Re: Goal for GNOME Mobile?

["Stormy Peters" <stormy gnome org>]

I'm saying that we need a vision for ourselves, not a marketing plan. (Although I will tell everybody what the vision is. :) So it doesn't need to be grand or over-reaching but it has to be tangible. Something we can imagine and aim for. 

Stormy

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Dave Neary <dneary gnome org> wrote:

Hi,

Stormy Peters wrote:
>     What's missing? The clearly enunciated set of mobile specific features
>     and goals. Stormy, is that what you were getting at?
>
> I think we are missing a vision. What will GNOME Mobile be? What's our
> dream for it? And then what are a couple of specific goals, short term
> ones as well as the big goal/vision that will get us there.
>
> A set of technologies that people pick and choose from isn't a vision. A
> set of technologies that enable a complete open source solution on all
> mobile devices/chipsets, enabling mobile vendors to customize the
> software to meet their customer needs while at the same time providing a
> standard platform for application developers ... hmm, I'm getting a bit
> wordy. But my point is that we need a vision for GNOME Mobile that is
> more than just "some technologies that lots of vendors happen to use
> some of."

I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure I agree.

I don't think that GNOME Mobile needs to be grand and over-reaching to
be useful. I think we need to be like electricity - we're there, all the
time, and no-one really knows how.

People will use GNOME Mobile to build great products, but GNOME Mobile
won't be the product. As you say, we will Enable, rather than Create.

My version of the vision would be "GNOME Mobile: the foundations of your
mobile software platform"

My point before was that right now, we'renot the only foundation in
town, and if there are issues with the foundations, we need to know
about them and fix them. Otherwise we risk seeing substantial rising
damp, subsidence, and God forbid if an earthquake hits.

OK - maybe I'm taking the analogy too far...

Cheers,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org