Re: opieII

Dmitriy Korovkin wrote:
> Hi Lorn,
> I'm fully agree with Paul. If you think that just a fact that Trolltech 
> released Qtopia 4 will bring all the developers back to work on OPIE 
> you're happy, keep doing this, I wish you good luck.
>  From my point I can say that I don't dream every night to get a job at 
> Trolltech - my wish is slightly different: I want my PDA running Linux, 
> but not to show it to girls (I'm happily married for >10 years) but to 
> have more than Windoze might give me. Let's take a look at the current 
> situation: are there applications for OPIE? Yes, there is a bunch of it 
> at http://www.handheld-linux.com/swi/index.php. They may be good or not 
> so good -- I can write C/C++, so I can make them work for me. Are there 
> applications for GPE? People say "No, but you can port gtk application 
> with no problem." I haven't tried it myself - I rely on other people words.
> Are there apps for Qtopia 4? YESSSS! 
> http://www.qtopia.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=2
> Have fun!!!

Opie would not be alive if not for Qtopia. In the beginning, there were 
no other apps for Qtopia 1, other than Qtopia itself. Until people 
started writing them for devices they could easily buy.



> But a man like me says "If these are all,  I'd better stay away".

heh- those apps are only example apps i ported from qt examples and a 
few I wrote myself. One person. ~10 apps. a few weeks, not full time 
working on them.

Qtopia 4/ OpieII is so much better to write apps for. It's also heaps 
easier to integrate new devices. Although it's not perfect, it is better 
than Qtopia 1-2/Opie as far as development/API is concerned.

> So, my position is simple -- if I see that there is a life in this OPIE 
> II -- not in mailing lists, irc etc, but in a code repository, I'll 
> think of doing something for it. But earlier - no-no, OPIE is not so 
> coooool, progressive exciting, etc, but is simply works and does what I 
> want it to do.
> Good luck,

Fair enough. Jump on when you can!


> 
> Dmitriy
> 
> 
> 
> Lorn Potter wrote:
>>
>>
>> Paul Sokolovsky wrote:
>>
>>>   I take your word for it - that just basing on newer version of
>>> qte/qtopia would bring all the core developers back, and specifically
>>> quick enough for OPIE (old OPIE) to become obsolete.
>>
>> According to many, Opie is already obsolete.
>>
>>
>>>>> start, having vague feature requirements, and barely any working code.
>>>
>>>> This is nothing new to Opie. Its always been vague feature 
>>>> requirements.
>>>
>>>   Been, but no more. OPIE is defined by software which is part of it
>>> (i.e. for me OPIE is not just GUI libs, but the whole application
>>> environment). And you want to shake just the base of it, requiring apps
>>> to be rewritten (though I still if it was more of rhetorical figure,
>>> that's why I keep mentioning it again and again).
>>
>> Yes, things will have to get rewritten. That's why many have waited 
>> for Qtopia 4, so we don't have to do the majority of the rewrite - TT 
>> does.
>>
>>
>>>> This is not a commercial endevour, and so we have no strict 
>>>> requirements, roadmaps, detailed project status meeting, or anything 
>>>> like that. Most of the work has been done as someone thinks of it 
>>>> and core developers reach consensus. After all, we are all 
>>>> volunteers and do
>>>> this as a hobby.
>>>
>>>   Wonderful. But let me try to argue to you that companies do all
>>> those funky things not because they are "commercial endevours" and
>>> just love to do something funky, but because they work in competitive
>>> environment and must understand competitors's strength and figure out
>>> what they will do to fit or, better, outstrip it, and plus actually hold
>>> a grip on doing that.
>>>
>>>   And believe me or not, but current situation in PDA open-source
>>> realm is not the same as it was when OPIE conceived. After all, now
>>> there *are* OPIE and GPE. 
>>
>> Actually, GPE or some incarnation of it, has been around longer than 
>> Opie.
>>
>>
>>> So, anything new will need to compete for
>>> developers' attention (I don't mention users here because it is so
>>> slim that users will, and have to eat, whatever developers feed them
>>> ;-) ).
>>
>> I am not worried about attracting devs from GPE. the split is 
>> religious c vs.c++ and X11 vs. Framebuffer. :)
>>
>> What I am trying to do, is build interest and momentum for this new 
>> OpieII thing we will soon have - both developers as well as users.
>>
>>
>>>   Of course, I already got the answer to this concern too - as soon as
>>> qtopia will be gone GPL, all the older OPIE developers will start to
>>> work on OPIE2, so there's no need to draw new developers who may not
>>> understand what's so cool about qtopia 4.
>>>
>>>> Opie's roadmap is determined, in part, by Qtopia's roadmap. It would be
>>>> good if we can leverage the 40 some developers now working on Qtopia as
>>>> our own developers, and continue to apply TT's patches. Think of Opie v
>>>> 2/4 as Qtopia++.
>>>
>>>   Good ;-). I guess TT finally got a hint! ;-) (Thanks for that.)
>>
>> TT has always 'got the hint'. TT was one of the first companies to 
>> release code as GPL. We even hire many people from the community... 
>> like me! (and we are quite actively still hiring.. any takers?? - 
>> sunny semi-tropical Brisbane Australia!!) It's just that up until now, 
>> TT has not been able to release Qtopia 4 as GPL. TT is a business 
>> first and foremost, and commercial sales drive development so we can 
>> then release open source code when the time is right.
>>
>>
>>>>> Because OPIE is not like that - it's UI framework in production state
>>>>> for many yes, suitable for immediate use. And most people won't notice
>>>>> difference in case. (But hopefully trained enough to known that X and
>>>>> X2 may be pretty different things.)
>>>
>>>> Then they can still use the qtopia 1 based Opie. and I recommend 
>>>> they use that until Opie version (2 or 4) is ready.
>>>
>>>
>>>   Perfect! That's what I will tell users if they dare to ask, and
>>> if they will keep daring more, I will refer them to you ;-).
>>
>> :)
>>
>>
>>
> 

-- 
Lorn 'ljp' Potter
Trolltech Qtopia Community Manager
Opie Core Developer
http://qtopia.net
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