For anyone interested in seeing just how far their favourite platform can be pushed, games are the place to look.

In case you've missed it Nokia's N-Gage service has been on a limited release for a little while now.  It's limited in terms of supported devices at the moment but I've been able to try it out on my N95 (after upgrading the firmware of course).

I can see why there hasn't been a lot of fanfare and publicity yet.  The client software in my phone has had a few of the developers old favourite "Kern-Exec 3" errors and also networking errors using my home WLAN that I could only fix by exiting the application and loading it again (plus when I held END to stop it using my GPRS connection before I'd selected WLAN the whole thing locked up and I had to take the battery off).

However, teething probelms aside, these are the best games I've ever seen on a phone and they are generally very playable and they all have a free trial.  FIFA 2008 suffers from the classic problem of football games with very simple controls - there are a number of very repeatable ways to score, after a few games you've discovered some and then most of the challenge is gone.  Not enough longevity there to tempt me to pay for the full version.  The Tetris and breakout versions are classics but the trials are so short you barely get started (mind you, if you don't know these games already you've probably been living in a cave for the last 20 years, plus you can try other versions out for free on the web).  Space Impact Kappa Base looks like a good 2D scrolling shooter it's just not to my taste.  I might be tempted to pay for Asphalt 3 Street Rules (again the trial could be a bit longer to help decide, only 1 lap) certainly in preference to System Rush Evolution (although that's not bad either).  My favourite so far, with extremely simple gameplay and great for 5-15 minutes on the train (not sure about longevity beyond that though - further playtesting required) is Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep - a very enjoyable mostly one button fishing game.

If I could provide one major piece of feedback it would be that the platform needs to allow the game developers (if it doesn't already, and if it does the games need to take advantage) to over-ride the system keys (e.g. for application switching and music player - send, end, copy/paste and cancel would be good to use for controlling the games too when customising the keys).  These keys are placed around the directional pad on my N95 (many other phones too) and in the heat of a gaming session it's very easy to accidentally press one.  This generally results in your game being paused while something else opens - not the best experience.  I expect that app switching and the music key are captured before they even get to the game in the current architecture but this needs fixing.  When the phone is being used for gaming, gaming needs to take over as the primary function.  You only need one button or action to break out of the in game controls and return to normal control.  This could of course be customisable for those that don't want it.

Overall I'd say not quite ready for the mass market yet but a very promising start.

Mark

I'd like to get some feedback from the developer community on something I've been thinking about lately.  This post is going to be quite long so please bear with me...

What I like about open source software

A lot of people have written about the benefits of open source software.  If you haven't read it, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond is a real classic (he's also expanded it to a book).  Much more open development models with more direct and continuous user engagement can only help make better products.  Software systems are becoming more and more complex and I don't think it makes much sense for a number of companies to put enourmous resources into developing completely separate competing versions.  However, as I think Microsoft have proved - it isn't good for anyone (except the bank balances of a few!) if one company has a near monopoly on a certain type of system.  Also, business models need to evolve for digital products that cost almost nothing to reproduce and distribute.  I believe the open source model is taking us in the right direction.

What I don't like about Free Software and the GPL

The problem with Free Software is it's free.  I know the intention is that it's free as in speech, not as in beer.  The trouble is it almost invariably ends up being free as in beer as well (yes I know there are exceptions).  This assigns zero monetary value to something which could well be extremely valuable.  The main problem with this is that it strongly discourages investment in open source development.  Surely open source development would be even more widespread and successful if it had both freedom and more money?

I imagine giant corporations like Nokia (who have always added a lot of value to their products with their software) embracing open source like a small child embracing an elderly female relative - part of them loves the thought and is thinking of the sweets (or cost savings and benefits) while another part is scared of big sloppy kisses (or losing competitive advantages).

For a corporation like FIC semiconductor, with their OpenMoko platform, I can completely see the motivation for investing in free software.  Much more than half of the complexity of a mobile phone is in the software - however, if the software is free then all the value for the product goes to the hardware.  FIC aren't too great at software but they're really good at making cheap hardware.  Free software is perfect for them.  I don't feel that the industry converging on a battle to produce the lowest cost hardware is going to be the best thing for users (or the planet) in the long run, although I expect some will disagree.

In a recent speech at OSiM, Ari Jaaksi has fairly openly said that the open source community will need to compromise if they want Nokia to invest in their development and put their code in it's products.  Now I'm something of a pragmatist and think there's room for some compromise.  I know some will disagree and that is how it should be.  Indeed there are many prominent members of the free software community who I would regard as anarchists - I don't think they'd be offended by that either.  I'm also not saying it's a bad thing.  We need a bit of anarchy to balance the excesses of capitalism (capitalism for running the world is like exams for testing learning & understanding - we know it's not a good way of doing things we just haven't come up with anything that isn't worse yet!).

A Compromise

Now I've laid out my philosophical position (you can wake up now) I'll make my suggestion for a compromise.  Do we need an Open Mobile Software Foundation (OMSF) - an independent non-profit organisation created to own the intellectual property generated by open source mobile developers?  If all contributors to an open source project assign their copyright to the OMSF then it can use a multi-licensing strategy to both keep the software open AND generate income to pay for testing/signing expenses & most importantly, further open source development.  I expect many great developers aren't just in it for the money but rather their interest in the technology and would love to be paid to develop open source software.

The compromise is that not everyone has to open all their source code but those that don't have to pay for the development of more open code.  For middleware I think this would work with the GPL and a commercial license.  To make it work for applications too though I'd suggest another compromise on the four freedoms.  If you don't allow people to distribute OMSF owned applications in source or binary form FOR PROFIT without paying for a commercial license then they can be sold (cheaply) by the OMSF to generate income.

I see this situation not just benefitting open source developers but also innovative independent software vendors with a closed source model.  They would get a stable and maintained set of middleware and applications with very reasonable licensing fees that they can use and customise to add value.  Hopefully that reduces the up-front investment required to create a product and lowers the risk - encouraging more investment in mobile application development in general.  Another potential beneficiary are the networks who get a larger catalogue of applications (which they could also license and sell if they think they can add value through marketing and easier download/installation) and greater uptake of data services.

The general idea would be that anyone could license the software below the cost of developing it themselves and the cost of licensing would depend on the license required (are they going to contribute changes back to the community?) and also the contribution the licensee makes to the community (businesses that contribute code or sponsorship get cheaper licenses).

It would hope that device vendors and networks would see the potential benefits and even sponsor such an initiative.  Then again I may just be dreaming...

I've had some early feedback on this idea to say that a foundation model needs a large community but I think that's a bit of a chicken and egg situation (which did come first?).  I'd see the foundation as an enabler for the community.

What do you think?  Anyone interested in setting such a thing up?  Who'd like to work for such an organisation?  I'd love some feedback - I've opened a thread on the discussion boards in case there's a lot of debate.

Thanks for reading!

Mark