Maemo Community Council ask for Python apps in Ovi
The Maemo Community Council, of which your editors - Andrew Flegg and Ryan Abel - are two, has posted an open letter asking for Nokia's stance towards open source libraries and runtimes, and Python in particular, to be reconsidered in their Ovi Store. Ovi only accepts binary applications, while a very large number of apps for Maemo are written in Python: It will come as a surprise for many community members and users that Python is still not an officially supported language/runtime on the Maemo nor MeeGo platforms, despite the huge number of Python applications currently in Extras, and even though they base on the work of Nokia's own PyMaemo team, plus two Qt bindings and a GTK+/Hildon one. To put things in perspective, about a third of ALL stable Maemo applications are written in Python, both overall and those using Qt. Nokia cannot afford, when trying to garner developer mindshare, to be shutting the door on anything but the One True Way of C++/Qt. Nokia may be the leading supplier of smartphones in the world (a claim which, many argue, depends on your definition of "smartphone"), but they - quite simply - are not the first choice for developers. Nor, these days, even on the radar of the tech enthusiast or hobbyist developers. Doors need to be opened to these users, not shut in their faces.