I’m very sad to have to say this, but the Tizen Project is broken, and we’re going to be spending some time apart. It makes no sense for Kitsilano Software to spend any more time or money on building MonoTizen at the current time.
The Tizen OS has got amazing, world-changing potential, but the organization and communication on the project as a whole is terribly broken. I could publish a long laundry list of specific issues and there are many. I would be happy to have a more detailed discussion with anybody who would like to listen and who has any ability to change things.
For now though, I’ll keep the feedback really simple.
For collaborative projects to work you need trust between partners, you need to do what you say you are going to do and you need lots of open communication.
There is no public roadmap for Tizen mobile, the most important profile. Despite devices being promised on multiple occasions there are still no devices. The Unpacked event in Moscow was cancelled with 48 hours notice and no reason given. There was no further public statement for another week, and then that statement was just saying that there was no future roadmap. I have no idea what is going to happen in the Tizen project tomorrow, let alone next week, next month or next quarter, because there is no public information.
No third parties can build a business with no public roadmap. It should be no surprise that the ecosystem is not where we would all like it to be. It makes no business sense for third-parties to engage given all the uncertainty.
The worst thing about the apparent cancellation/delay of the Samsung Z phone is that the release of that phone would have given the whole Tizen eco-system something to anchor on.
100% revenue share is a great draw, but 100% of $0 is still $0.
We need devices and fast.
I really enjoyed myself at the Tizen Developer Conference, and I would like to publicly thank everyone who has helped me get started with Tizen, and welcomed me into the (very small) community. I hope to be back in the future, but for now we are going to spend some time apart.
I really hope that the Tizen Project can change, and can work in the spirit which the governance changes for Tizen 3.0 indicated was planned.
Cheers,
Bob Summerwill
Kitsilano Software