Re: Summary of GNOME Mobile session in SF?

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi,

Did anyone have anything to add/take away from/modify in Nils's notes?

We need volunteers to work with Ross to update the architecture diagram, 
to add some examples & descriptions of GNOME Mobile based platforms to 
the website, and to write some short notes on the various components. 
Anyone have some time over the next couple of weeks?

The module proposal period for GNOME is also open now - it makes sense 
to extend this proposal period to GNOME Mobile, so if there are modules 
you would like to propose for inclusion in the next version of the GNOME 
Mobile platform, now is a good time to shout, and we'll debate inclusion 
here.

Cheers,
Dave.

Nils Faerber wrote:
> Hello all!
> It has been several weeks after the SFO meeting of the Gnome/mobile
> group and high time to post a summary.
> So, here we go:
>
> 1. Review Of Last Year's Activities / New Developments
>
>  - Gnome/mobile sourcecode releases are part of Gnome releases now:
> 	http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/mobile/
>    According to plan, September '08 2.24 introducing gio/gvfs as part of
>    new glib, March '09 2.26 and as of this writing V2.27.2.
>    Release manager for the Gnome/mobile part(s) is Ross Burton
>    from OpenedHand.
>
>  - Intel strengthened the Moblin team by acquiring OpenedHand,
>    Clutter now becomes an integral part of Moblin:
>    http://moblin.org/
>
>  - Nokia/Maemo has released a first version of their new software
>    suite codename "Freemantle", currently only SDKs and emulator
>    environments are available, a device is yet to come (which will
>    at least have 3G data connectivity)
>    http://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Maemo_roadmap/Fremantle
>
>  - A GTK+ 3.0 roadmap has been drafted
>      http://testbit.eu/~timj/blogstuff/GtkRoadmap3Draft2.html
>    and work has started
>      http://live.gnome.org/GTK+/3.0/Tasks
>
>  The Gnome/mobile group has consensus about the necessity to extend GTK+
>  in a way to enable rich UIs within GTK+ as this is a top demand by
>  almost all consumers of Gnome technologies, especially in mobile.
>
>  - Canonical has announced a specialised Ubuntu distro for netbook style
>    devices, called "Ubuntu Netbook Remix", which is also based on
>    developments by the Moblin project:
>    http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/unr
>
> - LiMo has released their first set of API specifications
>     http://www.limofoundation.com/
>   As of this writing on June 2nd '09 R2 has been announced.
>
> 2. New Technologies To Be Considered
>
>  - GeoClue - Formerly under the Hood of Gnome, moved to Freedesktop.org:
>    http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/GeoClue
>    Quote from their homepage:
> 	"Geoclue is a modular geoinformation service built on top of the
> 	 D-Bus messaging system. The goal of the Geoclue project is to
> 	 make creating location-aware applications as simple as
> 	 possible."
>    Should be considered to become part of Gnome/mobile since geo-aware
>    application become more and more important (location based services).
>
>  - Clutter
>    http://clutter-project.org/
>    Quote from their homepage:
> 	"Clutter is an open source software library for creating fast,
> 	 visually rich and animated graphical user interfaces."
>    Should be considered to become part of Gnome/mobile since rich UIs
>    have become a necessity for mobile devices.
>
>  - GUPnP
>    http://gupnp.org/
>    Quote from their homepage:
> 	"GUPnP is an object-oriented open source framework for creating
> 	 UPnP devices and control points, written in C using GObject and
> 	 libsoup. The GUPnP API is intended to be easy to use, efficient
> 	 and flexible."
>
>  - FreeSmartphone.Org (FSO)
>    http://www.freesmartphone.org
>    Quote from their homepage:
> 	"freesmartphone.org is a collaboration platform for open
> 	 source and open discussion software projects working on
> 	 interoperability and shared technology for Linux-based
> 	 SmartPhones."
>    Mobile phones have become the de-facto standard for mobile devices
>    targettable for Gnome/mobile. Mobile phones require not just
>    a UI but integrated application frameworks addressing the special
>    requirements of mobile phones (connectivity, call management,
>    messaging, event handling, etc.) FSO could serve this purpose.
>
> Not mentioned at the SFO meeting but nonetheless important and falling
> into the category of FSO:
>
>   - oFono
>     http://www.ofono.org
>     Quote from their homepage:
> 	"oFono is licensed under GPLv2, and it includes a high-level
> 	 D-Bus API for use by telephony applications of any license.
> 	 oFono also includes a low-level plug-in API for integrating
> 	 with open source as well as third party telephony stacks,
> 	 cellular modems and storage back-ends."
>
> 3. Positioning of Gnome/mobile
>
> The group rather selfreflected its own position, goals and outside
> perception. Most comments by the attendees showed their concern about
> the fuzziness of the Gnome/mobile group itself and the lack of clarity.
> This was commonly perceived as a major obstacle for the further
> development and growth of the group. The group identified this as major
> area of work for the next year, i.e. to improve the outside picture of
> the group and more clearly define goals and tasks.
>
> Concerning the possible goals three major streams could be identified:
>  - Gnome/mobile as a marketing exercise, promoting technologies
>    stemming from the Gnome community and usable for mobile devices
>  - Gnome/mobile as a technology driven group, setting own standards
>    for what the group sees fit for mobile devices
>  - Gnome/mobile with the final goal of being a product so that one day
>    a full Gnome/mobile stack could be installable creating a working
>    product.
> And several mixtures of the three.
>
> Similarly the question of the main audience/consumers of the
> Gnome/mobile group was raised. Who are we targeting with our work, what
> is the main audience? Is it the platform developers, application
> developers, handset or chipset manufacturers?
>
> The major result of those two topics after the meeting was that both
> questions are unanswered by now but need to be addressed soon in order
> to bring more clarity to the Gnome/mobile project.
>
> There was no actual action plan decided but group members Dave Neary,
> Stormy Peters and Nils Faerber volunteered to push this forward.
> If nothing happens soon, kick them! Stormy volunteered to keep track of
> action items and chasing the action takers.
>
>
> Finally a call for action for all attendees and group members!
>
> Soon after this summary there will be a second post to the mailinglist
> subject "SFO call for action". It will contain some questions which we
> kindly ask *all* group members and mailinglist subscribers to answer and
> send to the mailinglist so that everyone can see the result. We hope
> that the answers will help us all to define Gnome/mobile better.
>
> Many thanks for your help!
> It will be to your own advantage!
>
>
> Comments and additions are absolutely welcome!
> And in most cases I would recommend to send those directly to the list
> address so that we all can participate from them.
>
>
> Cheers
>   nils faerber

--
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org