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NIH barely applies here at all. If we take into account the constraints they were under and the absolute state of desktop Linux when Android started, it makes t

by Permik 1mo ago

NIH barely applies here at all. If we take into account the constraints they were under and the absolute state of desktop Linux when Android started, it makes total sense. Starting a lot of the components as greenfield projects will fortunately help a ton with shedding years and years of legacy cludge, hacks and desktop first design. Without mentioning the colossal amount of friction they would've faced if they tried to upstream any of the code they would've produced by the end. "We don't care about that issue. Closing." Because of the above, they still would've needed to have their own fork regardless and still would've eventually diverged further and further -- so why bother? With a greenfield project, you can just optimize to your specific constraints. If the maintenance becomes too burdensome, just pick up the best of your design and reimplement them onto the non-greenfield project, everyone wins :D

jauntywundrkind 1mo ago
Maemo was right there at the same time?
- Permik 1mo ago
  Yeah, it technically was there, but it had proprietary components and Nokia had a baggage of softbware project management being super inefficient because of their earlier roots of how they developed software in their past. Not that I have personal experience of it, but a colleague of mine had first hand experience of it. Nokia had a "means to an end" type of perspective to software, it was all made to be basically disposable and they didn't have great "steward of the platform" type of effort. Also, if we take a gander at the timelines, unfortunately QT and Maemo were happening in parallel, and of course Maemo was based on GTK. (But QT was still a Nokia proprietary tech back then.) Right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing etc. Not that any of this means anything, just felt that this was all relevant.
  - jauntywundrkind 1mo ago
    And in spite of Nokia being fundamentally in the dark, not really helping: it was a wildly successful scene. People were rabidly excited and doing incredible things with their devices, in cross-modal between phone/laptop/desktop ways. The core of technology had great interoperation points. It's weird because my whole point is that the freedesktop mentality means no one company ever is that important to the device. And your point is that Nokia was terrible at Maemo. Yes but? Yes but: it didn't really matter. The ecosystem was incredible, intense, vibrant. If you leave the door open, people will do amazing things with your platform. And even if the company burns the platform, burns the ships, a lot of people will still probably spent a decade being vociferously dedicated to the platform. https://maemo-freak.com/community/ https://maemo-freak.com/community/

by Permik 1mo ago

jauntywundrkind 1mo ago

Maemo was right there at the same time?

Permik 1mo ago
Yeah, it technically was there, but it had proprietary components and Nokia had a baggage of softbware project management being super inefficient because of their earlier roots of how they developed software in their past. Not that I have personal experience of it, but a colleague of mine had first hand experience of it. Nokia had a "means to an end" type of perspective to software, it was all made to be basically disposable and they didn't have great "steward of the platform" type of effort. Also, if we take a gander at the timelines, unfortunately QT and Maemo were happening in parallel, and of course Maemo was based on GTK. (But QT was still a Nokia proprietary tech back then.) Right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing etc. Not that any of this means anything, just felt that this was all relevant.
- jauntywundrkind 1mo ago
  And in spite of Nokia being fundamentally in the dark, not really helping: it was a wildly successful scene. People were rabidly excited and doing incredible things with their devices, in cross-modal between phone/laptop/desktop ways. The core of technology had great interoperation points. It's weird because my whole point is that the freedesktop mentality means no one company ever is that important to the device. And your point is that Nokia was terrible at Maemo. Yes but? Yes but: it didn't really matter. The ecosystem was incredible, intense, vibrant. If you leave the door open, people will do amazing things with your platform. And even if the company burns the platform, burns the ships, a lot of people will still probably spent a decade being vociferously dedicated to the platform. https://maemo-freak.com/community/ https://maemo-freak.com/community/