Guest post by Several presentations about mobile Linux technologies, such as Mer, Nemo, and Jolla. Mer is openly developed and meritocratically governed mobile Linux core distribution, which was forked from the various components of the Meego project when it was abandoned by Nokia and Intel. Nemo is a community project which continues the effort of the Meego handset branch. And Jolla is a new startup company created by former Nokia Linux engineers, who participated in Maemo and Harmattan projects, and decided to continue on their own, when Nokia lost their interest in Meego. Their goal is to release end user products (initially handsets) using an operating system based on the Mer core and some components of Nemo, which will be providing their own user interface.
Will MeeGo API using software made for Jolla handsets work unchanged on N9? Can anybody answer?
Surely they will use Qt5 so I don´t think so.
Are you sure? Qt5 beta has just been released. I wonder how they are going to manage to get a device out before 2013 if they have to use it. I should think they need a completely stable API for third party programmers, too, but I don’t know anything about how they’re working, so I hope facts will prove me wrong.
“As soon as something is stable, we will use it” says Stefano Mosconi in the video. But right now, they use Qt4.
From the presentation it’s clear that they’ll initially use Qt 4, since Qt 5 is still in beta.
Edited 2012-09-10 15:40 UTC
Can QT5 runtime be installed on Harmattan?
Edited 2012-09-11 07:20 UTC
Not yet, but work is being done as we speak to get Qt5 on Harmattan. Thankfully, it’s not me doing that work \o/
Probably not, depending on the build architecture. If they use ARMv7l (softp) – it won’t work on Harmattan which uses ARMv7hl (hardfp) without being recompiled. Otherwise it’ll depend on libraries compatibility, and Mer is in general using newer libraries than Harmattan.
Edited 2012-09-10 15:45 UTC
That would suck royally. N9 will still be the device with biggest installed base (incl. China) in the comming (critical) months.
If they want to build a platform they shouldn’t ignore that.
Anyway, hope hackers will find a way to make it compatible. It’s 1G of ram should make it quite future proof.
Not really, since in most cases porting would involve minimal effort (unless application used something really too Harmattan specific).
Harmattan is a dead platform with no future (even with the installed base), so I don’t think Jolla needs to worry about such kind of binary compatibility. Similar set of APIs is more than enough, and most developers who made something for Harmattan are already naturally interested in Jolla as a way forward.
I’d rather expect Nemo to mature enough to be used on N9 (it already can be used there, except that it’s not really ready for the everyday use).
Edited 2012-09-11 07:41 UTC
Porting always include testing. And that alone makes it far from minimal.
Some companies rushed their app efforts (treating Meego as a major contender) before Feb11 and published their apps anyway. They won’t be comming back any time soon. Loosing those apps would be a downer.
Trying to run a binary “as is” on another platform will for sure require testing, no matter what claims could be made about compatibility. Loosing untested half cooked applications is not a big loss. We don’t need a mess of a system in result.
Edited 2012-09-12 19:30 UTC
Slightly OT: I for one hope they tie a partnership with Nokia for their Maps – I’d find it a great feature for Jolla phones and the one I’d miss the most if I switched from Nokia.
Would Google Maps work as an integration target? I haven’t looked, but I have been under the impression that their web APIs are open.
Neither do I know, but it makes a lot of sense.
I was asking just because I am particularly fond of the offline maps and driving guidance, as they grant a much longer battery life and multiple times they have allowed me to save precious pennies when roaming as opposed to online solutions.
In my opinion Google Maps caching is still very limited compared to the possibility of choosing and downloading entire nations from your home DSL connection and permanently storing them on your smartphone.
Anyway, if losing offline maps is the price of freedom, I think I’m willing to pay.
[EDIT: corrected one of many typos]
Edited 2012-09-11 22:29 UTC