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@maemobangalore: A couple of winning entries in the result announcement point to apps written half-a-year ago. Naturally, I thought some prizes of the contest were given to code written half-a-year ago (which doesn’t sound nice). It appears that you suggest that these entries were ports of half-year-old apps ported after the contest was announced (which is cool stuff). Please clarify whether that’s the case.

Also, in the interest of transparency, would be nice if @maemobangalore publishes the code of winning entries (which is possible if the code is open-source licensed).
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Since you ask – as for returning the device, I accepted it because we have to carry out some work on the device (and guess for who? 5 letter company name, starts with N). You think I have nothing to lose? Nokia is our main customer. Think again. So, please stick to the topic of the contest.

@maemo-bangalore, you prioritized the devices for us over employees? Wow, You expect sympathy from me? This is just plain mismanagement on your side and not something to commend you about. In the least, you could have communicated this to me (it’s 3 months since foss.in). I also know folks who wrote code *during* foss.in. They didn’t win in favor of existing apps whose source and contributions we will never see and one of which appears commercial. How is this contest fair?

@rest, I have said twice this is not about late delivery of the device and I won’t repeat again. Once in the post, once in blog comment. It’s all about how maemo-bangalore ran the contest. The dates are provided are not to impress the late delivery but to help understand the delay in communication.

Just an observer.

Opinions don’t matter at all. FOSS.IN did not conduct the contest, Nokia did. And their objectives were clearly explained to us before the event, and also to the contestants. I certainly saw nothing objectionable to it, because it taught people to use open source tools to write apps for an open source OS, and get the, quickly up to speed.

You are deliberately trying to make this a FOSS.IN issue, and I’d thank you if you wouldn’t, because it is a cheap shot, and wholly unbecoming of you. You are using an strawman argument to rabble-rouse for a personal issue you have, and dragging our event into this. What is suitable for our event or not is not decided by you or anyone else – it is decided by us, and we are the best judges of this.

Frankly, if you were so upset about all this, you should have returned the device so that some other contest participant can receive his prize, and then take the high ground morally and argue. And you should have done this BEFORE doing what you are doing now.

FOSS.IN was very careful when it allowed the contest, and to this day see nothing that Nokia has done wrong. In fact, I would go as far as to categorically state that this was the first time a sponsor actually did something that was both useful and within the rules for participants at FOSS.IN, and we would encourage EVERY sponsor to do this.

Nokia’s intentions were wholly honourable and well-meant, and they did nothing wrong anywhere. That the devices got delayed (which is really the core of your rant) wasn’t their fault – I know what the real issue was (and still is), you do not.

So before you and the fanbois jump on us at FOSS.IN again, think twice. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose for the community if you encourage the line of thinking you are trying pushing forward.

BTW – as I am writing this, I see this:

http://maemobangalore.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/clarification-regarding-the-contest/

That clears it, I hope. If you DO wish to continue this discussion, please leave FOSS.IN out of it.

Atul Chitnis
Project Lead (2001-2009)
FOSS.IN

Still, it surely does not sound like fitting the SPIRIT of FOSS.IN – the source is not published, the code not written for the contest specifically, and communication was bad too. The Maemo-Bangalore team needs a good promo/marketing person, clearly, who knows FOSS…

I honestly don’t see why you are sympathizing with maemo-bangalore.

I don’t understand why you keep harping about “closed source”, because the contest was NOT about that at all. A FOSS license is always between the developer/originator of the software and the receiver. Nowhere does he GPL state that you have to world-publish your code – it only states that you must give the same rights to the receiver of the software as you yourself have. Contestants were obliged to submit the source to Nokia, but Nokia is under no obligation to publish the code UNLESS they publish the applications themselves.

As for the rules of the contest – they were made very clear to both us (the organizers of FOSS.IN) and contestants. You may have just missed it, or misunderstood it.

I also have a bit of a problem with the way you are turning this from a personal issue into an indirect attack on FOSS.IN. *We* are very clear and upfront about what the objectives of FOSS.IN are. Maemo is a legitimate FOSS platform. Apps developed for Maemo can be open or closed (just like every Linux-based app), but of course open apps are preferred. FOSS.IN does not “enforce” this kind of thing (we don’t own the FOSS world), and we are merely concerned with contribution to FOSS projects. Nothing that happened in this contest deviates from this objective – it is simply your flawed understanding of WHAT FOSS is.

Again, the fact that Nokia has not (yet) published the source code of the contest winners does not make this closed source, UNLESS Nokia publishes the applications themselves without publishing the source.

I hope this is now clear.

Atul Chitnis
Project Lead (2001-2009)
FOSS.IN

My point is
a) Spirit of the contest – They call it ‘maemo foss.in hack ideas’. Maybe I am misunderstanding what a ‘hack’ contest is. If one can submit pre-written code, I would have called it an ‘application’ contest and asked people to submit existing apps. I would not have participated if I was competing with pre-written applications – it’s a different competition altogether.

Legally, they did nothing wrong. Over at twitter, people are discussing legal stuff. That’s not the point. IMO, what has been done is not in the right spirit for foss.in.

b) Maemo-bangalore team – I might have been harsh on the maemo-bangalore team, but they haven’t replied to single email of mine by themselves.

As for having fun the device and cheering up, all that matters to me is to how and why I got the device. And that will really cheer me up. All I want is more information.

What do I expect out of this post?
1. I want the maemo-bangalore team to announce that it was a closed source contest, commercial apps were allowed and that pre-written applications were allowed too.

2. I would then want (after the disclosure above) the foss.in organizers to take a stand on this for future foss.in competitions. Whatever that stand is, I am fine, but it helps me clear up my mind. Nokia’s purpose as you asy was served, but was that the purpose of foss.in?

It is slightly disappointing that the devices did take sometime to arrive however I think it’s unfair to put the entire blame on Maemo Bangalore.

Look at the bright side. You probably got your device. I am waiting for someone to bring it for me from Bangalore because delivering it by courier to my Mumbai address attracts a heavy octroi. So I’m still waiting to get hold of mine.

There was no pre-condition where one had to write the app during foss.in. They did allow people to port their existing applications obviously with the aim of expanding the number of applications available for Maemo. It’s clearly mentioned here:

http://maemobangalore.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/maemo-foss-in-hack-ideasporting-applications/

Your answer regarding source code is mentioned there. They wanted the source code to judge. It was their discretion what they would do with the source code.

As far as professional conduct is concerned I was very happy with the Maemo Bangalore team. They were able to answer many of my questions and actually helped me get my application working on the device. It was a good learning experience. Personal interaction beats IRC/Chat any day. So I guess for Nokia the purpose of the event was served:

1) They got some people to port applications onto their platform.
2) They were able to get people interested in developing for Maemo.

Cheer up! Enjoy your N900. I hope to see some more awesome applications like Cilantro from you soon.

Abhijit Bera