N9 - we did it again

In case you have not heard it yet - we did it again, so Nokia has begun shipping of N9.

2010 bottom line - Maemo left behind, Meego is another fruit

after year 2010 wrapped up, one thing calmed down in my mind - for me Maemo has been left behind. Maemo team had released Maemo 5 for N900 along with N900 sales had started. After it had started sales, big heap of still-to-apply patches had been passed to maintenance team and majority had been switched to Harmattan. I had followed both Maemo 5 and Harmattan for several weeks but then I had no choice but switch too into Harmattan-only mode. And then Maemo+Moblin fusion into Meego had been pronounced as PR event. Real Meego deliveries had started several weeks later.

Lessons learned:

• Maemo 5 had been released same way as previous releases, only now it took 9+ months for followup, and same story of leaving behind of
  
• Harmattan aka "first mobile Meego" is totally different beast and openness there is limited compared to Maemo 5
• Meego Moblin is certainly sell-off to Intel no matter how much PR / marketing people try to sell it positive. Since layman public doesn't care what's under hood, I decided to keep it impersonal - after all, kernel is same kernel, no matter what is packaging.
• Luckily I am deep in kernel and don't have to bother much about userland apart from providing them with reliable high-quality kernel APIs. But what I see about Qt and rest of things UI... Well, it is probably Ok with average Joe but I don't like C++ and derivatives (read - Qt too). I just leave it up to "them" - not my business.
  
• Nokia had put all eggs into Qt basket.
  
• Overall feeling is like in movie "Toys" - ex-military invaded previously fun-making toy factory.
  

Meego is different fruit and hence it makes me thinking what do I do about my future and how tight my relationship with all these things is. I still continue to work in core team for Harmattan and further items, with all due diligence like squirrel in a wheel, but... future now is open more than before.

I feel it more like "wheel of life" has made another turn and I must think about change, whatever it is - is it "still Nokia" or something else, I don't know yet. One week of winter vacation hasn't brought any much clear about change - no real window for something else yet, new and exciting. Patience drills stones like water...