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I'm not a coder. And that piece illustrates why Maemo went nowhere with the general public and why Nokia's Internet Tablets failed. I tried to download softwa

I'm not a coder. And that piece illustrates why Maemo went nowhere with the general public and why Nokia's Internet Tablets failed. I tried to download software only to find out they required "dependencies." Then I had to chase those down. And once I did, I found the software to be buggy and unreliable -- and that's why people go buy iPads. They don't want to jump through so many hoops to get so little. The journey is no reward. Edited to add: See "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz too.

holri 14y ago
Nokia Internet Tablet failed for the masses, because they did not invest in it. Instead they had an internal fight Symbian vs. Linux. Nobody won, instead Apple and Samsung did. BTW: Did you know that Maemo has an automatic Package Manager that resolves dependencies automatically?
- mikecane 14y ago
  You are getting into side issues here instead of the user experience. And such Package Management did not exist when I had the 770 -- at least if you were getting Maemo apps outside of whatever "curation" Nokia might have been attempting at the time.
Sharlin 14y ago
That's why you need a curated package repository. I don't have to even know that "dependencies" exist to use Debian or Ubuntu; the package manager is nice enough to inform me that it determined that these-and-these other packages are required to install the package I wanted, and that it's now going to automatically install them for me, but that's just details that could be easily abstracted out.
- regularfry 14y ago
  Maemo was apt-based as well.
- flatline3 14y ago
  Curated package repositories are just a band-aid on the disaster. They improve things by centralizing the ridiculous and unnecessary cost of dealing with the mess. It would be better to simply not have that cost.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    Eh? The OP here was lauding the ipad as some sort of "solution" to the "mess," but Apple's app-store is pretty much the purest and most absurdly restricted example of a "curated package repository" around! Debian's (and Ubuntu's, etc) package repositories are a breath of freedom and flexibility by comparison...
    - flatline3 14y ago
      Curated Linux package repositories are all about making painful things slightly less painful, including: - Managing complex dependency graphs. There are often incompatible changes in the nodes of the dependency graph that require wholesale updating of every node linked to the changed one. - Managing complex installation. As per UNIX standards, the files which comprise a single software package are spread across the file system in such a way that it's effectively impossible to clean them up without a package manager properly tracking them. Apple's "curated package repository" is something else entirely.
    - mikecane 14y ago
      >>>The OP here was lauding the ipad as some sort of "solution" to the "mess," Note I was not lauding the iPad. I was using it as an example of the kind of Click & Go experience people want. I could have very well said Windows machines vs Linux boxes, because most Windows programs contain everything you need to go without searching for "dependencies."

holri 14y ago

Nokia Internet Tablet failed for the masses, because they did not invest in it. Instead they had an internal fight Symbian vs. Linux. Nobody won, instead Apple and Samsung did. BTW: Did you know that Maemo has an automatic Package Manager that resolves dependencies automatically?

mikecane 14y ago
You are getting into side issues here instead of the user experience. And such Package Management did not exist when I had the 770 -- at least if you were getting Maemo apps outside of whatever "curation" Nokia might have been attempting at the time.

Sharlin 14y ago

That's why you need a curated package repository. I don't have to even know that "dependencies" exist to use Debian or Ubuntu; the package manager is nice enough to inform me that it determined that these-and-these other packages are required to install the package I wanted, and that it's now going to automatically install them for me, but that's just details that could be easily abstracted out.

regularfry 14y ago
Maemo was apt-based as well.
flatline3 14y ago
Curated package repositories are just a band-aid on the disaster. They improve things by centralizing the ridiculous and unnecessary cost of dealing with the mess. It would be better to simply not have that cost.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  Eh? The OP here was lauding the ipad as some sort of "solution" to the "mess," but Apple's app-store is pretty much the purest and most absurdly restricted example of a "curated package repository" around! Debian's (and Ubuntu's, etc) package repositories are a breath of freedom and flexibility by comparison...
  - flatline3 14y ago
    Curated Linux package repositories are all about making painful things slightly less painful, including: - Managing complex dependency graphs. There are often incompatible changes in the nodes of the dependency graph that require wholesale updating of every node linked to the changed one. - Managing complex installation. As per UNIX standards, the files which comprise a single software package are spread across the file system in such a way that it's effectively impossible to clean them up without a package manager properly tracking them. Apple's "curated package repository" is something else entirely.
  - mikecane 14y ago
    >>>The OP here was lauding the ipad as some sort of "solution" to the "mess," Note I was not lauding the iPad. I was using it as an example of the kind of Click & Go experience people want. I could have very well said Windows machines vs Linux boxes, because most Windows programs contain everything you need to go without searching for "dependencies."