Community meeting on IRC 22nd Apr 2021

Announcements
#1

Schedule: Thursday 22nd Apr 2021 at 07:00am UTC (Check here for your local time)

Topic proposals for the meeting:

  • add your name/nick using the template below to suggest a topic.
  • indicate how much time you will need for the topic so we can time-box the meeting accordingly
  • please be as thorough as you can with your question/topic
  • if you can’t make the meeting please ask and then name a substitute who can in your place.

It is expected that you show up and present your topic, or name a substitute and make sure they attend in your absence. These IRC meetings are for real time participation and live discussions, otherwise you can post the topic on here and get responses that way.

We need you to be present to clarify details in the topic, and to ensure the discussion is leading to the answers you are looking for! If you do not participate or your question/topic isn’t clear enough it will be postponed. Also: Always ask for more time than you anticipate your topics needs!

Please try and have your topics ready at least 3 days before the meeting. This will help us have answers ready beforehand to save time. Topics announced afterwards will be postponed to the next meeting.

Template for topic proposal: (post your topic proposals as comments to this forum topic)

  • Name / IRC nick:
  • topic:
  • some details about the topic:
  • approx. time needed:
  • optional: name of substitute if you cannot make it to the upcoming meeting (and inform your substitute)
2 Likes
Sailfish Community News, 8th April, Browser Multimedia
Sailfish Community News, 22nd April, Xperia 10 II, QMF
#3

Just pointing out… That a very similar, nearly-though not exactly the same question was asked in yesterday’s meeting(8th of April).
A lot about collaborating with Fairphone, poaching Sailfish to companies & developers, ways our community could help… And so on.
Those Q’s and A’s pretty much already answer your question, though, maybe indirectly so.
So Simply:

-There is no current or near future plans to collaborate with Fairphone. And no any other device was mentioned as well.
(And even if there were to be any ongoing talks/unrealized deals with another vendor/ hardware provider, Jolla(or any other company actually) wouldn’t be announcing it yet. The way it just is.
-And replying to a question about the possibility of picking a(any) device of your choice and installing SF… The clear answer was, thats not feasible due to differences of the many devices manufactured, and their ability to be unlocked and flashed…
-However, there is some work being currently done to ease the process of flashing/installation/maintenance of sailfiahX on Sony devices.( In other words, Xperias are your only devices, make that work for now, we’ll make it a bit easier )
-Jolla realises that for any company to develop its app for a new/non-mainstream OS, like SF, there must be a recognizable and profitable target/end result.
-Jolla stated how the community could help them out, and each others out…
Couldn’t be any clearer.

The fact that, corporate and governmental markets, are Jolla’s only current main target market… Jolla clearly has 0 interest wasting non/barely existing resources in pursuing any HW collab/agreement.

So, respectfully;
Unless you’ve got an actual statement somewhere, from an actual vendor/ HW provider(or one of their employees), officially stating willingness to work with Jolla… Discussing at this time, and here, different unlocked hardware and phones available in the market…would be simply useless, irrelevant, never ending chitchat and speculations.

1 Like
#4

Will there be copies of the transcript for me to read?

#5

Here: https://irclogs.sailfishos.org/meetings/sailfishos-meeting/2021/

1 Like
#6

Alright. So I’ll go see if I can find some VC to support Volla. They’ve managed to get Gigaset on board and they and ubports are supporting a sailfish port so there is obviously capital at work. Including mine.

1 Like
#7

Obviously…
And all this, is nice :slight_smile:
But your point is…?

#8

Note to self. We shall see.

1 Like
#9
  • Name / IRC nick: Mister_Magister
  • topic: Enabling MPEG DASH in gstreamer
  • some details about the topic: Previously it was said that enabling it requires costly licenses. But upon my investigation neither DASH-IF and projects it supports require any licenses to use and neither DASH LA sells dash license anymore. This topic is just to inform and motivate Jolla to talk to their law people to check if it really needs license. Otherwise DASH is going to be very useful.
  • approx. time needed: 5m
  • optional: abranson knows what I’m talking about
#10

I sadly can’t attend the meeting, so I’ve written down all that seemed relevant:

  • Name / IRC nick: nthn
  • topic: Collaboration with community on future-proofing Xperia X with updated Android app support
  • some details about the topic:
    In Nov 2019, Jolla decided against an updated baseport for Xperia X because they would have to maintain two baseports for one device, but community sees no problem in abandoning the old baseport and reflashing their devices, and is able and willing to help Jolla out with a new baseport - community member @vknecht already got Sailfish running on kernel 4.9 in Dec 2019. Would Jolla revisit their decision, and if so, what should community do to make updated kernel/Android app support on Xperia X a reality?
  • approx. time needed: 15m
  • optional: name of substitute if you cannot make it to the upcoming meeting (and inform your substitute): @rubdos

extended details:

  • Sailfish is running on Xperia X with kernel 3.10, but Xperia X has kernel 4.4 and 4.9 officially available from Sony. Community member @vknecht already got Sailfish running on Xperia X with kernel 4.9 in December 2019 (1) (2).

(1) https://together.jolla.com/question/217992/#post-id-219856

(2) Xperia 10 II + SFOS

  • In November 2019, Jolla stated (3) that they would not update Android app support on Xperia X, as that would require maintaining a new, additional HW adaptation based on a newer baseport and kernel, and would require a reflash. However, this was decided before vknecht showed Sailfish running on kernel 4.9 on Xperia X, and nearly all comments below the blog post and elsewhere indicate that current users would be more than happy to reflash their device to get modern Android apps (min. ver. for many apps is now 5.0) running and abandon the old HW adaptation. Jolla could even sell a new license for it - a new license is still much cheaper than a new phone. Community wants to put in the effort, but it’d be pointless if Jolla doesn’t provide the useful proprietary license-exclusive bits like Android app support.

(3) https://blog.jolla.com/sailfish-x-sony-xperia-10/

  • Presumably, modern kernel support would prolong Xperia X’s lifespan far beyond that of Jolla C and Jolla Tablet, both of which also use kernel 3.10.

  • Presumably, it would be easier in the long run for Jolla to maintain the same baseport between Xperia X, XA2 and 10.

  • Xperia X is still a solid device in 2021 that is now the cheapest and easiest to come by of all SF X devices, and people who already have one running Android wouldn’t have to abandon most of their apps to start using Sailfish.

  • Providing updated Android support would also take away the bad blood set by the original decision not to update.

  • (Technically, a forced reflash would make also make it possible to use a larger root partition and avoid the “you have to uninstall all of your applications to install the Sailfish OS update” problem forever.)

  • Bonus question: work is ongoing to make Xperia X supported by the mainline Linux kernel. This would allow it to essentially survive forever. What would be the implications for Sailfish?

9 Likes
Xperia 10 II + SFOS
#11

I’d like to add a question:

  • does an update not reflash the root partition?
1 Like
#13

No, upgrades on SailfishOS are similar to every other Linux distro - the repositories are changed to point to the new set of rpm packages, and every package on the system is updated to the newer versions found there. Only a factory reset does a reflash.

(messed up the reply there, hope it lets me post this after deleting the last one)

4 Likes
#14

Thanks for clarifying! How does jolla supply kernel updates (for example for security fixes) OTA?

#15

The kernel is on the boot partition, and that’s flashed by the *-img-boot package after reboot. That’s what’s going on when you see your phone reboot twice after update.

3 Likes
#16

Thanks for the explanation. I was always scared that I entered a boot loop when I saw this boot logo twice in a row. I’ll feel better now next time I see it !

1 Like
#17

You know, this would actually a nice piece of info to add to the release notes.

4 Likes
#18

Minutes: https://irclogs.sailfishos.org/meetings/sailfishos-meeting/2021/sailfishos-meeting.2021-04-22-06.59.html
Minutes (text): https://irclogs.sailfishos.org/meetings/sailfishos-meeting/2021/sailfishos-meeting.2021-04-22-06.59.txt
Log: https://irclogs.sailfishos.org/meetings/sailfishos-meeting/2021/sailfishos-meeting.2021-04-22-06.59.log.html

1 Like
#19