Re: Talk for OSiM Asia

[Paul Cooper <pgc linux intel com>]

On Thu, 2008-11-06 at 12:04 +0200, Luc Pionchon wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Wed, 2008-11-05 at 16:25 -0700, ext Stormy Peters wrote:
> > I have a speaking slot at OSiM Asia 2009 in May in Hong Kong.
> > 
> > They want a title with some bullets for the brochure now.
> > 
> > Here's what I'm proposing:
> > 
> > GNOME Mobile: Open source enabling collaboration and faster time to
> > market.
> > 
> > - How existing desktop technologies can provide fundamental building
> > blocks for mobile technologies.
> > - How organizations can collaborate and still compete.
> > - How the mobile industry and the open source community can work
> > together.
> 
> All very important points!
> 
> 
> About the title,
> 
> Isn't "faster time to market" a bit too catchy? Each new technology
> brings "faster time to market" since years, does it still have any
> sense? Also the points do not really cover a potential time benefit.

Agreed that "faster time to market" is a bit of cliche, but there is a
nugget of truth to that story. Jenny Minor of Vernier spoke at OSCON
about how the Labquest device went from idea on a napkin to shipping
device in 18 months and building on GM was a big reason why.

Which brings us to another point - when we talk about GNOME Mobile it's
important to distinguish that we aren't talking only about mobile
phones, GM is used in a huge variety of devices - pretty much any
consumer device with a UI is a potential target.

> There is certainly a win in sharing R&D and maintenance efforts for
> common blocks, on the other hand having a public and collaborative
> process has a cost too. Also common blocks are just a part of a product
> creation, a significant amount of time is spent on formalising needs,
> putting pieces together and later polishing. From another angle, as a
> manufacturer, if I buy a Windows mobile license (for example), how GNOME
> Mobile is faster?

That's an apples to oranges comparison - GM is the upstream project
rather than the end product. There are a whole bunch of downstream OSV's
that use GM in their product, e.g. ALP, and Ubuntu Mobile, and other
projects which use GM such as Poky and Moblin which have their own
downstream OSVs/OEMs.

But perhaps instead of faster time to market, something to consider what
kind of developer / situation is GM suited? If you just want to created
some hw cheaply and OEM an OS and sell a generic commodity on price,
then perhaps Winmo is the answer. But if we look at how people are
actually using GM (or any Linux solution), usually they're investing in
creating something unique. Nokia/Maemo, Access, Vernier, OLPC, OpenMoko,
Asus, Acer, MSI, HP, Dell, ... none of them are just OEM'ing a solution,
they're all spending time and effort creating a unique experience, and
they can do that because of the flexibility of the GM stack, but most of
all because it's a open, shared, community resource. Or to use Doc
Searls' acronym : NEA, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEA_(internet)

> It is unclear to me that the differentiation is on the time to market.
> 
> I would emphasis more on the collaboration on common building blocks
> (which is what your bullet points are about), the shared maintenance
> burden, and/or the fun to collaborate with the GNOME people, a lively
> skillful community.

Agreed,

Paul

> But after all, maybe that's what the OSiM audience wants to hear.
> 
> 
> Luc
> 
> 
> > 
> > 
> > Comments welcome.
> > 
> > Stormy
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > mobile-devel-list mailing list
> > mobile-devel-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-devel-list
> 
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