For the browser, Firefox will be used. There is already efforts to reduce its footprint and currently we are running an internal version. If we need to fit the browser into a very small profile machine a possible alternative is Opera. In a operational level, both are equivalent and can carry the same plugins.

The Maemo project just released a new browser, based on the gekko engine which is fully integrated into the hildon environment. However we need a full xul-based solution so we are doing our own work on our own Firefox Embedded browser with:

For the Dictionary: Stardict seems to be the best option so far:

For E-mail: The specification asks for Thunderbird which is a great email application but I think that a better alternative is Clawswhich is a improved version of Sylpheed.

Disadvantages

Recently we were pointed to a new email client called Modest which will become (but, as far as I can tell, there's no official position on that) the new email application for Maemo.

Advantages

For the Media Player

It is to be provided by Intel. It will use a simple frontend that will talk with Helix and gstreamer working as backends.

For the Camera

There are video capture applications (like xawtv, camE), programs that can read, record and process V4L devices like mplayer and videolan which can also be used to process the stream in realtime using filters and programs like EffecTV, GePhexand snapshot applications like Camorama. I couldn't find a single application that could do what we want, so I think that we could use something like Camorama as base and add continous video processing. Maemo uses gstreamer as the backend and their camera applications (which is closed) talks to it.

There is one application being developed for the Google Summer of Code called Cheese that could be very handy. A Launchpad project was created and the latest version available (0.13) was pushed.

Ebook reader

There's one FOSS champion: fbreader which is the one used by Maemo.

Disadvantages

A proprietary one, Mobipocket, seems to be an interesting option. They have a closed java lib that needs an UI. That's the way it's used on the PepperPad.

Only for CHM there is alternatives like xchm and kchmviewer. Not very useful anyway. There's others like dotReader but mostly based on its own format or use Palmdoc/plucker only.

For IM

Pidgin (formerly known as Gaim) covers the specification out of the box with one exception, the Myspace IM protocol. There is a plugin in the works, still alpha quality but it is already able to:

For Video Conferencing

Ekiga is the preferred application in the specification.

wengophone

A current option for Ekiga is wengophone

For an Office document viewer

Excluding PDF that can be read by Evince for instance, there is no FOSS software available to this kind of task but some very old filters or format converters that only could be used with very old Microsoft formats. At this moment I can foresee 2 possibilities related to FOSS software.

Include the appropriate filters into evince

Disadvantage

Modify the Office package of choice to have a simplified, read only mode, therefore using the same application for view and edit files

Advantage

Disadvantage

TextMaker Viewer

There will be a commercial product called TextMaker Viewer that fits very nicely but it does not exists yet and looks like to be based on Qt.

For Casual Games

The specification asks for more action-packed games. Some suggestions, depending on the profile:

There is a huge selection available. It is just a matter of choosing.

RSS reader

There's plenty of them available. The more suitable ones for our needs are Liferea and Straw. Both are quite equivalent but Liferea is starting to make incursions to integrate with blogs which is an interesting feature. A second option is to use the one integrated into the email reader. Both Thunderbird and Claws suggested above can do it.

For the Clock

This item is just a matter of choosing what gadget would fit best into the current home applet environment as the requirements are quite common except for the fact that it requires the clock to run full screen but this should not be difficult to achieve. The original Maemo's panel clock or this clock applet can do that. Another option is GPE's clock that is be an interesting option if the GPE PIM described below is chosen.

For PIM

The GPEcan provide all the PIM needs easily. Some of the projects we can make use are:

Another option is Pimlico

For a Remote desktop client

Currently, we have tsclient which is a wrapper that actually runs rdesktop and vncviewer on demand. This covers the specification with the exception of the listed functions:

Other suggestions - TBD

Simple image manipulation

Offline blogging client

Voip client

GPS software / Navigation software

GeoClue seems to be a good starting point and there is a Maemo port already.

Quick voice/audio recorder/audio notetaker

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Image posting client (flickr/windows image posting wizard)

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Packaging status