Mer Project Merging With Sailfish OS

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mer Project Merging With Sailfish OS

Mer, the fork of MeeGo that aimed to provide a free alternative to Maemo for Nokia devices, is now finally merging with Sailfish OS...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Mer-Merging-Sailfish-OS

[shmerl]

Still no sign of open sourcing the UI and common applications in Sailfish OS.

[89c51]

Still no sign of open sourcing the UI and common applications in Sailfish OS.

Still no sign of all the people complaining developing free alternatives.

[Shiba]

Still no sign of all the people complaining developing free alternatives.

Because an argument is only valid if you can do better.

[DrYak]

Still no sign of open sourcing the UI and common applications in Sailfish OS.

Yet, even if the license isn't nominally copyleft nor permissive, the source happens to be visible in practice (it's all QML and Javascript) which has brought a community of patches available to modify the functionnality of said UI and applications (see PatchManager on openrepos).

Also they have progressed. Since you last complained about it, the browser is now opensource (and a few other bits, but I haven't exactly kept track of which bits got, between which of your whining).

And also, Sailfish is currently about the only non-Android OS that you can easily install on a smartphones with some levels of commercial support for some models.
(UBPort's UbuntuTouch being the other one. And Purism's Librem 5 being the upcoming third one.)

So, perfect? Definitely not.
Useful? Yes, plenty already.

[shmerl]

Browser was always open source. And I won't stop reminding you, that they still didn't open source the rest.

[Compartmentalisation]

Once again, Mer has served it’s purpose and can retire.

Times might be tough at Jolla, I'm sure the Firefox spellchecker would've been able to proofread that, and if they cannot even afford that in lieu of an editor or even a proofreader..

[starshipeleven]

And also, Sailfish is currently about the only non-Android OS that you can easily install on a smartphones with some levels of commercial support for some models.

LineageOS remains much better on all metrics.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

LineageOS remains much better on all metrics.

Except that they retired development on 14.1 and wont port the majority of phones to a newer version because they don't use project treble. Which means they just abandoned the majority of their users.

I currently use a Samsung s7 which isn't that old and the hardware is still more than I will ever need from a phone, yet there will be no new updates. And on top of that they broke bluetooth with the last one...

Not really a fan anymore.

[Girolamo_Cavazzoni]

"They" are the loosely affiliated community of LineageOS. If a phone doesn't get a port it is because of lack of interest or because it's just not possible (drivers etc). Have a look at the Galaxy S5 which has gotten a port to Pie.