Many of you already have heard the news: Maemo Harmattan will base its application framework in Qt while keeping most of the Fremantle middleware based on GNOME technologies. The goal is to offer an open, efficient and compelling Linux mobile stack with a cross-platform Qt API used also by Symbian and available in other mobile and traditional operating systems. Hopefully a successful step helping free software projects collaborating with each other and also helping free software developers reaching millions of potential users.

At a personal level it was a pleasure and a honor to explain these news to the GNOME and KDE communities in the same place and at the same time in the first day of the first joint Desktop Summit ever! Hopefully the work Nokia is putting in Harmattan will benefit KDE, GNOME and specially freedesktop.org, that common meeting point in need of so much love.

There is not much time (and even less bandwidth)  to blog extensively in the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit, but here you have the main sources I’m aware of:

• slides
• audio (25 mins, untested due to slow connection – hopefully works)
• talk.maemo.org discussion. I’m concentrating my comments on feedback there.
• Vincent blogging from a GNOME point of view
• Der Standard was the first media reporting
• Slashdot picked it up

Catch me up and let’s talk!

Three days to land in Copenhagen to enjoy a Danish Weekend. It looks like we are going to have around 100 developers coming literally from all directions to hack and take part in several activities. I wonder where all these people is sleeping though since we have (aparently) many beds available.

Let me insist again that you need to register in order to get your shirt and other goodies (free-as-in-literally-beer). Speaking of shirts, william [at] mozilla dot com can get one of your size from XXS to XXXL if you send him an email in advance NOW.

See you in Friday’s party!

Time to talk about The Mozilla/Maemo Danish Weekend! Just in case you missed the announcement:

Mozilla/Maemo Danish Weekend
May 30-31 + Friday night party (29th).
IT University of Copenhagen (see map & pictures & more pictures)

The Maemo and Mozilla projects are organizing a joint developer camp in Copenhagen the last weekend of May. If you are working on Fennec, Fennec add-ons or Maemo 5 applications this call is for you!

Let me repeat this: Maemo developers not related with Fennec/add-ons are welcome as well! (some people wondered). In fact we have already a good representation with Fremantle Stars, other remarkable projects with a foot in Maemo 5, GSoC projects and Mer.

The meeting is open and free, although registration is needed if you want us to have enough sandwiches, drinks and memorable shirts.

So if you’re in a hacking mood and want to participate, or if you know people who would love to participante, please help spread the word, blog about it, make some noise ! We definitely want a packed house and as much hacking as possible (c) William’s Blog

Register – Who is coming.

Once you have registered, go for the logistics:

Vi ses i København!

I was meant to blog about the imminent Mozilla/Maemo Danish Weekend but… Tomorrow.

Detail from westergas_section, by josh jackson (some rights reserved)

The first Maemo Summit ever was a big success last year. Today starts the walk towards the second edition!

October 9-10-11 - WesterGasFabriek - Amsterdam  (get a feeling)

3 days: 1 organized by Nokia and 2 by the community.

4 post-industrial spaces surrounded by culture, parks, canals and fun:

• Transformatorhuis: keynotes & track 1.
• Machinegebouw: track 2.
• De Kapel: track 3
• Oostelijk Meterhuis: special activities.

Location plan (pdf 1,1MB)

Registration

Not yet, but for you to know:

Free entrance! Registration needed to grant you food, drinks, a maemo.org shirt and a seat.

300 participants expected: developers and engaged users, community members and curious newcomers, from many countries and The Netherlands too.

Organization

Bootstrapping. See Maemo Summit 2009/Organization

FAQ

See also the discussion at talk.maemo.org (formerly known as internettablettalk.com – community united!)

Interesting stuff guaranteed. See you there! (or before)

After some emails exchanged with the Mozilla folks we agreed on an unprecedented co-organization of a Mozilla/Maemo Danish Weekend. It’s conceived to be a hands on developer event held in the IT University of Copenhagen on May 30-31 (preceded by a welcoming evening party on Friday 29).

Both teams are pushing their alphas to a beta stage as we speak, so it made sense to have a collocated hackfest.If you are working on Maemo 5 applications or Fennec add-ons this call is for you.

Right now there are 13 participants registered from 11 countries – a promising kick off! There is a modest travel sponsorship budget for developers short on cash but abundant in skills.

More information in the joint announcement and the wiki page. See you in Copenhagen!

If you could read the subject then maybe you are target for this:

http://fruct.org/index.php?morus_itemid=65

Yesterday we met in Helsinki the organizers of the next FRUCT seminar and they told us they would welcome Maemo developers willing to showcase their work and tell about their experiences in the Maemo community. If you are good and not too far away they might even have some budget to sponsor your trip. If you are interested introduce yourself to Timofey (dot) Turenko at Nokia (dot) com.

FRUCT stands for Finnish-Russian University Cooperation Program in Telecommunications and they develop several Maemo research projects.

See also the discussion thread in Internet Tablet Talk (soon to become talk.maemo.org).

If you could decide the venue for a Maemo Summit like the first one but bigger and in Amsterdam, what would you choose?

• http://www.studio-k.nu/
• http://www.felix.meritis.nl/
• http://www.debalie.nl/
• http://www.dezwijger.nl/
• http://www.vu.nl/
• else (what?)

A discussion started.

Overview of the main conference hall at FOSDEM. The shot comes from the keynote on Debian made by Bdale Garbee – Saturday at 11:30am. Many developers were in other areas of the conference, or trying to get to the venue after an intensive Beer event on Friday night.

I just knew that the Maemo team is looking for a bright mind close to finishing Master’s studies and ready to begin thesis work.

You have some previous experience from writing Linux kernel code or with device drivers either through work assignments or hobby projects. It is important that you are keen to become a kernel developer who is recognized by the open source community.

Read the full position for more details. I was also surprised to see 35 open positions as we speak.

Have you seen this feed reader for mobile devices?

• Handles efficiently feeds of text, images, audio, video…
• Connects regularly for updates and small data transfers.
• Downloads volumes of data when Wlan is available.
• Basic usage through desktop plugin.
• Well integrated with with browser (and media player?)
• Smart syncing with my other devices & online services.
• Compatible with Maemo 5 and easy to deploy in other platforms.

Let me know. It could be a Fremantle star.

Image: Really, REALLY BIG RSS feed button, by HiMY SYeD (some rights reserved)