SomaFM is a streaming radio with near 16 different channels, available for free. Even if it's possible to copy-paste their streaming URLs to N900 Media Player, we (me and Lorenzo Bettini) decided to create a custom application, to make channels switching easier for the end user and to be able to add more features. We decided to take advantage of the new Nokia SDK and write the application in Qt/C++. Source code is available on Gitorious and it's always updated with latest version we're working on. If someone want to test the application, it's available in extras-devel repository  ("msoma" under Multimedia section) of N900.

The UI is still in development as you can see. The application is already usable, but of course we have to work hard on the user interface. Feel free to test/use it and send us any feedback. If you want to contribute to our project (coders are welcome) please send us a patch with your code or ask us to be added to mSoma development team in Gitorious.

Introduction

My name's Andrea Grandi, I'm italian and I'm a Maemo user/lover/contributor since the Nokia 770. I love Python as development language and few months ago I also gave some contributions to the PyMaemo project.

In these days I had the idea to start writing a Twitter client for Maemo with a precise direction in my mind. I'll try to explain all my reasons here. First of all I've to thank the author of Mauku client. I use it since its first version and I'm quite happy with it. Then, why do I want to write another one?

1. Maemo (MeeGo) is moving to Qt and for this reason I'm going to use Qt, while Mauku uses Gtk.
2. I'm learning Qt and what is better than writing a complete (but not too complex) application to learn better?
3. Mauku is not free as lot of people could think. Reading the source codeyou find this "You are NOT allowed to modify or redistribute the source code.", while I want to write a client and release it under GPL2 or GPL3 license.
4. Mauku is not updated since some months and we have no news about it.
5. I love Python and I like to write free software in this language.
6. I want to give to Maemo a stronger contribute.

My request for help

Before lot of people start writing their own client resulting in 4-5 twitter clients for Maemo, why don't we join our strength and work to a common project? I'm not a Python expert nor a Qt one, but I've some experience as project/team leader and since this is not a complex project, I would be glad to lead it. So, I'm looking for Python developers, Qt developers, UI designers and whoever want to contribute to this project. I still have to find a good name and logo for this application.

Who want to help me?

Few days ago I published some notes about my personal experience with PR 1.1.1 firmware upgrade in Nokia N900. In particular my device got an infinite reboot loop after upgrading the firmware and I had to flash the firmware image from scratch to fix the problem. Today I was kindly contacted by Max Waterman (I suppose he works for Nokia) and he explained me what was the problem. It was caused by a little bug in Harmattan UI demo and they fixed it (the fix is already available in extras-devel).

No surprise for me: extras-devel contains unstable packages and if user enables it, he does at his own risk. The most important thing is the fact that the official firmware without any unstable application doesn't suffer of this problem at all. The thing that really impressed me so much (in a positive sense) it's that I was contacted privately by a Nokia developer apologizing for the bug (no problem man, it's part of the game if someone want to test extras-devel software) and explaining that they already fixed it.

This is what I like of Maemo (or should I already call it MeeGo?), I really feel to be a part of it!