6 ms·

Jolla Tablet refunds

38 points by type0 9y ago

mpol 9y ago
If you still want a Jolla tablet, there is an indie project started. They had all the blueprints and designs of the original tablet device. Licensing of Sailfish OS should have been taken care of. The first step is to bring out a device with most of the same hardware as the Jolla batch. In the future there might be updates on the hardware, most probably with a 3G module. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=99214 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=99214
- type0 9y ago
  Great to hear. Oh and maemo forum is still active, I remember it fondly during the years of nokia internet tablet.
- compuguy 9y ago
  Here in the US, having a 3g/wifi tablet would be a waste of money, because the two major GSM carriers are putting most of their spectrum on their respective LTE bands. T-Moible is planning on sunsetting 3G as well.
ensiferum 9y ago
Failfish still failing. ;-)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
oDot 9y ago
Is developing a mobile OS significantly harder than a desktop one? It's odd to me that many FOSS projects do a fine job with desktop Linux distribution yet it is so hard to have a mobile one? Nokia spent 1B Euro on MeeGo? Did Palm have that kind of money when they did webOS?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  The thing is that thanks to IBM mistakes, the desktop became kind of open, while on the mobile market there are lots of NDAs and OEM deals to take care of. You also see this affecting the desktop with the transition to laptops, most of them being like appliances.
- bluGill 9y ago
  Desktops are standardized: you run on a i386 clone... Of course over time the supported hardware has expanded, but there are a lot of standards to work with. In particular this means that the kernel boots, X starts, and the network connection works. Once you have that can build anything. Mobile has never really worked for FOSS because there is no standard to work with. By the time you get the kernel booting the manufacture has obsoleted that hardware and you don't boot on the next one so you have to figure out why and get it working - just as you do that the hardware is obsolete again. You still haven't got graphics on the screen, or a network connection. Graphics isn't hard and is often finished for those who bought the system before hand, but networking is generally not: mobile means a cell connection that is secret.
  - mpol 9y ago
    The funny thing is that this tablet was/is an Intel tablet. A lot of parts will probably follow laptop standards. The problems in this case were a bit diverse. I think an investor or manufacturere pulling out was the biggest reason.
  - adrianmonk 9y ago
    It could work if the hardware vendor released all the platform-specific code as open source. Then a community could potentially keep that code up to date well enough to interface with more rapidly changing layers on top of it. Of course, it is more work than if the hardware is standardized. But it might be doable if you don't have to reverse-engineer things.
- jsight 9y ago
  I think FOSS had the most early success with older hardware that was relatively inexpensive and still fit for its purpose. They often made excellent developer machines for people who wanted to try a Unix-like system for the first time. Tablets, OTOH, have been becoming obsolete within a year or so of use and don't seem to have much value after that. This might change now that the pace of change has started to stabilize and there are more tablet Chromebooks starting to make it onto the market. I wouldn't be surprised if a good FOSS solution starts to emerge once tablet-like Chromebooks start to gain momentum. For an alternative way of thinking, maybe there already are some decent FOSS solutions for tablets. There are a lot of actively developed third party Android distributions for tablets and ChromiumOS is pretty powerful.
huangc10 9y ago
I'm an iOS developer and I mostly love iOS design and user experience but one OS that, imo, is better is MeeGo. I used the N9 briefly for 3 months back in '12 or '13 and other than the ecosystem issue, the OS was intuitive and simple to use. That being said, I'm slowly moving onwards to React Native projects so hopefully in the near future, my paths will re-intertwine again.
shmerl 9y ago
I'm willing to forego my refund, as long as Jolla will open source SailfishOS now. Community has been waiting for it like forever.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
Refunding based on random order is patently absurd. They should refund in order that orders were taken in, not randomly. That's not fair at all.
- zepto 9y ago
  Don’t all the people who need a refund have an equal right to it?

38 points by type0 9y ago

mpol 9y ago

If you still want a Jolla tablet, there is an indie project started. They had all the blueprints and designs of the original tablet device. Licensing of Sailfish OS should have been taken care of. The first step is to bring out a device with most of the same hardware as the Jolla batch. In the future there might be updates on the hardware, most probably with a 3G module. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=99214 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=99214

type0 9y ago
Great to hear. Oh and maemo forum is still active, I remember it fondly during the years of nokia internet tablet.
compuguy 9y ago
Here in the US, having a 3g/wifi tablet would be a waste of money, because the two major GSM carriers are putting most of their spectrum on their respective LTE bands. T-Moible is planning on sunsetting 3G as well.

ensiferum 9y ago

Failfish still failing. ;-)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

oDot 9y ago

Is developing a mobile OS significantly harder than a desktop one? It's odd to me that many FOSS projects do a fine job with desktop Linux distribution yet it is so hard to have a mobile one? Nokia spent 1B Euro on MeeGo? Did Palm have that kind of money when they did webOS?

pjmlp 9y ago
The thing is that thanks to IBM mistakes, the desktop became kind of open, while on the mobile market there are lots of NDAs and OEM deals to take care of. You also see this affecting the desktop with the transition to laptops, most of them being like appliances.
bluGill 9y ago
Desktops are standardized: you run on a i386 clone... Of course over time the supported hardware has expanded, but there are a lot of standards to work with. In particular this means that the kernel boots, X starts, and the network connection works. Once you have that can build anything. Mobile has never really worked for FOSS because there is no standard to work with. By the time you get the kernel booting the manufacture has obsoleted that hardware and you don't boot on the next one so you have to figure out why and get it working - just as you do that the hardware is obsolete again. You still haven't got graphics on the screen, or a network connection. Graphics isn't hard and is often finished for those who bought the system before hand, but networking is generally not: mobile means a cell connection that is secret.
- mpol 9y ago
  The funny thing is that this tablet was/is an Intel tablet. A lot of parts will probably follow laptop standards. The problems in this case were a bit diverse. I think an investor or manufacturere pulling out was the biggest reason.
- adrianmonk 9y ago
  It could work if the hardware vendor released all the platform-specific code as open source. Then a community could potentially keep that code up to date well enough to interface with more rapidly changing layers on top of it. Of course, it is more work than if the hardware is standardized. But it might be doable if you don't have to reverse-engineer things.
jsight 9y ago
I think FOSS had the most early success with older hardware that was relatively inexpensive and still fit for its purpose. They often made excellent developer machines for people who wanted to try a Unix-like system for the first time. Tablets, OTOH, have been becoming obsolete within a year or so of use and don't seem to have much value after that. This might change now that the pace of change has started to stabilize and there are more tablet Chromebooks starting to make it onto the market. I wouldn't be surprised if a good FOSS solution starts to emerge once tablet-like Chromebooks start to gain momentum. For an alternative way of thinking, maybe there already are some decent FOSS solutions for tablets. There are a lot of actively developed third party Android distributions for tablets and ChromiumOS is pretty powerful.

huangc10 9y ago

I'm an iOS developer and I mostly love iOS design and user experience but one OS that, imo, is better is MeeGo. I used the N9 briefly for 3 months back in '12 or '13 and other than the ecosystem issue, the OS was intuitive and simple to use. That being said, I'm slowly moving onwards to React Native projects so hopefully in the near future, my paths will re-intertwine again.

shmerl 9y ago

I'm willing to forego my refund, as long as Jolla will open source SailfishOS now. Community has been waiting for it like forever.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

Refunding based on random order is patently absurd. They should refund in order that orders were taken in, not randomly. That's not fair at all.

zepto 9y ago
Don’t all the people who need a refund have an equal right to it?