhaps the best comment was related to weather: “Wish really hard for even better weather next time round.” We should move Finland to better location…that would need a few more sponsors though :)

And what about next Summit?

We did not fail with this Summit, instead we exceeded the expectations of several participants. This two-day Summit is in my opinion a good example (if not reference) for others to follow. I guess it would make sense to arrange Summit again 2012. If you would like to see that happen, join Meego Network Finland (more info #meego-fi) or support us otherwise for example by blogging and tweeting about us.

Oh! Don’t forget to join our organization at Intel AppUp Developer program. Our organization is (for the sake of consistency, dm8tbr loves this;) ) meego-fi and we have over 30 developers already.

Most of people working with or around MeeGo should be aware of the decisions Nokia announced Friday 11th Feb 2011. In brief, Nokia announced that the new strategy includes “a broad strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a new global mobile ecosystem; Windows Phone would serve as Nokia’s primary smartphone platform.” According to Nokia (Elop) this does not however exclude participation in MeeGo development, “MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year [2011]“. After a week there is no detailed information what this means for Nokia people working with MeeGo. At least some have continued with MeeGo, some not. In my eyes, this item is just a bump on the MeeGo road, a bump which was needed. Why?

Bumps are needed.

Personally I needed this bump, but perhaps the global community needed it too. It has been rather hectic during the last few months. It gave me time to evaluate our efforts and take a breath. It also forced me and perhaps others too to reconsider the role of MeeGo community. By community I refer to all who participate in MeeGo development including paid staff and volunteers. Bumps are rarely pleasant, but often needed to get new angle to issues at hand. The amount of uncertainty what is going to happen to a lof of developers and MeeGo, was probably the biggest issue to raise unpleasant feelings. For the community, bumps like this one, are tests to processes and ability to react to different changes that occur without any warnings. Healthy community is ready for such bumps and has created tools and methods to overcome problems and challenges to continue forward. The worst thing community can do in such situations, is to sit and wait. Ok, even worse is to look back and fall into self pity. Wait for what? Salvation from outside? It might come or not.  Silent revolution is on! Redistribution of power is on! There will be no big guns blasting and people on the streets. The longer community is without clear direction, the more people get frustrated and start to flee,  search other projects and areas to contribute. Community needs to react, not wait, and it has. During this week, two things happened: Community responded and Intel took the lead.

Intel took the lead…

Intel has been the other partner in developing MeeGo with Nokia. Now that Nokia decided to go with M$, Intel took the pole position. Nokia has not been able to tell community what it is going to do with MeeGo. They say things like participation with “significant amount” of resources. That’s good, but how long is the community supposed to wait for something concrete? This shift in lead was visible in Intel’s efforts during this week. Intel has thrown all-in.

Intel has mobilized own activities and dragged several others to engage too. The moment for shifting to bigger gear was right and the place for it was Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona. In MWC and around the world several news, announcements and technology demos have been related to MeeGo. Here’s a few:

1. Intel began to push AppUp developer program more aggressively (competitions and free of charge membership in developer program). MeeGo Network Finland is there too as ‘meego-fi’ organization with nearly 20 members.
2. Intel’s MeeGo AppLab at MWC. More Intel MWC
3. MeeGo TV (preview) was introduced (youtube)
4. Splashtop Releases MeeGo-Based Splashtop OS for OEMs
5. Intel introduced their view on MeeGo tablet UX (Odd is that sources are not contributed to community, hopefully changes soon)
6. Fujitsu introduces its First MeeGo™-Based Netbook in Asia Pacific
7. MeeGo Tablet UX on WeTab / ExoPC (youtube)
8. NPad MeeGo-powered tablet to combat the iPad in China this fall

In MeeGo Network Finland

In our community (MNFI), scale of feelings has been broad. In general people have been quite peaceful. Under the surface some of the hardcore FOSS people have perhaps felt somewhat disappointed. At least I did and still do. To me this bump was also a kick in the teeth, giving the finger to FOSS. This kick did not drop me to floor. Instead it raised fighting spirit. Some others have felt the same. People see future in Open Source, not in grasping to closed source solutions. I must admit that I’m biased, since I love Open Source and hacker culture. Both of which hardly ever include loving feelings towards closed source solutions favoring corporations. The image on the left represents just my own ideology, not everyone in our community.

Bumps and MeeGo Summit FI

Summit was on hold for a week or so. We were waiting for the dust to settle and give some time for the sponsors to regroup their forces. This was most unpleasant time for me. Now situation looks more bright. At this moment we proceed as planned. I did push the people responsible for the sponsoring to do something, but they told me to wait. And so I did :) A few speakers might be cancelling thei participation, but that can be overcome rather easily. We haven’t asked the speakers yet whether they are coming or not. Instead, some of them have approached me (such as Kate Alhola, Carsten Munk and Jan Krebber) and informed that they will come. Biggest loss is that Thiago Macieira cancelled his participation, but that was due to personal reasons and had nothing to do with the events described above. Intel and some other sponsors have already confirmed to stay with us. Intel has confirmed to sponsor Meegathon competetion. In addition to some hardware prizes Intel “is thinking about a special prize for the Meegathon – and will come back to that later”. It looks that if big setbacks do not occur, we will have the summit as planned. Interest towards the summit is still huge. People are signing to queue for cancellation seats. In brief, regarding the summit, nothing new in the Western Front.