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Jolla Founds Alliance Based On MeeGo Distribution "Sailfish" 33

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the ex-nokia-people-hate-america dept.
jones_supa writes "The Finnish smartphone startup Jolla has revealed the next chapter in their roadmap. The company announced that it is setting up an alliance to license a MeeGo-based OS called Sailfish to other OEMs. The operations, backed by 200M€, will begin at spring 2013. CEO Jussi Hurmola believes that the next big revolution in smartphones will happen in China, and the OS will provide an alternative independent smartphone ecosystem there. Jolla strives for more openness than OHA, by letting the partners design their services directly without needing green light from the alliance. Sailfish is headquartered in Hong Kong and R&D centers will be established in other parts of mainland China, possibly Shanghai and Peking."
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Jolla Founds Alliance Based On MeeGo Distribution "Sailfish" More

Jolla Founds Alliance Based On MeeGo Distribution "Sailfish"

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  • Come on release the phone already (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anared ( 2599669 ) on Wednesday October 03, 2012 @12:01PM (#41539191)
    Waiting anxiously for the phone, release it already, dammit. Only interesting thing in the smartphone market right now, excellent OS and framework developed by giants, now adopted by a small and enthusiastic company with a lot of knowledge straight from the top. This could really be the beginning of something big.

  • In what way is this company Finnish?

  • The only chance they have... (Score:3)

    by Casandro ( 751346 ) on Wednesday October 03, 2012 @12:22PM (#41539505)

    is to target the "I want something Debian-like" customers, and brand it as a tool. Different tools have different uses. Instead of trying to turn MeeGo into a screwdriver (i.e. something Android/iOS/WP/Blackberry like) they should focus on its strengths and market it accordingly.

    No, if you are an Android/iOS/WP/Blackberry-fan, Meego is probably not what you want. Unless of course they try to change Meego into yet another clone of that concept, then you will probably still not like it because there aren't enough apps, plus they will alienate their actual market.

    Again, their actual market doesn't want apps, they want a distributions. They want to be able to have access to Debian Packages, not fart apps.

    • Looking at the distro, there are plenty of fart packages in there.

    • is to target the "I want something Debian-like" customers, and brand it as a tool.

      Wht is that? Is there no value in a platform that is developed wholly in the open?

      Different tools have different uses. Instead of trying to turn MeeGo into a screwdriver (i.e. something Android/iOS/WP/Blackberry like) they should focus on its strengths and market it accordingly.

      Maintaining a narrow focus like the N900 did won't get them anywhere. What they can do is not deliberately interfere when people decide to do unusual t

  • Release something already (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Wednesday October 03, 2012 @12:23PM (#41539517)

    Folks at Jolla, please stop the talk about "revealing a next chapter", and release something already. N900 still keeps beating anything Android-based when it comes to the input dev (after some tweaking), but the CPU and memory pressure is crippling.

    There are three unmatched advantages: keyboard, stylus and hackability. The keyboard is obvious: an on-screen keyboard might be good enough for typing a SMS or labelling a contact, but not much more -- while N900's keyboard, after beating some sanity into the layout (PgUp, Esc, most symbols...) beats most small laptops. Stylus is something that sits in its holder 95% of the time while you use fingers or a fingernail, but once you wish to point accurately, doing that with a finger is simply impossible. And when it comes to software: in one corner, we have a full-blown UNIX system, while in the other a platform with a cut-down browser and fart apps, that might at most serve to ssh somewhere. Newsflash: in places where you can count on good networking, you already have a desktop computer. I can sit and develop on N900 without any extra machines.

    If I can have a micro-laptop, why would I want a dumb phone?

    Thus, Jolla guys: pretty please with a cherry on top, bring something up.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And pretty please base it on debian again. In fact just reverse all the decisions made by what ever foundation was in charge when they went against the community view at each step away from the device we already voted for with our money on their road to cancellation.

      How can it be that an active community with the solutions to the problems, a willingness to implement them for free and the money available to buy the product at the end gets screwed by successive 'foundations'.

      • And pretty please base it on debian again

        Pretty much not going to happen. Mer is its own thing now that just happens to use RPM for packaging.

        If you want to get involved, feel free to grab Mer and start poking around. No large corporate foundation to get in your way.

        • It's not hard to fix that. It's non-free parts that can be problematic, everything else takes a small edit here and there and a rebuild. There's no dearth of skilled packagers around.

          • Packager bikeshedding is probably the dumbest thing I ever saw in the development of MeeGo. It's RPM, you'd have to present one hell of a case to trigger a migration back to DEB. Until then, package deltas, kickstarts, and zypper will be leveraged to their fullest.

    • Hopefully they're smarter than Nokia and Microsoft, and won't announce something three months or more before it is available. When the N900 came out, I had to wait until December to get mine due to a mix of Nokia incompetence (billing system fail) and a premature announcement.

      Also, to survive they need to target a wide audience, not just people who think the N900 is the be-all and end-all of mobile devices. There's no reason they can't do that AND give us what we want at the same time. Survival is paramount

    • Having owned two N900s until both died, I agree with you on the most part. After I switched over to a SG3, I would say the newest version of Android is pretty solid. Now granted it is still not a dev machine, but the browser is bang on now, even as it has a desktop view mode. The accuracy of the capacitive screen is still lacking but tolerable.

      As much as I hate to say it, the N900 was an experiment. As a consumer product, it failed based on sales miserably. But it brought out interesting results.

    • If it took them any less than 18 months to build a new physical phone & UI for both Western and Chinese markets, ecosystem and make Mer primetime, we know it would be ignored by the market. The finished item has to be more or less perfect to get the right noises made. It has to have a perfect HTML 5 browser, perfect Facebook integration, perfect email & messaging...

      Not to mention getting enough startup money, getting solid patents, avoiding spurious Apple patents etc.

  • To create a working linux based handset you need steps:
    1. 1. License E7 design from Nokia
    2. 2. ???
    3. 3. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

    • To create a working linux based handset you need steps:

      1. 1. License E7 design from Nokia
      2. 2. ???
      3. 3. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

      Yup, real smart idea. License a design with 256Mb of ram, a 680Mhz cpu and a 640 × 360 screen.

      Makes the N900 look overpowered.

  • What about runnign it in N9 (as the current Nokia's Meego implementation does) or N900, or other devices (i.e. there was the rumor that Samsung would release a S III with Tizen). Don't follow HP example NOT supporting the Touchpad in the new open WebOS, unless the device just don't have the required horsepower or specific hardware.

    • What about runnign it in N9 (as the current Nokia's Meego implementation does) or N900, or other devices (i.e. there was the rumor that Samsung would release a S III with Tizen).

      Mer, the core platform that Jolla is using, will run on the N9 and the N900. I have u-boot installed on my N900 with Nemo Mobile installed on a microSD card and can boot it trivially.

      Don't follow HP example NOT supporting the Touchpad in the new open WebOS, unless the device just don't have the required horsepower or specific hardwa

      • If they sold me a copy of an OS that is like MeeGo but fixes some issues, adds some features and is supported, I'd buy it for 25 bucks. I'm sure plenty of N9 users feel the same.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gmuslera ( 3436 )
        Is not about supporting (ok, i was the one using that word above, HP said that it won't run, not that will be or not supported), is about leaving the door open. Is a way to increase their potential user base, and get some feedback (and apps buyers). Remember, Sailfish is an OS, don't need to be tied to a particular phone or company.

        • Remember, Sailfish is an OS, don't need to be tied to a particular phone or company.

          Then you'll have to figure out a way to create an independent group capable of putting Sailfish on those devices. As it stands you'll get Nemo Mobile. Jolla won't do it for the N9 and N900 because they aren't Jolla products.

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