Re: What would you do to encourage application developers on GNOME Mobile?

[<quim gil nokia com>]

Hi Murray,

In the context of this discussion it is useful to that Maemo 6 API = MeeGo API.

> If we are talking about Maemo 6, then you need to know that it will be a
> large amount of work to make GTK+ and libhildon properly supported on
> Maemo 6.

Indeed, if you plan to map all the DUI libraries sitting on top of Qt. What about mapping the Qt UI libraries instead?

> So far Nokia has only said that the community may support it.
> But:
> a) That won't be enough, just as it wasn't enough to get Qt supported on
> Maemo 5.

Manpower was the only problem, right?

> b) The community won't have access to the necessary information until
> far too late. This needs people who have are on the inside at Nokia.
> (like, say, Openismus. Ahem.).

MeeGo plans to have a first release in May with all the Handset UX whistles. I would even say that you could go to qt.gitorious.org and start the work now. Maybe there are relevant bits still available inside Nokia only (honestly I don't know, you might know better than me) but most of the DUI code is out already and Qt itself is already integrated in the MeeGo repositories since Day 1.

> c) It will probably require changes to the GTK+ and hildon API on Maemo
> 6, just as Qt has API changes on Maemo 5. So it will get conceptual,
> which will slow things donw.

It all depends on the approach you want to take on this. You could choose a conservative approach making the current Hildon work on top of MeeGo's GTK+. This probably means that Hildon apps in MeeGo look and behave like Maemo 5 apps, in exchange of less work with bindings and less code changes for app developers. As a stepping stone looks good enough, and then you can decide on further steps based on feedback and interest.

> There wouldn't be much money left over, if any, for extra stuff like
> documentation and application porting. But keeping GTK+ viable on Maemo
> 6 (Meego) would at least keep GTK+ on mobile alive on a major platform
> so we can do the more interesting things that we should have done long
> ago. Such as moving most of libhildon into GTK+ itself, by removing
> duplication and adding abstractions, reducing the fragmentation across
> GNOME mobile platforms.

-- 
Quim Gil + N900
open source advocate
MeeGo Devices @ Nokia